Cosplay - World-of-Newave.info World-of-Newave.info http://www.world-of-newave.info/ 2008-10-11T22:15:05Z Latest news and articles about Cosplay Copyright (c)2004-2008.ยง/Newave SARL. All rights reserved. {LITERATURE > CYBERPUNK} - Charles Platt on Akihabara, the Week Before the Massacre My friend Charles Platt is one of the smartest people I know. Besides being a novelist, editor, and author of many non-fiction books, he's also a fine photographer, designer, and an astonishingly versatile maker of all manner of things. When he offered to write a monthly column for Boing Boing, I was overjoyed. His first piece is about a recent trip he took to Tokyo's Akihabara district. Lost in Trancelation Akihabara, the Week Before the Massacre by Charles Platt On a sunny Sunday, Tokyo?s Akihabara district hosts an unrehearsed, ad-hoc street festival for fashion rebels and role-playing fantasists. Conventionally dressed shoppers outnumber the costumed exhibitionists by a significant factor, but the misfits make up for their minority status with their flamboyance. If you ever harbored a secret yearning to be a Victorian schoolgirl, a male transvestite, a French maid, or maybe a Japanese Elvis impersonator . . . or if you simply like the idea of looking strange among a subculture which will not only tolerate it, but celebrate it . . . here is a nurturing sanctuary. It?s like a sunnier version of the Halloween festival in New York City, or a richer variant of London?s Portobello Road. On the main drag of Chuo-doori, anyone with a secret self-identity can unwrap it for public display. I?m here with two women: Erico, my Japanese-born significant other, and her female friend who is our guide for the afternoon and prefers to be referred to as ?Kay? in this account. Intensely intellectual yet slyly playful, Kay is a sociologist who specializes in popular culture. She seems to relish the opportunity to show us how naughty the Japanese can allow themselves to be. ?Which would you like to see first?? she asks with a bright smile. ?Consumer electronics or porno stores?? Servicing the needs of erotic costume play, this store also sells rice cookers. Porno, of course?although Kay confuses us by leading us into a place that looks more like a U. S. drug store. We walk past utilitarian items such as band-aids and electric shavers before we come to a big section entirely devoted to clothing for cosplay, meaning costume play. As if by accident, almost all the costumes seem to have sex-fetish connotations, and I?m not just talking about trashy bedroom lingerie of the type that you can buy from Frederick?s of Hollywood. It?s a one-stop source for every clicheed female role in a sex video, from schoolgirls to nurses to maids. In fact, I find more maid costumes than all other categories put together. The cheaper ones are boxed, while hand-made items are on hangers. Cheap frills: Packaged costumes for less than $40 apiece. Since the contents are not pornographic per-se, there seems to be no lower age limit for the model on the box.... http://articles.world-of-newave.info/arts/literature/genres/cyberpunk/charles-platt-on-akihabara-the-week-before-the-massacre-20080937344.htm 2008-09-29T21:59:53Z 2008-09-29T21:59:53Z Boingboing.Net http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/29/charles-platt-on-aki.html Charles Platt on Akihabara, the Week Before the Massacre {new window}   Www.Boingboing.Net - My friend Charles Platt is one of the smartest people I know. Besides being a novelist, editor, and author of many non-fiction books, he's also a fine photographer, designer, and an astonishingly versatile maker of all manner of things. When he offered to write a monthly column for Boing Boing, I was overjoyed. His first piece is about a recent trip he took to Tokyo's Akihabara district. Lost in Trancelation Akihabara, the Week Before the Massacre by Charles Platt On a sunny Sunday, Tokyo?s Akihabara district hosts an unrehearsed, ad-hoc street festival for fashion rebels and role-playing fantasists. Conventionally dressed shoppers outnumber the costumed exhibitionists by a significant factor, but the misfits make up for their minority status with their flamboyance. If you ever harbored a secret yearning to be a Victorian schoolgirl, a male transvestite, a French maid, or maybe a Japanese Elvis impersonator . . . or if you simply like the idea of looking strange among a subculture which will not only tolerate it, but celebrate it . . . here is a nurturing sanctuary. It?s like a sunnier version of the Halloween festival in New York City, or a richer variant of London?s Portobello Road. On the main drag of Chuo-doori, anyone with a secret self-identity can unwrap it for public display. I?m here with two women: Erico, my Japanese-born significant other, and her female friend who is our guide for the afternoon and prefers to be referred to as ?Kay? in this account. Intensely intellectual yet slyly playful, Kay is a sociologist who specializes in popular culture. She seems to relish the opportunity to show us how naughty the Japanese can allow themselves to be. ?Which would you like to see first?? she asks with a bright smile. ?Consumer electronics or porno stores?? Servicing the needs of erotic costume play, this store also sells rice cookers. Porno, of course?although Kay confuses us by leading us into a place that looks more like a U. S. drug store. We walk past utilitarian items such as band-aids and electric shavers before we come to a big section entirely devoted to clothing for cosplay, meaning costume play. As if by accident, almost all the costumes seem to have sex-fetish connotations, and I?m not just talking about trashy bedroom lingerie of the type that you can buy from Frederick?s of Hollywood. It?s a one-stop source for every clicheed female role in a sex video, from schoolgirls to nurses to maids. In fact, I find more maid costumes than all other categories put together. The cheaper ones are boxed, while hand-made items are on hangers. Cheap frills: Packaged costumes for less than $40 apiece. Since the contents are not pornographic per-se, there seems to be no lower age limit for the model on the box....
