NOCTILUCA Spring 2016 Vol.XXI Issue 11

CULTURE Appleton, Wisconsin Spring 2016 Vol. XXI Issue II

Page 9

By Maddy Schilling Cosplay: A blossoming community and artform

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cosplay you can choose whomever you want; you can be your favorite char- acter and you can be strong or sneaky or cute or what- ever you think embodies that character. An added bonus is that you’ll prob- ably meet other people who are interested in a lot of the same things you are. Noctiluca: Are there any favorite cosplays of yours? Novick: Honestly most of my previous cosplays have been trash and I hadn’t put much effort into them, but most recently I cosplayed Delirium from The Sand- man at Fall Ball. Noctiluca: Have you found that there are certain stereotypes and miscon- ceptions regarding the co- splay community? Novick: I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that cosplayers are huge losers who have no friends or social life and that only nerds are into it. I think a lot of people who don’t re- ally know anything about cosplay might have a men- tal image of some kid in a cheap polyester Halloween costume, and while there are “bad” cosplays, that’s not what it is. Many co- splayers invest incredible amounts of time, effort, skill and money into their costumes.

In the area, there’s Kit- sune Kon. It’s not huge but it’s nearby in Green Bay and it’s pretty cheap, twen- ty to thirty dollars depend- ing on when you buy the tickets. On a national level, some of the most popu- lar conventions are Anime Expo, Otakon, Comic con, Anime Central and many others. Noctiluca: In seeing such a wide variety of people who cosplay, is it some- thing you would recom- mend to others? Novick: I would defi- nitely recommend cosplay if it’s something you’re interested in. There are so many options in terms of characters to cosplay and there’s bound to be some- thing you’re interested in. With box office smashes like Star Wars: The Force Awakens , Deadpool and the impending Batman v Superman: Dawn of Jus- tice films flooding theaters, a new wave of moviego- ers are being introduced to the cosplay scene with the introduction of fresh, popular characters in the media; the opportunity to be a cosplayer is becoming increasingly more attain- able and, to the pleasure of Novick and countless oth- ers, more acceptable to the mainstream.

With the growing popu- larity of the internet comes an inherent growth in the accessibility of media cul- ture; from video games, to YouTube channels, to com- ic book universes, to tele- vision streaming sites, the generation of today is expe- riencing a surge in new and exciting ways to share their mutual interests. Though it has existed as a hobby since 1990, a certain type of expression has made its presence known globally in just the past few years: the art of cosplay. Indeed, cosplay contin- ues to draw interest from global communities as the artform itself has grown. Cosplayers like twenty- one-year-old Jessica Nigri from New Zealand, for in- stance, have accumulated hundreds of thousands of followers on social media websites like Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram and DeviantArt with their in- tricate interpretations of characters spanning from the Marvel Universe to the anime world. This rapid development has spawned hundreds of cosplay- themed conventions. To answer questions re- garding the definition, community, and miscon- ceptions of the artform, the Noctiluca sat down with Appleton North sopho- more and cosplayer Circée Novick. Noctiluca: Before we get started, what exactly is co- splay? Novick: Cosplay is a mix of the words “costume” and “play,” but I think the easiest way to describe it is simply dressing up as a character. Noctiluca: Why is it im- portant to you? Novick: It’s important to me for some of the same reasons that theater is. It allows you to be someone else for a while. Except that unlike theater, where you’re kind of stuck in whatever part you get, in

Photo by Olivia Molter

“The core of the town was up on a hill and...all the buildings in the top town were either original or made to look like they were from the 14th cen- tury.” -Circ é e Novick Circée recalls her French home

By Olivia Molter

that the town put on every year. Vendors lined up along streets and sold handcrafted medieval goods and people dressed up in elaborate me- dieval costumes. She went on to describe a specific memory that particularly stood out: “It was one of my first festivals, I was may- be 10, and I was walking around in the moat (really just a dried narrow channel surrounding the ramparts at this point). There was an ar- row fletcher (a person who makes arrows) there, and he gave me one of his arrows for free. And it was a real arrow, with a real tip and everything,” said Novick. Circée also mentioned her old home, recalling that her house was the only one made of wood in the whole town. “The property actu- ally used to be a cherry or- chard, when we bought it, it had these two strange, kind of run down houses on it, so we ended up tearing them down and rebuilding, then our house was the only one like it, the rest were stone.”

Circée Novick, a sopho- more at Appleton North, was 14 when she moved from Provins, France to the United States. “[Provins] is a medieval city,” she said. “Also it’s a Unesco world heritage site, so it’s protect- ed.” The historic town was once a major center of trad- ing in France, a power al- most as great as Paris. “The core of the town was up on a hill and was walled by ram- parts and all the buildings in the top town were either original or made to look like they were from the 14th Century,” Novick said. She elaborated and talked about how the “Top Town” was the historic, medieval part of the town within the ramparts, while the “Lower Town” was the more mod- ern part of the city sur- rounding the ramparts. When asked about her favorite part of living in Provins, Circée described the annual medieval fes- tival, an anticipated event

Novick modeling in cosplay outside of her home. Photo by Circée Novick.