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When cosplayers descend on New York Comic Con, they’re looking to meet their favorite creators and show off their outfits — but they often end up in need of costume triage. Armed with glue guns, zip ties, Popsicle sticks and safety pins, the Paladins of Cosplay come ready to fix wardrobe malfunctions — like a dangling shoulder pad, an imploding jetpack or any number of hazards that costumed fans face.
“I really love helping people,” said Law Asuncion, 46, who founded the Paladins in 2017. The group is named after the pilots of the robotic hero Voltron, and the term is also an olden-days word for champion. Asuncion and the repair team will be at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, home of New York Comic Con, through Sunday.
The Paladins’ initial purpose was to find like-minded cosplayers who had a passion for the craft of costume; they would meet up and create outfits together. The Paladins have transformed themselves into the monsters of the film “Pacific Rim,” Voltron and his trusted pilots and a collection of sinister Batmen from DC’s “Dark Metal” comic book story line.
They soon realized their costume expertise could be used for a greater good. “The original concept of the repair station probably was born out of seeing random cosplayers using hot glue in the middle of the show floor,” said Asuncion, who is an I.T. specialist for a medical device company. The Paladins set up their first table in 2021, the year New York Comic Con returned to in-person attendance after going virtual in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
At that show, they came to the aid of Boba Fett, the “Star Wars” bounty hunter. “He looked immaculate,” Asuncion said. But his jetpack, which was created using 3-D printing, was problematic, he recalled.
When someone in the crowd bumped into Boba Fett, the jetpack shattered. Boba Pfft. “We were able to Humpty Dumpty, piece it back together and locate areas where it needed additional structure and support,” Asuncion said. On average, about 500 cosplayers visit the group daily at the convention, he said, and the amount doubles on Saturday, the most popular day of the event.
Asuncion, who has glaucoma, a vision disorder, has been attending the gathering since 2006, the first year of the show. He has often cosplayed a version of Cyclops, a leader of the X-Men, who has his own eyesight issues.
Asuncion’s costumes have mirrored how cosplay has evolved. In 2006, he used pieces of existing outfits to make his own. By 2011, he began creating from scratch. “For me it doesn’t matter where you got the costume, as long as you’re embodying that costume and you have the confidence to pull it off,” he said.
On Thursday at this year’s Comic Con, there was a Ghostbuster in need of a screwdriver to fix his backpack, a Wolverine with a loose mask and a Doctor Doom with a split chest plate.
There was also a Smaug from “The Hobbit,” played by Corrie M., an avid cosplayer. “I’ve never come to this show without stopping by this table at least once,” she said.
The appreciation and awards for cosplay have also evolved. At New York Comic Con’s first cosplay contest, in 2006, the costumes were “almost like whatever you could find at a Halloween shop,” Asuncion said. He was one of few contestants.
Now the Cosplay Central Crown Championships Qualifier is one of the big events on Saturday night. Contestants are judged on needlework, construction and special effects. The grand prize is $1,000, and the winner advances to a final contest at the C2E2 pop culture convention in Chicago next year.
“The attention grabber for a lot of people is anything bigger than six or seven feet,” Asuncion said. He was speaking from experience. “One of the reasons why I got into the bigger cosplays is because I myself am only 5-foot-6. Running around as a short Cyclops wasn’t generating the attention that I had hoped.” His Voltron costume — seven and a half feet — got him hooked on stilt costumes. (This year, the Paladins are portraying characters from “Avatar: The Last Airbender.”)
Voltron was a hit with parents and children alike. “The colorful nature of the design allowed kids to not be afraid of something so large,” Asuncion said. Many parents, perhaps fueled by nostalgia for the robotic hero, requested pictures too.
And what did Smaug need this year? She was stopping by for glue to keep one of her light-up claws from falling off. Part of her costume was made from a chandelier discarded by a neighbor. “Cosplayers are all hoarders,” she said.
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