Charles Platt on Akihabara, the Week Before the Massacre - Boing Boing {...}
Published: September 29, 2008, 9:59 pm - Indexed: September 30, 2008, 6:43 pm - Page Size: 86KB
Category: Arts > Literature > Genres > Cyberpunk

]]> {VIDEO GAMES > W} - Gallery: Penny Arcade Expo Is Geek Gamer's Paradise : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.comSEATTLE, Washington -- What is a "gamer?" Ask ten different Penny Arcade Expo attendees and you'll get ten different answers. Around 50,000 videogame fans have descended on downtown Seattle for this weekend's Penny Arcade Expo, all looking for a different experience. Some are here to show off their hand-crafted costumes of videogame characters. Some are here to compete in tournaments for thousands of dollars in cash prizes. Some are here to perform videogame music and some are looking to hook up with game publishers and score the job of their dreams. All are here to meet up with like-minded peers from all over the world. Click through the gallery to see the zaniness of PAX so far. Also check out Wired.com's entire PAX 2008 coverage. Left: Victor Carino poses for a photograph as Captain Falcon from the game F-Zero on the first day of the Penny Arcade Exposition at the Washington State Visitor and Convention Center in Seattle, Washington, Friday, Aug. 29, 2008. : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.comJack Waterman, left, and Paul Owens perform "chip tunes," using their Nintendo Game Boy systems as electronic instruments on the first day of the Penny Arcade Expo. Owens directed "Reformat the Planet," a documentary about chip tune artists who create original music using ancient videogame hardware, which is being screened at PAX. : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.comYou don't see as much cosplay on the PAX show floor as you do at events like Comic-Con, but there are still plenty of gamers in disguise. Kristopher Benson, left, of Seattle dressed up as Pit, aka Kid Icarus, from the game Super Smash Brothers Brawl. His friend, Hilary Kotzke of Seattle, is dressed as Yuffie -- she's a character from the Final Fantasy series of games, but this particular costume is how she appeared in the Disney/Final Fantasy crossover Kingdom Hearts. Cosplayers are a very specific sort. : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.com The "Omegathon" is one of the most brutal videogame tournaments ever devised. A pool of twenty competitors is slowly whittled down to just two finalists, over six grueling rounds spanning the three days of the show. "Omeganaut" Jo Urbanksy of Litchfield, Ohio, awaits his fate while playing Boom Blox on the Nintendo Wii (during the final match of round two of the Omegathon competition). Urbansky's aim was true, and he moved on to the next round. : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.com Dana White, left, of Seattle says she dressed up as a ninja because she is a ninja. Conversely, Megan Cummings, of Seattle, dressed up as a pirate because she wanted to fight the ninja. (Are they thinking about this game?) : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.com Dungeon Master Sage Kurtz of Portland, Oregon, presides over a game of Dungeons & Dragons. Some gamers come to PAX just to game for three days, whether sprawled on a beanbag chair playing Nintendo DS and trading Pokemon with new friends, or holed up in the tabletop gaming rooms waging pen-and-paper campaigns. : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.comThe first two nights of PAX play host to the nerdiest concerts ever. The OneUps, a videogame music cover band, kicked off Friday night's show, which was headlined by Jonathan Coulton, a singer/songwriter who penned "Still Alive," the theme song to last year's cult hit game Portal. Pictured: OneUps guitarist Tim Yarbrough, left, and violinist Greg Kennedy. : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.comWarmachine player Matt Birdsall of Arlington, Washington, rolls the dice while playing Hordes at the Privateer Press exhibit. : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.comTim Riggs of Spokane, Washington, competes in a Starcraft tournament. PAX's PC gaming room is the stuff of legend: It's sponsored by Intel, and Penny Arcade says it's one of the largest LANs in America. There are 330 computers that attendees can play on, and 300 spots where attendees can set up their own custom rigs. All of those spots had sold out before PAX even began. : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.comAs so many years of E3 proved, gamers will do almost anything for swag. To win a the newest version of Brothers in Arms, Kenny Repine of Tumwater, Washington, shaved his head and allowed "HELL" to be painted on his scalp. : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.comThere's no Dark Knight videogame that we know of, but that didn't stop Stephanie Lindner and Scott Falkner of Renton, Washington, from dressing up as Harley Quinn and the Joker. : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.comDaniel Smolentsev, right, of Portland, Oregon, and teammate Robert Bosch of Gresham, Oregon, celebrate winning a match in a Team Fortress 2 tournament. : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.com Freezepop vocalist Liz Enthusiasm performs. Freezepop isn't a videogame band per se, but member Kasson Crooker is a senior producer at Harmonix, the creators of Rock Band, and Freezepop's songs have appeared in many of the company's