EVERYTHING BUT IMAGINARY #237: TRICK OR GEEK!

[Blake Petit]

Two weeks to go. Although I, friends, have been counting down to Halloween since the end of September, we’re getting into the crunch time. There are a scarce two weeks remaining until the big day, until the spooks and spirits come out, the kids pound down your door looking for candy, and you get to show off your best costume-crafting skills.

I bring this up every year, but I love Halloween for being the time of year that geeks like us can really showcase our heritage. Have you spent the last six months making a fully-tentacled Darth Talon costume out of tinfoil and used Breathe Rite Nasal Strips? This is your chance to wear it outside of a convention hall! Even better if you’re a woman! Of you can take your cue from geeks like me, who go for a different pop-culture reference every year. Allow me to count down my last four Halloween costumes, in order: Fred Flintstone, Indiana Jones, Marv (from Sin City) and Hellboy. This year, will be yet another pop culture character, but I’m not going to divulge who until I get the costume and make sure it fits. Are these the actions of a well man? Lord no – these are the actions of an unrepentant comic book geek. And proud of it.

As always, though, with a comic book or pop culture costume, you’ve got to choose your audience. I wore the Marv costume, for example, to a family party, predominantly families that had not seen the R-rated movie, and consequently I spent most of the night being asked if I cut myself shaving. My brother, on the other hand, put on a suit, decorated a cardboard box with a blue scoreboard and the moniker “Studley McNugget,” and went as a Jeopardy contestant. He was a hit.

So you never know what’s going to strike gold. Above all, you’ve got to be creative, and you’ve got to be obvious. You don’t want to have to explain your costume, because no matter how clever it is, by the time you’re done, you just sound like a dolt. And if you’re staying home to hand out candy, get a geek costume the kids will recognize. In the past, this was sort of a limited selection – Superman, Batman, Spider-Man and so on. The rash of superhero movies and TV shows has greatly expanded the pool of available characters. To many children, John Stewart is the Green Lantern, because of his exposure on Justice League Unlimited. While he once would have been a rather obscure choice, these days, he’s golden. If you’re braver than I am, oil yourself up, put on a metal skirt and go as one of the 300. If you’ve got a lot of time on your hands, mix up a batch of oatmeal and glue, dye it orange, take a bath and go as Benjamin J. Grimm, the ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Thing. The kids will love it.

Speaking of the trick-or-treaters, there’s a movement afoot to start giving out comics to your trick-or-treaters. Personally, I think this is a brilliant idea. I mean, comic books will never replace candy as the treat of choice, but even as a kid, you could appreciate getting a few treats that were still there after the mountains of “fun-sized” Snickers were eaten and the mountain of Candy Corn was pelted at your little brother. At least, that’s how it went in my house. When I was 10 years old, Marvel Comics published a set of four mini-comics for folks to give out at Halloween, specials (reprints, actually) of Spider-Man, Captain America and the two STAR comic hits Heathcliff and Care Bears. I thought this was such a fantastic idea that I scrambled to get my hands on all four of them (yes, even Care Bears… I had to have the complete set!) To this day, I can’t tell you what happened in the Spidey, Heathcliff or Care Bears comics, but I remember the Captain America comic was a reprint of the issue where a political party tried to make him their candidate for president. It was an awesome issue then, and it’s still an awesome story now.

It’s been a long time since Marvel put out a Halloween comic cheap enough to hand out to your trick-or-treaters, but Archie and Gemstone comics frequently turn out Halloween mini-comics for just such an occasion. The hard part is getting a hold of them – I begin scouring the Previews catalog in July and I still haven’t figured out how to order these ashcans! Really, they’ve got to do a better job of getting the word out.

So let’s say you can’t find the Halloween comics that are put out with the trick-or-treaters in mind. Does that mean you can’t give out comics? Absolutely not! The Comics4Halloween people have put together a top-ten list of reasons to give out comics (which you can get as a downloadable flyer by clicking on that link and visiting their Comicspace page), and their reasons are both simple and obvious. Comics are healthier than candy (and let’s face it, the kids will still get plenty of that), comics encourage the imagination, and you can do it pretty cheap. Hit your local quarter bin, dig out twenty bucks worth of kid-friendly comics. (That’s also important – make sure you’re not handing out Lady Death or The Boys or something, get some Marvel Adventures, Johnny DC titles or kid-friendly indy books like Amelia Rules!) It’s so hard to get comics in the hands of kids these days. Halloween is the one night a year when the potential audience is coming to you, looking for whatever free swag you’re willing to give! Will most of them not ever set foot into a comic shop? Sadly, for many of them, that will be the case. But if everyone who reads this manages to convert just one kid into a reader, and then does it again next year, and the next… well, multiplication is a wonderful science.

So get out there, get some comics for your ghouls, and get your costume ready. Halloween can be our night, friends. We just have to take it.

Favorite of the Week: October 10, 2007

Other comic book writers are going to be glad when the Sinestro Corps storyline is over, because maybe, just maybe, some other titles will start having a chance to win this weekly trophy again. But until that happens, this story is kicking the four-color posterior of every other title on the comic book stands. In this issue, the war with the Sinestro Corps comes to Earth. The Justice League and Earth’s heroes draw the line in the sand, but as it should be, it’s the Green Lantern Corps who stands in the front. Amazing? Exciting? Breathtaking? Geoff Johns is going to make me buy a thesaurus, because I’m running out of words to say just how good this storyline is.

Blake M. Petit is the author of the superhero comedy novel, Other People's Heroes, the suspense novel The Beginner and the weekly “Think About It” humor column at Think About It Central. He’s also the co-host, with the inimitable Chase Bouzigard, of the 2 in 1 Showcase Podcast. E-mail him at Blake@comixtreme.com and visit him on the web at Think About It Central.

[TobiasJeth]

Heh I recently got a decent job for the first time in over a year, and i fully plan on going to my LCS and buying 20-40 dollars worth of quarter-bin goodies. I live on a rather busy street, so I will be able to spread the message of geek-dom to many before the Man beats me back down to the curb.

As usual, awesome article Blake.

[Dirge]

I disagree with Mr. Petit, I'll always wear an obscure character costume that I like over the one someone will recodnize. And it is really hard to explain who Mysterio is through the dome to someone in a loud bar. I should have just made business cards that said Spider-man Villian.

My most consistant problem with making my Comic (or cartoon) based costume each year (aside from the misbehaving sewing machine) is finding pants. I had a really hard time finding green pants for the aformentioned Mysterio costume. I was even hard to find red sweat pants for last year's Magneto costume. I'm amazed I was able to find the powder blue ones for this year (I thought I was going to have to use women's pants).

[Magnus2k]

Want a good comics costume thats easy to make. It might be pricey, depends on where you shop. Go as the Joker!

1. Get a purple suit. We have a place in our mall here, Oxford street, that sells suits for pretty cheap. Are they suits you see on a lawyer in Law and Order? No, of course not. But is it good for a one night go as the clown prince of crime? Absolutely.

2. Get a green wig, or dye your hair green. Get make up. Both very cheap.

The kids would like it. Even if they dont know its the Joker, they'd see a clown and dig it. Want to make it a little more, adult, for the night scene at the bar or club, or halloween party?

1. Throw a black ring around your eyes. IF you can find and stand contacts, get some that make your eyes bloodshot. Get a black trench coat, with a black hat. Throw the coat over the suit and there ya go. Hardcore Joker.

[Blake Petit]

An excellent suggestion!