As we post this, the New York Comic Con is in full swing, providing yet another canvas for cosplayers to paint with their style and design. This week Scoop talked to Geppi’s Entertainment Museum President Melissa Bowersox to get her thoughts on the cosplay hobby, how GEM incorporates cosplay activities at the museum, and pick her brain about The Overstreet Guide to Cosplay, the upcoming book that she will co-author.

Scoop: Do you recall your first experience with cosplay?
Melissa Bowersox (MB): My first experience would be dressing up as Wonder Woman when I believe I was either 6 or 7 years old and took part in the kid’s masquerade at a comic convention. I took second place. I got beat by Superman. I remember proudly posing just like Wonder Woman with my golden cuffs…which were made of felt. 

Scoop: Why do you think people cosplay?
MB: Deep down, there are probably more answers for this than people think, and it’s a great topic for conversation (or for this book!). Gemstone’s J.C. Vaughn and I had discussions about this with a number colleagues in New York City just ahead of the New York Comic Con, and while all of them were enthusiastic, all of them were also different.

Scoop: Do people cosplay at the museum?
MB: Absolutely! Our single biggest attendance day record was set, broken, and re-set with the help of cosplayers during our annual Zombie Gras festivities. That was both paying guests and those who got in free because they were dressed as zombies.

Scoop: Do you see an uptick in museum attendance when you host other cosplay or costume events?
MB: Yes, both with events for children and for general audiences. It helps our outreach into the community, fostering more interest in the museum by bringing in the people who enjoy getting into costume whether it’s as a zombie, a pirate, a princess, or something else entirely.

Scoop: Do you have costume contests at any of your events?
MB: We do not do costume contests at the children’s events, but we do at the ones for adults, including Halloween and Zombie Gras, our zombie themed bar crawl downtown.

Scoop: Are there plans for more costumed events?
MB: A new event that will be taking place this February is the Cosplay Masquerade. It will be on February 7, 2015 with contests, big prizes, as well as food and drink. Some of the specifics are yet to be determined so we are excitedly working on that.

Scoop: How do non-cosplayers react to seeing cosplayers at GEM?
MB: We get a lot of different reactions. Of course with Zombie Gras, most of the attendees expect it, but during other events, such as when the Baltimore Comic-Con is going on right across the street, our guests can certainly be surprised. The reactions are pretty normal: surprise, smiles, posing for pictures, and so on.

Scoop: How does cosplay affect conventions?
MB: There has been—and I think will be—a lot of discussion about that. We’ll definitely be covering it in the book.

Scoop: Who is the most impressive cosplayer that you’ve seen?
MB: The most impressive? This is hard because as a kid who literally grew up in the comic industry I had a rather unique perspective. Cosplay wasn’t anything out of the ordinary to me. So I think the most impressive as a kid was the Darth Vader who, along with Spider-Man, accompanied my sister Danielle and me around Harbor Place in Baltimore on the day it opened. My dad was opening his latest Geppi’s Comic World location. As he is after all Italian to the core, his overprotective nature meant he was terrified to let us walk around without proper protection. We were the only kids with our own personal bodyguards. That’s pretty impressive I think. 

As an adult, what I find most impressive is not the actual costumes but the way you see so many cosplayers giving back to the community, whether it is cheering up a sick child or raising money for various charities. That generous spirit and giving nature is truly impressive.

Scoop: Is cosplay more popular with a certain age group?
MB: While cosplay seems to be equally popular across all ages, I think we’ve noticed patterns within specific ages as far as what they choose to cosplay from. Comic book and science fiction conventions tend to skew towards an older audience, so you get a larger number of adults cosplaying at those shows. Meanwhile, anime conventions and video game conventions skew younger, so you end up seeing more high school and college aged kids in outfits from that media instead. Of course, we also see a number of parents who have probably been cosplaying for many years now with their children also in costumes. It’s a fun hobby no matter how old you are, and no matter what sort of costume you choose to make. Cosplay doesn’t stop once you hit a certain age!

Scoop: Do you see creators-writers-artists cosplaying?
MB: A few, but not really many. I do see creators really embracing the people who do cosplay their characters, though. Most of them love it.

Scoop: What are the challenges that cosplayers face?
MB: As we’ve seen mentioned in some of our interviews with cosplayers, the hobby is an expensive one. Having the time and the money to sit down and make a costume can sometimes be the greatest challenge for newcomers who want to get started. But once they get to the convention itself, other issues make themselves known. It’s unfortunate, but we’ve heard of a growing number of incidents at conventions of cosplayers being sexually harassed while in costume, from inappropriate comments to full-on groping. On the plus side, conventions such as New York Comic Con have taken a strong stance against that kind of inappropriate behavior, with large signs saying “Cosplay is NOT consent” placed in high-traffic areas. Just because a cosplayer is dressed a certain way, that does not make it an invitation to come up and say or do something nasty. There are other issues, and our cosplay interview subjects tackle a lot of them beautifully, but I think those are two of the big ones.

Scoop: As a woman in a male dominated field, what message do you hope The Overstreet Guide To Cosplay will send to women who cosplay?
MB: The comic industry certainly has historically been dominated by men, but certain women have always played a key role. In cosplay, I don’t think we can really say it’s dominated by men. In fact, just anecdotally, I think it’s probably dominated by women. We definitely have a lot to explore in this book, and I can’t wait to continue gathering feedback on what we should cover.

Scoop: You will be one of the lead authors of The Overstreet Guide To Cosplay. What are your goals for this book?
MB: What Eddie Newsome and I, along with our other contributors, really want to get across is as much of the full cosplay experience as we can accurately convey. We want to cover the issues facing cosplayers, the many reasons people are involved in it, and the real “how to” component of it. I think it’s going to be great!

Scoop: What makes now the right time for this book?
MB: Part of what we do at Geppi’s Entertainment Museum is try to study what’s going on in pop culture at any given time. When we announced it, we thought it was the right time. Based on the reactions we’ve received since then from key cosplayers, the cosplay community, show promoters and retailers, now we know it’s the right time for The Overstreet Guide To Cosplay.

As J.C. said last week in your interview with him, we hope that as many cosplayers as possible will join us at the Virginia Comicon, November 22-23, in Richmond, Virginia, for the book’s official kick-off. It’s going to be an exciting year of interviewing, writing and photographing leading up to the book’s release in 2015.