COSPLAY: A HISTORY - Andrew Liptak


 It's hard to imagine anyone in today's society who is in any way active on social media or watches science fiction or fantasy television or movies to not be familiar with 'cosplay'. Cosplay is a big deal and it's been around a lot longer than people might imagine. 

What we are mostly familiar with are the fans with incredibly elaborate recreations of their favorite Hollywood characters (often - but not always - superheroes) in full costume and gear walking around a comic convention and spotlighted on the evening news for a closing 'isn't that fun' piece. Given the popularity, I'm only surprised it's taken this long to get a book, this complete, out in the world.

Today's cosplayers have resources unparalleled to what those of us, who 'showed up in costume' at small regional conventions back in the 1970's.  The internet itself allows fans to find the people who can help design and make all the pieces necessary for that perfect Captain America costume or the Blade Runner blaster or ... .  We're drawn to gadgets and pageantry and cosplay allows adults (and kids) to live out their Halloween fantasies all year round.

Author Andrew Liptak gives us a very thorough, well-researched history of the cosplay concept.  Showing up at conventions dressed as a favorite character from a book has been going on since at least the 1939 World Science Fiction Convention. These conventions would often have a costume parade and/or contest (they still do) and more people got interested as science fiction became more popular on television and has grown with the movies.

Liptak covers this early period well and works all the way through the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cosplay. He nicely touches on copyright infringement and lawsuits from the big studios as some people have turned the hobby of cosplay into a business, making money off selling their work ... which are designs created by someone else for someone else.  There is a special mention of the Axanar fan film (this was a special Star Trek fan film that hired professional actors and raised over $1M to produce a Star Trek 'fan' feature film and which spawned a major lawsuit and a new set rules by which all fan films must now adhere to) - all as part of the legal aspects of cosplay.

I did feel that there was significant (ie: too much) attention paid to a certain group of Star Wars cosplayers. In part this comes from Liptak's own interest and membership in the group. Certainly they've taken cosplay to an extreme with their pomp and display, but I didn't need the detail we got on this organization.

I also got pretty bored in the middle of the book.  The whole of Part II: Traditions was slightly interesting as a prelude to cosplay, but I did wonder if I needed that much information about something that wasn't really cosplay, while later chapters on the making of costumes went by a little quickly.

Overall, this was comprehensive, but perhaps more than necessary.  The book features many fine photographs.

Looking for a good book? Cosplay: A History by Andrew Liptak is likely a good resource for any student writing a paper on cosplay, but pure fan interest readers might find this a slight bit of slog.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

3-1/2 stars

* * * * * *

Cosplay: A History

author: Andrew Liptak

publisher: Gallery / Saga Press

ISBN: 9781534455825

paperback, 368 pages

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