games. http://articles.world-of-newave.info/games/video-games/news-and-reviews/w/gallery-penny-arcade-expo-is-geek-gamer-s-paradise-20080817127.htm 2008-08-31T02:00:00Z 2008-08-31T02:00:00Z Wired.Com http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/multimedia/2008/08/gallery_pax_day_1 Gallery: Penny Arcade Expo Is Geek Gamer's Paradise {new window}   Www.Wired.Com - : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.comSEATTLE, Washington -- What is a "gamer?" Ask ten different Penny Arcade Expo attendees and you'll get ten different answers. Around 50,000 videogame fans have descended on downtown Seattle for this weekend's Penny Arcade Expo, all looking for a different experience. Some are here to show off their hand-crafted costumes of videogame characters. Some are here to compete in tournaments for thousands of dollars in cash prizes. Some are here to perform videogame music and some are looking to hook up with game publishers and score the job of their dreams. All are here to meet up with like-minded peers from all over the world. Click through the gallery to see the zaniness of PAX so far. Also check out Wired.com's entire PAX 2008 coverage. Left: Victor Carino poses for a photograph as Captain Falcon from the game F-Zero on the first day of the Penny Arcade Exposition at the Washington State Visitor and Convention Center in Seattle, Washington, Friday, Aug. 29, 2008. : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.comJack Waterman, left, and Paul Owens perform "chip tunes," using their Nintendo Game Boy systems as electronic instruments on the first day of the Penny Arcade Expo. Owens directed "Reformat the Planet," a documentary about chip tune artists who create original music using ancient videogame hardware, which is being screened at PAX. : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.comYou don't see as much cosplay on the PAX show floor as you do at events like Comic-Con, but there are still plenty of gamers in disguise. Kristopher Benson, left, of Seattle dressed up as Pit, aka Kid Icarus, from the game Super Smash Brothers Brawl. His friend, Hilary Kotzke of Seattle, is dressed as Yuffie -- she's a character from the Final Fantasy series of games, but this particular costume is how she appeared in the Disney/Final Fantasy crossover Kingdom Hearts. Cosplayers are a very specific sort. : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.com The "Omegathon" is one of the most brutal videogame tournaments ever devised. A pool of twenty competitors is slowly whittled down to just two finalists, over six grueling rounds spanning the three days of the show. "Omeganaut" Jo Urbanksy of Litchfield, Ohio, awaits his fate while playing Boom Blox on the Nintendo Wii (during the final match of round two of the Omegathon competition). Urbansky's aim was true, and he moved on to the next round. : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.com Dana White, left, of Seattle says she dressed up as a ninja because she is a ninja. Conversely, Megan Cummings, of Seattle, dressed up as a pirate because she wanted to fight the ninja. (Are they thinking about this game?) : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.com Dungeon Master Sage Kurtz of Portland, Oregon, presides over a game of Dungeons & Dragons. Some gamers come to PAX just to game for three days, whether sprawled on a beanbag chair playing Nintendo DS and trading Pokemon with new friends, or holed up in the tabletop gaming rooms waging pen-and-paper campaigns. : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.comThe first two nights of PAX play host to the nerdiest concerts ever. The OneUps, a videogame music cover band, kicked off Friday night's show, which was headlined by Jonathan Coulton, a singer/songwriter who penned "Still Alive," the theme song to last year's cult hit game Portal. Pictured: OneUps guitarist Tim Yarbrough, left, and violinist Greg Kennedy. : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.comWarmachine player Matt Birdsall of Arlington, Washington, rolls the dice while playing Hordes at the Privateer Press exhibit. : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.comTim Riggs of Spokane, Washington, competes in a Starcraft tournament. PAX's PC gaming room is the stuff of legend: It's sponsored by Intel, and Penny Arcade says it's one of the largest LANs in America. There are 330 computers that attendees can play on, and 300 spots where attendees can set up their own custom rigs. All of those spots had sold out before PAX even began. : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.comAs so many years of E3 proved, gamers will do almost anything for swag. To win a the newest version of Brothers in Arms, Kenny Repine of Tumwater, Washington, shaved his head and allowed "HELL" to be painted on his scalp. : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.comThere's no Dark Knight videogame that we know of, but that didn't stop Stephanie Lindner and Scott Falkner of Renton, Washington, from dressing up as Harley Quinn and the Joker. : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.comDaniel Smolentsev, right, of Portland, Oregon, and teammate Robert Bosch of Gresham, Oregon, celebrate winning a match in a Team Fortress 2 tournament. : Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.com Freezepop vocalist Liz Enthusiasm performs. Freezepop isn't a videogame band per se, but member Kasson Crooker is a senior producer at Harmonix, the creators of Rock Band, and Freezepop's songs have appeared in many of the company's games.
