Westercon Cosplay Circa 1980
Need a blast from the past? Than about some cosplay photos from the 1980 Westercon, held in Los Angelas, California:
 Roberta Brubaker cosplaying as Ripley from Aliens at the 1980 Westercon. Photo by Dik Daniels. |
 Scott Sosa cosplaying as Yoda from Star Wars at the 1980 Westercon. Photo by Dik Daniels. |
 Kathy Sanders cosplaying at the 1980 Westercon as Adana the Snake Mother from The Face in the Abyss by A. E. Merritt. Photo by Dik Daniels. |
 Cosplayers at the 1980 Westercon dressed as, from left to right, a timelord from Doctor Who and Moses. Photo by Dik Daniels. |
 A cosplayer at the 1980 Westercon dressed, perhaps, as a character from Beijing opera (?). Photo by Dik Daniels. |
 Star Wars cosplayers poolside at the 1980 Westercon. Photo by Dik Daniels. |
I was doing a search for “cosplay news” the other day and came upon this io9 article, “Scenes from a Los Angeles scifi convention, 32 years ago”. It was about the photos on a page on The Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society’s website. Photos taken by one Dik Daniels at the Westercon held in 1980.
Both cosplay and the average convention photo haven’t changed much since the ’80s, apparently. Well, apart from a drastic increase in store bought costumes these days and less people dressed as characters from novels and off book covers.
Westercon is an, obviously, long-running major science fiction/fantasy convention held in the West Coast. Their tagline is “West Coast Science Fantasy Conference: First contact experiences for western region traveling fans and local fan communities.” Westercon 65, 2012′s event, is scheduled for July 5-8 and will be held at the DoubleTree Hotel SeaTac Airport in Seattle, Washington.
