Update: at 10:am EST Boston Comic Con canceled their event. Boston is on lock down while police hunt for the suspects. Boston Comic Con is postponed until further notice. Hello all. The Boston Comic Con will still be happening this weekend, despite the bombing earlier this week of the Boston Marathon. If that seems callous to you please remember that

This Summer’s Most Anticipated Animation, Music and Manga Convention in Southern California Seeks Males and Females Interested in Participating as Models for the Putumayo and “To Be Announced” Fashion Shows.

A warning from Cosplay Mania and Cosplay.ph about scamsters pretending to represent the company, offering deals and event support. Originally released October, 2011.

Need a blast from the past? Than about some cosplay photos from the 1980 Westercon.

8th Annual WonderCon Masquerade Costumers: The Stage Is Reserved for You on Saturday Night! No celebration of comic books, movies, and the other popular arts would be complete without recognition of the art of costuming.

The living dead are descending upon San Diego, but they’re doing it for charity. Who says zombies don’t have feelings? This October, CStar Productionz is teaming up with the Down Syndrome Association of San Diego by hosting a “Thriller” zombie flash mob to coincide with DSA’s annual Buddy Walk.

If you’re anything like me, you start thinking about your Halloween costume before October even begins. So how would you like to win a prize for coming up with an awesome costume?

Put on your best corsets and engineer’s vests and head to Pickering Wharf in Salem, MA for the second annual Steampunk Invasion.

New York Comic Con has extended the submission deadline for Masquerade entries for their 2011 event due to that little hurricane matter you may have heard about.

There are thousands of cosplay websites out there. I’ve trawled the internet, poking cosplay forums and consulting the Facebook pages of my costumer associates, and I’ve come up with a list of the five best cosplay sites out there.

Right after Comic-Con we posted a round of cosplayer photos. We’ve had a chance to sift through more of our SDCC 2011 photos and now bring you Round 2 of cosplay from this year’s Con.

Getting kids involved is important across fandom. Here’s a quick look at the next generation of fans sighted at SDCC 2011.

Here’s a quick snap shot of Star Wars at the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con.

Steampunk had a big presence in the programs and events at Comic-Con this year. From signings, exhibitors, panels, and wonderful costumes.

Here’s a quick look at some of our MANY cosplay photos from Comic-Con this year.

Monday is the 4th. Celebrate by sending us your patriotic cosplay for a special reader showcase.

Kali’s Hourglass joined the Crow Collection of Asian Art Museum Fashion Show once again this year for their “Japanese Street Fashion Inspired” Fashion Show and Costume Contest.

The summer convention season is underway. All of the great fan conventions that happen June through August each year see such a stupendous range of cosplay, as if all the costumers have just been warming up the previous five months. So, to whet your appetite for the coming summer con cosplay banquet here’s a bit of an appetizer.

Conventions are a great place to meet up with friends and dressing up can make it even more fun! Attending a convention can also make a memorable family vacation, but finding costumes that work for friends and relatives of different ages can be challenging.

Here we have a guest post from Sado, the CEO of MicCostumes.com, on how to pose gracefully for convention photography. This is a great quick list for those who are just starting out.

In celebration of the 2011 Star Wars Day, I have combed through the Convention Fans Blog Flickr account for a sample of our best Star Wars cosplay photographs.

April 29-May 2 2011 is Costume-Con, a major national celebration of costuming in ALL its varied forms.

I have to admit I have been meaning to attend Reni’s Maid and Cosplay Cafe since I first stumbled upon Reni Mimura at Zenkaikon over a year ago, and found out she regularly threw these events at the Village in New York. Since my birthday was coming up and I was looking for something fun to do, I decided to make the trip up from Philadelphia on the Bolt bus and celebrate it with my favorite Japanese idol living in New York and see what her take on the Japanese maid cafe phenomenon would be.

You may be able to snatch up some discounted costumes and props. There’s some stigma that costumes should be hand made but getting a pre-made “off-the-rack” costume is a totally valid option. Here are some good ones.

The temperature is dropping and leaves are changing, so that means Halloween is just around the corner. You are never too old to dress up and it’s never too late to pull together a costume. No matter your time or budget, here are a few great costume picks for this haunting holiday, and some suggestions that won’t empty your wallet. Plus, any costume you create for Halloween, you can usually get a few more uses out of by wearing it to a fandom convention.

ZomBart provides a step-by-step guide to becoming a zombie, featuring sections like “What do Werewolves, Elves and Vulcans Have in Common?” and “Real Men Wear Latex.” If you ever pondered doing zombie make-up, read this “how-to” article first. Learn the make-up tricks, have fun, eat brains, and we’ll see you at the next apocalypse.

ZomBart, our newest writer at The Convention Fans Blog, deals with the pain of going from an extremely popular character to an unknown, but still hip, dude in a black t-shirt.

Crisis! T-minus two days to Awesomesaucecon and you have nothing to wear. And your budget’s already stretched thin for gas, tolls, hotel, admission and all the incidentals that add up so fast. What’s a geeky fashionista to do? Full cosplay is expensive and time-consuming, but fabulousness is easily achieved. You can assemble something in an afternoon in three easy steps.

Cosplay in America is a coffee table book filled with spectacular full color photographs of cosplayers from various anime conventions in the United States. The photographer and mastermind behind the book is Ejen Chuang. Chuang photographed approximately 1,651 cosplayers over a five month period in 2009 in order to gather the images for the book. The Convention Fans Blog has been given a copy of Cosplay in America, which has been signed by Ejen Chuang, to give away to a lucky reader!