See the latest multimedia and applications including videos, animations, podcasts, photos, and slideshows on Wired.com {...}
Published: August 31, 2008, 2:00 am - Indexed: September 3, 2008, 11:13 am - Page Size: 35KB
Category: Games > Video Games > News and Reviews > W

]]> {NEWS > BREAKING NEWS} - Geek Ink: Comics Fans Show Off Tattoos : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com All comic book fans dig ink. Some of them just take their superhero obsessions a little further than others. Michael Boyce (left) wears his love of comics on his sleeves. A thirtysomething artist who runs On Comic Ground, a comics shop in San Diego, his arms are covered with tattoos of all the superheroines he grew up with: fightin' females like Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Supergirl and Wonder Girl. "Once I started getting one girl, I had to get 'em all," Boyce said. With flesh forever marked with the comics and sci-fi characters they know and love, geeks like Boyce would give a pack of hard-core bikers a run for their money in the tattoo department. Show us your geek tattoos Are you sporting skin art inspired by comics, sci-fi, horror or even really freaky stuff like math and physics? Send us a photo. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com Wonder Woman struts her stuff on Boyce's right bicep, but his tattoos cover both of his arms. "I want to have arms that look like comic book pages with the girls bursting out," said Boyce, who got the work done over a three-year period by Willie King Clover in Lemon Grove, California. Boyce also wears a wicked Wonder Woman belt buckle. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com When getting Venom's spider logo added to his left calf, Aaron Hamilton went with stark black ink. "I wanted something big and bold that just said, 'This is who I am. This is what I like,'" said Hamilton, 30, of Birmingham, Alabama. He says he got the tattoo done 10 years ago by Justin Kontzen of Aerochild Tattoos in Birmingham. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com Tim Burton's animated movie The Nightmare Before Christmas got Coley Suicide into tattoos. Now it's Halloween every day of the year on her arm, where "Pumpkin King" Jack Skellington, his girlfriend Sally and ghost dog Zero have taken up permanent residence. "I've always kinda been obsessed with Tim Burton," said Suicide, 20, of Long Beach, California. "I figured I'd start out with my favorite." The tattoos took 28 hours, she said, and were done by Nathan Menske in Yakima, Washington. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com Chaos Comics characters Lady Death and Purgatori face-off eternally on the back of Chris "Cybian" Kneeland, 39, of San Diego. "Everything I have (tattoo-wise) is kind of like good and evil," said Kneeland, who works as a website coder and analyst. The back piece, which was done by Bob Vessells at Funny Farm Tattoos in Los Angeles, was started five years ago, with 20 to 25 hours of needling so far, said Kneeland. He's gained some weight in the interim, and swears he'll get the piece finished when he drops the pounds. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com Images of The Thing (pictured), Image Comics' Maxx and other superheroes decorate Sean Brunle's body. The 31-year-old bartender, who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, says he chose those characters because he "was physically attracted to them." The tattoos, done by Rodney Raines at Ace Custom Tattoo in Charlotte, took 15 or 20 hours to finish, Brunle said. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com X-Men badass Wolverine is another of Brunle's favorites. "They're basically hard on the outside and soft on the inside," Brunle said of the characters indelibly inked on his arms. "Strong men with good hearts, I guess." : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com "Does it ever make sense to us?" asks Jeff Walker, 27, of San Diego. The custodian wears a stark image of a dead bird with a philosophical quote from Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes comic strip on his arm. "I've just always loved the artwork," Walker said by way of explanation. The tattoo was inked by Chris Walkin at Avalon Tattoo II in San Diego. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com Leona the lizard girl from Katherine Dunn's sideshow stunner Geek Love earned a permanent spot on one of Odette Suicide's legs, right next to a living shrine to the Virgin de Guacamole. Suicide, 27, lives in Ventura, California, and calls herself a "baker with brains." She has a bachelor's degree in psychology (and neurons tattooed on her right arm). Leona was inked in nine hours by Tim Kern at Tribulation Tattoo in New York City, she said. Nathan Kostechko did the avocado-faced Virgin. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com Steve Thompson works as a toy designer for Disney, but Sci Fi Channel's rebooted space opera Battlestar Galactica motivated him to get this skin art. He has Starbuck's tattoo on his arm, courtesy of two hours under the needle at Body Electric Tattoo in Hollywood. "I'm just a huge fan of the show," said Thompson, 34, of Los Angeles. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com Shaz Nolan wears the Dark Mark of the Death Eaters from the Harry Potter books on her left forearm. That fits nicely with the 32-year-old seamstress' cosplay role -- she dresses as Bellatrix Lestrange. When she saw the image, she couldn't live without it. "And it's fun," said Nolan, who lives in Fullerton, California. She says the tattoo took one hour at Deep Blue Tattoo in Grover Beach, California. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com "I've been a comic book fan my entire life," said Chad Bacon, 34, of Huntington Beach, California. It shows. On his right forearm, the strip-club manager sports Captain America, done by Vance O'Rourke of 723 Tattoo in Fullerton, California. Bacon's into the "whole patriotic thing," he said. Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Wasp, Spider-Man and Spawn cover other parts of his body, and for extra geek effect, he's got an image of Albert Einstein on his upper left arm. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com Steven Miller has a bold panel from a comic on his right forearm. "I just thought it was cool looking," said Miller, 27, of Los Angeles. The director of Automaton Transfusion said he is working on a movie called Ink about -- what else? -- tattoos. http://articles.world-of-newave.info/news/breaking-news/geek-ink-comics-fans-show-off-tattoos-20080810624.htm 2008-08-25T05:00:00Z 2008-08-25T05:00:00Z Wired.Com http://www.wired.com/culture/art/multimedia/2008/08/gallery_comic_tattoos Geek Ink: Comics Fans Show Off Tattoos {new window}   Www.Wired.Com - : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com All comic book fans dig ink. Some of them just take their superhero obsessions a little further than others. Michael Boyce (left) wears his love of comics on his sleeves. A thirtysomething artist who runs On Comic Ground, a comics shop in San Diego, his arms are covered with tattoos of all the superheroines he grew up with: fightin' females like Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Supergirl and Wonder Girl. "Once I started getting one girl, I had to get 'em all," Boyce said. With flesh forever marked with the comics and sci-fi characters they know and love, geeks like Boyce would give a pack of hard-core bikers a run for their money in the tattoo department. Show us your geek tattoos Are you sporting skin art inspired by comics, sci-fi, horror or even really freaky stuff like math and physics? Send us a photo. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com Wonder Woman struts her stuff on Boyce's right bicep, but his tattoos cover both of his arms. "I want to have arms that look like comic book pages with the girls bursting out," said Boyce, who got the work done over a three-year period by Willie King Clover in Lemon Grove, California. Boyce also wears a wicked Wonder Woman belt buckle. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com When getting Venom's spider logo added to his left calf, Aaron Hamilton went with stark black ink. "I wanted something big and bold that just said, 'This is who I am. This is what I like,'" said Hamilton, 30, of Birmingham, Alabama. He says he got the tattoo done 10 years ago by Justin Kontzen of Aerochild Tattoos in Birmingham. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com Tim Burton's animated movie The Nightmare Before Christmas got Coley Suicide into tattoos. Now it's Halloween every day of the year on her arm, where "Pumpkin King" Jack Skellington, his girlfriend Sally and ghost dog Zero have taken up permanent residence. "I've always kinda been obsessed with Tim Burton," said Suicide, 20, of Long Beach, California. "I figured I'd start out with my favorite." The tattoos took 28 hours, she said, and were done by Nathan Menske in Yakima, Washington. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com Chaos Comics characters Lady Death and Purgatori face-off eternally on the back of Chris "Cybian" Kneeland, 39, of San Diego. "Everything I have (tattoo-wise) is kind of like good and evil," said Kneeland, who works as a website coder and analyst. The back piece, which was done by Bob Vessells at Funny Farm Tattoos in Los Angeles, was started five years ago, with 20 to 25 hours of needling so far, said Kneeland. He's gained some weight in the interim, and swears he'll get the piece finished when he drops the pounds. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com Images of The Thing (pictured), Image Comics' Maxx and other superheroes decorate Sean Brunle's body. The 31-year-old bartender, who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, says he chose those characters because he "was physically attracted to them." The tattoos, done by Rodney Raines at Ace Custom Tattoo in Charlotte, took 15 or 20 hours to finish, Brunle said. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com X-Men badass Wolverine is another of Brunle's favorites. "They're basically hard on the outside and soft on the inside," Brunle said of the characters indelibly inked on his arms. "Strong men with good hearts, I guess." : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com "Does it ever make sense to us?" asks Jeff Walker, 27, of San Diego. The custodian wears a stark image of a dead bird with a philosophical quote from Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes comic strip on his arm. "I've just always loved the artwork," Walker said by way of explanation. The tattoo was inked by Chris Walkin at Avalon Tattoo II in San Diego. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com Leona the lizard girl from Katherine Dunn's sideshow stunner Geek Love earned a permanent spot on one of Odette Suicide's legs, right next to a living shrine to the Virgin de Guacamole. Suicide, 27, lives in Ventura, California, and calls herself a "baker with brains." She has a bachelor's degree in psychology (and neurons tattooed on her right arm). Leona was inked in nine hours by Tim Kern at Tribulation Tattoo in New York City, she said. Nathan Kostechko did the avocado-faced Virgin. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com Steve Thompson works as a toy designer for Disney, but Sci Fi Channel's rebooted space opera Battlestar Galactica motivated him to get this skin art. He has Starbuck's tattoo on his arm, courtesy of two hours under the needle at Body Electric Tattoo in Hollywood. "I'm just a huge fan of the show," said Thompson, 34, of Los Angeles. