After diving into the world of conventions and cosplay, Professor Thomas Endres wanted to learn more about the communities behind the mask. Endres would go to conventions with his daughters, which was where he was inspired to find out about cosplay and communication. Being a cosplayer himself who dressed up as Batman and Ego from Guardians of the Galaxy, Endres grew passionate about wanting to share others’ stories on why they cosplay. He started out wanting to write a simple research article, but it quickly became a bigger project once he realized that everyone knows someone from a different costuming community that has a story to tell.
“Every time I would talk to a group of people, they would say ‘You know you should talk to somebody in the steampunk community,’ so I would move over and start interviewing steampunks and then they would tell me another community that I should learn about, and it started to grow,” Endres said.
Although he was mostly inspired by cosplay, he wanted to learn about many different ranges of costume communities. He looked at costumes ranging from professional wrestling to drag and even roller derby outfits.
He had so many stories to tell that his research article turned into a book that he took a sabbatical and spent 16 months writing. He started out in Denver but as the project grew, he traveled all over the U.S. with his wife. He even went to a con in Japan to find stories.
A cosplayer featured in his book is Sam Nord. Nord has a condition called Holt arms syndrome, which is sometimes known as heart hand disease. Her arms did not develop along with having a congenital heart condition.
“When I first met Sam, she was running by me at a con dressed in a Wonder Woman costume with the bustier and very sort of proudly displaying the strength of character dealing with her level of disability in a very proud and accomplished way, and I said this is somebody that I have to talk to for my book,” Endres said.
His book features many stories along the same lines from all the communities he talked to. His book is called My Costume, Myself: Celebrating Stories of Cosplay and Beyond. The title is an homage to Our Bodies, Ourselves, which was a book giving voices to women’s medical health as a guide in the 1970’s. Endres wants his book to give a voice to the cosplay and costuming community. The book will be published in late May or early June.
