Being caught in the dregs of summertime TV scheduling has provided me with ample opportunities to explore the depths the fringe cable networks summer programing. With "..the Blurst of Times" I'll tell you all about whatever horrible reality show I watched the night before (or in this case earlier in the week). Heroes of Cosplay follows a handful of cosplayers as they compete in major comic book and sci-fi convention costume contests around the country (who knows, maybe the world I've only seen two episodes). I'm kind of surprised it's taken this long for someone to put together a show on cosplayers or convention goers. Comic book conventions have never been hotter and you can't surf the geekier side of the web without running into a half dozen different cosplay slideshows.
I'll admit, I got sucked into this show because the first episode I saw took place at this year's Emerald City Comic Con. I thought maybe I'd see myself in some background footage. It might sound crazy, but half my face was caught in a photo gallery for the Seattle PI so weirder things have happened.
The show is pretty standard reality TV fare. Each episode follows a few cosplayers that are headed to a big convention, with the intention of competing in a costume contest. We get to see them work on their costumes and some behind the scenes drama over the competition itself. I've seen two episodes and it looked like each episode followed a slightly different group of people. Understandable considering some of the bigger conventions are only a week or two apart. I was a bit surprised as to how much drama there was in the cosplay scene. Everyone's really competitive and some people are seen as "real serious cosplayers" and others not so much.
Or are they? An artist I follow on twitter familiar with all the stars of the show made the comment that he recognized all the faces but it was like they were being worn by different people. Also I noticed that one of the cosplayers won a contest with a costume they had worn to Comic-Con back in 2012. The show made it look like she was frantically working on the costume to get it ready for Mega Con. Curious about this, I looked her up on twitter and she mentioned that she has lots of costumes and while she had worn it before she had never competed in it.
In the end it's not really a big deal, but it made me question exactly how much reality was in this reality show
On a scale of hipster guy dressed up as Slave Leia to this crazy rad Hawkgirl, I'll give Heroes of Cosplay a B+. I wish it wasn't edited so heavily but it's still really enjoyable.
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