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com Shaz Nolan wears the Dark Mark of the Death Eaters from the Harry Potter books on her left forearm. That fits nicely with the 32-year-old seamstress' cosplay role -- she dresses as Bellatrix Lestrange. When she saw the image, she couldn't live without it. "And it's fun," said Nolan, who lives in Fullerton, California. She says the tattoo took one hour at Deep Blue Tattoo in Grover Beach, California. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com "I've been a comic book fan my entire life," said Chad Bacon, 34, of Huntington Beach, California. It shows. On his right forearm, the strip-club manager sports Captain America, done by Vance O'Rourke of 723 Tattoo in Fullerton, California. Bacon's into the "whole patriotic thing," he said. Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Wasp, Spider-Man and Spawn cover other parts of his body, and for extra geek effect, he's got an image of Albert Einstein on his upper left arm. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com Steven Miller has a bold panel from a comic on his right forearm. "I just thought it was cool looking," said Miller, 27, of Los Angeles. The director of Automaton Transfusion said he is working on a movie called Ink about -- what else? -- tattoos.
See the latest multimedia and applications including videos, animations, podcasts, photos, and slideshows on Wired.com {...}
Published: August 25, 2008, 5:00 am - Indexed: August 26, 2008, 8:57 pm - Page Size: 34KB
Category: News > Breaking News

]]> {NEWS > BREAKING NEWS} - The Space Tourist Who Wasn't I met Daisuke "Dice-K" Enomoto in Star City, Russia, in August 2006. Enomoto, 37, is slight with tired eyes and a shock of bleach-blond dyed hair. His idea of space travel comes from comic books and Star Wars. He grew up as a self-described otaku, coding his own computer games and dreaming of space?or, at least, space as it was portrayed in Star Wars and manga. His favorite anime show, Gundam, chronicles a future full of giant robots in which humans are abandoning this planet for the stars. "People who live on Earth, their souls is tied up by gravity, you understand?" Enomoto says. "I sympathize with this idea. Maybe in the future people should live in the space." Enomoto applied his programming skills to building Internet companies, making millions. He bought a swanky wraparound penthouse loft overlooking Tokyo's famous electronics district, Akihabara. He tooled around in Porsches and Segways, and threw raves. He redecorated the moon-age pad himself, tricking it out with sinuous white walls modeled after the International Space Station. But life was bearing down on him. He married and divorced, had a couple of kids. One of his former companies, Livedoor, was embroiled in criminal lawsuits over stock and accounting issues. He needed to get away from the money, the demands, the scandal. And what better place to go than space? "I just want to go up there," he says, "and chill." This giddy club kid paid $20 million (the price of a trip to the International Space Station at the time) to Space Adventures. He left behind his sci-fi penthouse and moved into a tiny two-room apartment in Star City to train for his 10-day space trip. He bunked with a Russian translator named Sergei, who stayed up every night shoving wads of newspaper into the window cracks to keep out the freezing winds. Daisuke "Dice-K" Enomoto shows off his official cosmonaut jumpsuit in Star City, Russia, in August 2006. Photo: David Kushner The months of intensive cosmonaut training was hard on the keyboard jockey, especially the fitness regimen. When he arrived, he could do only two chin-ups. Swimming 800 meters took him 26 minutes. He was also unprepared for the antinausea conditioning in the whirling vestibular chair. Enomoto had his own technique for trying to deal with the looping around. "I imagined that I was driving in the PlayStation game Ridge Racer," he says. It didn't work. Within minutes, he was spewing borscht all over his blue spacesuit. The longer Enomoto stayed at Star City, however, the more he came to enjoy the simple life there. Gone were the pressures of life in Japan. "I realize life is more than just money," he says. The broadband access in his cramped Star City apartment and several seasons of 24 on DVD didn't hurt. Enomoto had big plans for his ride into space?and not just the ultimate iPod playlist he put together for the trip, a meticulously arranged mix of techno and trance. He also intended to take cosplay to a whole new level. He would dress like his favorite anime character—the mighty Char Aznable from Gundam. He had his assistant make a custom space suit, an orange and black number complete with a homemade Dice-K patch stitched on the front. Every Space Adventures client can do experiments during his or her trip to space?most have chosen to conduct scientific research. Enomoto decided to see if he could assemble Gundam toys in weightlessness. Enomoto explains, "I make robots in these bags!" as he reaches his hands inside what looks like an elaborate Ziploc filled with robot parts, "just because it's fun!" Enomoto displays a couple of toy Gundam robots, an example of the sort of toys he wanted to see if he could assemble in the weightlessness of space. Photo: David Kushner Enomoto's space dreams came crashing down one August morning shortly after my arrival in Star City. The discovery of a kidney stone means he can't fly. Enomoto's backup, Anousheh Ansari, a 41-year-old Iranian woman living in the US, will be taking his seat in the next Soyuz launch. After a visit to the hospital, he's sitting in his apartment with a steaming cup of tea. Enomoto's phone rings off the hook from friends just getting the news. But Enomoto is all smiles. "My flight isn't canceled," he tells his friend on the phone, "it's just postponed." With his training complete and his condition treatable by a blast of ultrasound, Enomoto is in even better shape. He'll be up in space in no time. Best of