It’s happened to me, and it could happen to you: you’re at a convention and you’re accosted by some extremely friendly individuals in costume. Suddenly people are menacing you with foam-covered plumbing supplies, talking about vampire princes or what happens if you look Cthulhu in the eyes. (Hopefully not at the same time!) Don’t fear, dear conventioneer. These people are not rogue plumbers, blood-gurgling parasites or cultists: they’re Live-Action Role Players, or LARPers.

For three days every summer, the citizens of Baltimore share the streets with an army of costumed nerds who flock to the city for Otakon. A festival of anime and Japanese nerd-culture where even the strangest costume can find a home. Otakon is a great convention with an excellent atmosphere and enough fun to cure any situation that ails you.

The Labyrinth of Jareth Masquerade Ball is a two-day event based on “Venetian Histories, Celtic Faerie and Goblin Lore” (and well, the movie Labyrinth). I realize this isn’t technically a convention, but it’s close enough for me and it sounds too cool not to mention. Now celebrating its 13th year, the The Labyrinth of Jareth Masquerade Ball is happening July 16 – 17, 2010 at the Park Plaza in Los Angeles, California. Doors open at 8 p.m.

For me personally, one of the most creative and fun aspects of costuming involves accessorizing. For many costumes, the most important accessory is the weaponry. Whether you’re going to a fandom convention as Cloud from Final Fantasy, or Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean, the weapon can make or break the costume. However, more and more conventions seem to be cracking down on rules concerning weapons, even if they are simply made from foam and cardboard.

With so many conventions happening during the summer months, it is time to give careful consideration to whether your cosplay costumes are appropriate for the season.  Attending a summer convention in costume can be brutal. If you’re not careful, it can take a toll on your health, causing anything from mild dehydration to fainting or heat stroke. Below is a

The ninja costume: iconic and potentially simple. It’s ideal for that last minute need for a costume at a convention. It can be as easy as picking up a cheap one online or at a local costume store, or as labor intensive as creating your own leather and cloth armor by hand. Because the costume has such a broad range

Alltern8.com and The Convention Fans Blog recently had an opportunity to have a chat with cosplayer and fashion designer Daisy Viktoria. In the interview below, she discusses how she got into cosplay, the process of becoming a professional costumer, and much more. Alltern8: How did you first get into costuming, and how long have you been doing it? Daisy Viktoria:

Cosplaying at a fandom convention can often be an exercise in masochism, at least in regard to your feet. This is especially true for those who attend conventions for an entire weekend, and are doing it absurd and crazy footwear. As much as we wish it wasn’t true, cute shoes don’t usually equal comfortable shoes, and this is even more

I’ll never forget the first time I saw cosplay singer Reni Mimura. I was at Zenkaikon 2009, a Pennsylvania anime convention, and Reni was busy rehearsing for the con’s opening ceremonies. I cannot say enough about the performance she gave that day. Not to be cliché, but if you looked up “cute” in the dictionary, her picture should be there.

Conventions are almost always more enjoyable when you’re attending with a friend or a loved one. And that goes double for cosplay. Couple and group cosplay can be a whole lot of fun. But what if you’re struggling to come up with ideas of who to cosplay as? Well, there are a lot of fun character pairs in various movies,

Let’s be honest, a lot of female anime characters have absurdly unrealistic body shapes, typically involving a teeny tiny waist and a pair of breasts that make it seem like she’d topple over. It isn’t much better for the men. Either the male anime stars are rail thin and tall, or they are insanely muscular. It often seems like there

I never really considered myself a hard core cosplayer or anything. I have costumes. I wear them to conventions. I do some of the basic stuff myself (vs. buying store pieces or getting them commissioned). But because I wasn’t making elaborate show pieces for masquerades from scatch, or twisting wigs into crazy shapes with the help of a caulk gun,

Every now and again I browse through Cosplay.com looking for cool photos and cosplay. When I came across the Cosplay.com user Ryoko-demon, however, I was completely blown away. Rarely do you see such a stunning collection of cosplay costumes and photos. Even though Ryoko-demon, whose real name is Lena Litvinova, is based all the way over in Russia, she agreed

Below is part two of a series of highlights from Felicia Day’s Saturday Q&A session at Farpoint, a Maryland (USA) fan-run science fiction and fantasy convention. Since it was an hour long, not every single question and answer is represented here, and not all answers are in full (some were quite long). However, I’ve tried to select the “best of” to

Last year was easily dubbed the year of Watchmen costumes (in terms of non-anime based cosplay). They were everywhere. It started in the spring, before the movie had even come out. And it culminated in the summer and fall, with large cons like Dragon*con and San Diego Comic-Con, where you couldn’t turn a corner without running into a Silk Spectre

The uniforms in Star Trek are some of the most recognizable costumes at conventions, especially since the latest Star Trek film was such a massive summer blockbuster back in 2009. Fans are clamoring for Star Trek costume resources for their upcoming conventions, and The Convention Fans Blog and Alltern8 are here to help! Of course, with over 11 movies, 6

Back in the summer, I wrote an article about keeping cool during summer conventions while cosplaying. Now that much of the United States and Europe is enduring a nice arctic blast, it seems only fitting to write an article about coping with cosplay in the colder months. Cosplay is not exclusively an indoor or outdoor activity. While most convention cosplay

I have been doing a bit of research on great World of Warcraft (WoW) costumes for an upcoming blog entry. As I was browsing cosplay.com, I came across “Atheana,” who had such a wonderful Blood Elf costume and story to go with it, that I had to feature her here in my blog. “Atheana” is actually a full time college student named Lindsay, who had never attended a single convention before Blizzcon 2008, much less created a costume for one.