PAGE 2
NEWS
GALLERY
THE
PAGE 12
PAGE 7
SPORTS
CONVERGED CITIZEN
VOLUME X ISSUE 7
WWW.THEMEDIAPLEX.COM
NOVEMBER 27 , 2014
Cosplayin’ around
Halloween is a chance to dress up and be someone you are not. Unfortunately, for those who want to dress up all the time, Halloween only happens once a year. But hell if Mr. Dressup can do it all year round why can’t everyone else? Costume play or ‘cosplay’ is the act of dressing up as a character from fiction or even reality, though is mostly popular for science fiction, video games and anime genres. The term cosplay comes from the Japanese portmanteau which in English translates to costume play. This term wa coined in 1984 by Nobuyuki Takahashi, who was so impressed by the costumes at Worldcon in Los Angeles that a story of this portmanteau
was published in the Japanese magazine My Anime. It is popular for people who attend geek conventions and also popular on the Internet. Cosplayers sometime participate in what is known as role playing, which is a sub-culture where people act-out characters using storytelling and dialogue on site forums. Mckenna Roberts became interested in cosplay when she heard of an anime convention just across the river in Detroit, called Youmacon. She had always been a fan of anime and when she heard about Youmacon, she wanted to dress up for it immediately. She soon found out cosplay is very time consuming. Not only does it take up a long period of time if you independently design and create your costume, but it does not come cheap.
“The more pieces associated with the costume, the more money it will cost,” said Roberts, who is currently working on a new costume. “Half of it is stuff you don’t even see. For example, the hair piece for her (the costume she is currently working on). People think ‘Oh okay, money for a wig’, but in reality her hair is so big that it requires one very long wig, plus three extensions, along with EVA foam for shape,and pins, and glue. That is just the hair. Everything adds up very quickly.” Despite the long process of creating a costume, Roberts says the best thing about cosplay is it’s always a learning experience. Great detail goes into each costume, unlike Halloween costumes you can just buy for $50. The more she talks to different cosplayers,
Ashley Ann Mentley CP Editor
the more she learns, like which materials work best and how to shape things using different techniques. The work is never over for Roberts; she said as soon as she finishes one costume it is on to the next. She has currently completed two costumes and has another four in the works. Convention organizers usually lay out rules and regulations for cosplayers, which can make somecostumes difficult to finish. Some rules include no folded steel weapons– usually prop-weapons are made of wood– and limited prop sizes as to not take up too much convention space. This year Youmacon made it a rule that while at the convention on the Renaissance Centre premises there were no weapons allowed and no masks that covered faces. These rules sparked some outrage for
Washing your face and hands and brushing your teeth could be contributing to contamination of the Great Lakes. Of the five Great Lakes, Lake Erie has the highest concentration of micro plastic contamination – and research has only just begun said Paul Helm, a senior research scientist at the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change office. He spoke Nov. 12 at the Ojibway Nature Centre as a part of the Green Speaker Series hosted by the Windsor Essex County Environmental Committee. Helm addressed the issue of visible plastic contaminants, otherwise known as micro plastics, which are smaller than five millimetres in diameter, in the Great Lakes. Helm said one of the biggest issues is how little is actually known about the micro plastics. “Other than one study collecting it on water in the Great Lakes and another having some pellets wash up on beaches, we haven’t actually done very much yet,” Helm said. “We don’t know the scope and scale of the problem.” What is known, however, are some of the sources of these small, yet visible pieces of plastic. The primary source is micro beads, which come from exfoliating skincare products such as face wash, hand soap and toothpaste. Helm said other sources may be items like synthetic fibres from clothing, fishing lines, plastic bottles, litter and debris.
SEE PAGE 8
SEE PAGE 5
Photo by Sean Frame Three Fan Expo attendees pose in their X-Men costumes at the Metro Convention Centre in Toronto on Aug. 30, Sean Frame Managing Editor
Micro plastics in Great Lakes