all, he says, now he can work out some final details like getting the space station manuals translated into Japanese. And, he says, maybe he'll use the extra time to negotiate a spacewalk outside the ISS. In the meantime, he's happy Anousheh is getting her crack at the flight. Any chance he'll let her assemble one of his robot toys in space when she goes? "I don't think so!" he says, with a nerdy laugh and a snort. He spent $20 million, and the robots are coming with him. As of August 2008, Enomoto hadn't returned calls, and Space Adventures wouldn't comment on his future flight status. http://articles.world-of-newave.info/news/breaking-news/the-space-tourist-who-wasn-t-20080867020.htm 2008-08-20T05:00:00Z 2008-08-20T05:00:00Z Wired.Com http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/16-09/ff_starcity_enomoto The Space Tourist Who Wasn't {new window}   Www.Wired.Com - I met Daisuke "Dice-K" Enomoto in Star City, Russia, in August 2006. Enomoto, 37, is slight with tired eyes and a shock of bleach-blond dyed hair. His idea of space travel comes from comic books and Star Wars. He grew up as a self-described otaku, coding his own computer games and dreaming of space?or, at least, space as it was portrayed in Star Wars and manga. His favorite anime show, Gundam, chronicles a future full of giant robots in which humans are abandoning this planet for the stars. "People who live on Earth, their souls is tied up by gravity, you understand?" Enomoto says. "I sympathize with this idea. Maybe in the future people should live in the space." Enomoto applied his programming skills to building Internet companies, making millions. He bought a swanky wraparound penthouse loft overlooking Tokyo's famous electronics district, Akihabara. He tooled around in Porsches and Segways, and threw raves. He redecorated the moon-age pad himself, tricking it out with sinuous white walls modeled after the International Space Station. But life was bearing down on him. He married and divorced, had a couple of kids. One of his former companies, Livedoor, was embroiled in criminal lawsuits over stock and accounting issues. He needed to get away from the money, the demands, the scandal. And what better place to go than space? "I just want to go up there," he says, "and chill." This giddy club kid paid $20 million (the price of a trip to the International Space Station at the time) to Space Adventures. He left behind his sci-fi penthouse and moved into a tiny two-room apartment in Star City to train for his 10-day space trip. He bunked with a Russian translator named Sergei, who stayed up every night shoving wads of newspaper into the window cracks to keep out the freezing winds. Daisuke "Dice-K" Enomoto shows off his official cosmonaut jumpsuit in Star City, Russia, in August 2006. Photo: David Kushner The months of intensive cosmonaut training was hard on the keyboard jockey, especially the fitness regimen. When he arrived, he could do only two chin-ups. Swimming 800 meters took him 26 minutes. He was also unprepared for the antinausea conditioning in the whirling vestibular chair. Enomoto had his own technique for trying to deal with the looping around. "I imagined that I was driving in the PlayStation game Ridge Racer," he says. It didn't work. Within minutes, he was spewing borscht all over his blue spacesuit. The longer Enomoto stayed at Star City, however, the more he came to enjoy the simple life there. Gone were the pressures of life in Japan. "I realize life is more than just money," he says. The broadband access in his cramped Star City apartment and several seasons of 24 on DVD didn't hurt. Enomoto had big plans for his ride into space?and not just the ultimate iPod playlist he put together for the trip, a meticulously arranged mix of techno and trance. He also intended to take cosplay to a whole new level. He would dress like his favorite anime character—the mighty Char Aznable from Gundam. He had his assistant make a custom space suit, an orange and black number complete with a homemade Dice-K patch stitched on the front. Every Space Adventures client can do experiments during his or her trip to space?most have chosen to conduct scientific research. Enomoto decided to see if he could assemble Gundam toys in weightlessness. Enomoto explains, "I make robots in these bags!" as he reaches his hands inside what looks like an elaborate Ziploc filled with robot parts, "just because it's fun!" Enomoto displays a couple of toy Gundam robots, an example of the sort of toys he wanted to see if he could assemble in the weightlessness of space. Photo: David Kushner Enomoto's space dreams came crashing down one August morning shortly after my arrival in Star City. The discovery of a kidney stone means he can't fly. Enomoto's backup, Anousheh Ansari, a 41-year-old Iranian woman living in the US, will be taking his seat in the next Soyuz launch. After a visit to the hospital, he's sitting in his apartment with a steaming cup of tea. Enomoto's phone rings off the hook from friends just getting the news. But Enomoto is all smiles. "My flight isn't canceled," he tells his friend on the phone, "it's just postponed." With his training complete and his condition treatable by a blast of ultrasound, Enomoto is in even better shape. He'll be up in space in no time. Best of all, he says, now he can work out some final details like getting the space station manuals translated into Japanese. And, he says, maybe he'll use the extra time to negotiate a spacewalk outside the ISS. In the meantime, he's happy Anousheh is getting her crack at the flight. Any chance he'll let her assemble one of his robot toys in space when she goes? "I don't think so!" he says, with a nerdy laugh and a snort. He spent $20 million, and the robots are coming with him. As of August 2008, Enomoto hadn't returned calls, and Space Adventures wouldn't comment on his future flight status.
