Posted in: Comics | Tagged: cosplay, entertainment, stampunk

When Steampunk Cosplay Attacks

Bleeding Cool is a big supporter of cosplay after my own Damascene conversion about seven years ago at the MCM London Expos when, after being a bit of a mocker myself, I realised the joy, the passion, the devotion, the dedication and the whole experience shared by the various communities.

We love to run cosplay on Bleeding Cool, we seemed to become a focus point for opposition against Tony Harris' stance at one point, have our own senior cosplay correspondent in Ian Mageto, a major cosplayer himself, and regularly run cosplay photo galleries on Bleeding Cool.

We rarely run captions though, preferring to let the images speak for themselves. Maybe something the San Diego Reader might have considered before running steampunk cosplayer photographs from the Con Dor convention taken by Jamie Gardner. With witty captions by Jay Allen. Which are now being removed.

Here are a few of the comments so far.

Babs Who Takes Pictures As a photographer, patrons rely on you to make them look good. I can't imagine being one of these event goers, excited to have someone as to take their picture, and then later see you tear them down. Don't insult our craft with your biases towards gender, appearance or the theme itself. Don't like the theme? Don't shoot it. It's very simple.

Heather Bollman · Canada College: When did the San Diego Reader become a middle school newsletter?

Colleen Kelly BurksGreat photos! Lousy captions. Mean spirited, sexist and just plain stupid. Very disappointed with the Reader and it's editors. Making fun of how people dress is bad enough but to go out of your way to make insensitive and thoughtless captions of people attending an event that encourages costuming is unforgivable. Makes me wonder what Mr. Sanford thinks of all the costumers at Comic-Con. Shame on The San Diego Reader and shame on Jay Allen Sanford.

Sanford replied in the comments himself, saying,

Jay Allen SanfordI've done hundreds of comedic photo caps shot at Comic-Con, Comic Fest, etc for years now, with nary a complaint. I don't feel the caps are mean-spirited, tho I occasionally make mildly smutty observations (three of which have now been cut from this set). Methinks the local cosplay community is rallying with leftover rage RE the Reader's recent reports about steampunk costumers being ejected from a mall and a cover feature about cosplay in Balboa Park that oddly aroused much ire. Soooo, in the interest of fairness, here's a photo of me and my girlfriend dressed as Frank-n-Furter and Janet from Rocky Horror. Have at me with the comments, haters!

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