Get Wired's take on technology business news and the Silicon Valley scene including IT, media, mobility, broadband, video, design, security, software, networking and internet startups on Wired.com {...}
Published: August 20, 2008, 5:00 am - Indexed: August 25, 2008, 8:20 pm - Page Size: 49KB
Category: News > Breaking News

]]> {COMICS > P} - News: Precipice Contest Tycho : Goddamit, nobody tells me anything. We've got a costume contest going for the game, which technically means that we're endorsing cosplay, but the prizes definitely make it worth your while. (CW)TB http://articles.world-of-newave.info/arts/comics/comic-strips-and-panels/p/news-precipice-contest-2008081497.htm 2008-08-08T22:41:28Z 2008-08-08T22:41:28Z Penny-arcade.Com http://www.penny-arcade.com/2008/08/08/precipice-contest/ News: Precipice Contest {new window}   Www.Penny-arcade.Com - Tycho : Goddamit, nobody tells me anything. We've got a costume contest going for the game, which technically means that we're endorsing cosplay, but the prizes definitely make it worth your while. (CW)TB
Penny Arcade! - Precipice Contest {...} Equal parts comics and commentary, Penny Arcade features Tycho and Gabe, the alter egos of creators Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Read about the antics and thoughts of the Penny Arcade crew, updated every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. {...}
Published: August 8, 2008, 10:41 pm - Indexed: August 9, 2008, 10:39 am - Page Size: 10KB
Category: Arts > Comics > Comic Strips and Panels > P

]]> {LITERATURE > CYBERPUNK} - Cthulhu fonts The HP Lovecraft Historical Society has an amazing and extensive collection of Lovecraft-inspired fonts for use in your Cthulhoid cosplay, larp and role-playing adventures. HPLHS Prop Fonts (via Beyond the Beyond)... http://articles.world-of-newave.info/arts/literature/genres/cyberpunk/cthulhu-fonts-2008086012.htm 2008-08-07T08:21:18Z 2008-08-07T08:21:18Z Boingboing.Net http://www.boingboing.net/2008/08/07/cthulhu-fonts.html Cthulhu fonts {new window}   Www.Boingboing.Net - The HP Lovecraft Historical Society has an amazing and extensive collection of Lovecraft-inspired fonts for use in your Cthulhoid cosplay, larp and role-playing adventures. HPLHS Prop Fonts (via Beyond the Beyond)...
Cthulhu fonts - Boing Boing {...}
Published: August 7, 2008, 8:21 am - Indexed: August 8, 2008, 10:39 am - Page Size: 46KB
Category: Arts > Literature > Genres > Cyberpunk

]]> {LITERATURE > CYBERPUNK} - Cosplay "guidols" serve as Akihabara tour guides Akibanana is a Japanese tour company that employs young women in cosplay attire to guide foreign tourists around the otaku-heaven district of Akihabara in Tokyo. Cosplay Akihabara Tours (via Tokyo Mango)... http://articles.world-of-newave.info/arts/literature/genres/cyberpunk/cosplay-guidols-serve-as-akihabara-tour-guides-20080786636.htm 2008-07-22T20:24:07Z 2008-07-22T20:24:07Z Boingboing.Net http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/22/cosplay-guidols-serv.html Cosplay "guidols" serve as Akihabara tour guides {new window}   Www.Boingboing.Net - Akibanana is a Japanese tour company that employs young women in cosplay attire to guide foreign tourists around the otaku-heaven district of Akihabara in Tokyo. Cosplay Akihabara Tours (via Tokyo Mango)...
Cosplay "guidols" serve as Akihabara tour guides - Boing Boing {...}
Published: July 22, 2008, 8:24 pm - Indexed: July 22, 2008, 11:33 pm - Page Size: 42KB
Category: Arts > Literature > Genres > Cyberpunk

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