In the very first Masquerade post that I published – three weeks after NYC locked down, and a week after April Fool’s Day in 2020 – I wrote:
It may just be that Masquerade is the master key to America’s mysteries, its magics (both white and black), and its metamorphoses. Living, as we are, in a time of masks, I am keen to explore and interpret the American Masquerade past and present. Drawing on history, natural history, unnatural history, and Christian esotericism, I intend to chart and chronicle and interrogate the multiple masks and masquerades that now shape America’s soulscape.
I had no idea that the Masquerade would still be going on a year and a half later. October is the month that in more normal times was bookended with celebrated masquerades – New York Comic Con and the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade. Both celebrations are intended to be occasions of liberation, of fearlessness, of passionate self–expression. Having dropped by NYCC on its opening day this past week, I was disappointed to find that heroic self-expression stops below the neck.
On the colossal superhero banners hanging from the rafters in every corner of the Javits Center’s crystal palace, the only masks are eye coverings or goggles or none at all. But down on the show floor, a hundred hopeful heroes empty their backpacks for the security guards, every last one of them N-95 masked to perform COVID heroism.
Spying a big bin full of what I assumed were programs, I grabbed one, along with a black lanyard. I turned the page to find a photo of half a dozen menacingly attired cosplayers posed in the exact spot where I am standing, under the spidery web of aluminum struts and shiny glass of the Javits Center dome.
Uttering a sigh of relief that the “weight and exhaustion” of Corona Time – including the cancellation of 2020’s Comic Con – has thankfully ended, NYCC 2021 Director Kristina Rogers (she/her) invites all to feel the “sense of community and inclusion. . . to being here safely.”
Rather than caustically comment upon the topsy turvy ironies of Comic Con, I’ll let my photos do the talking. I’ve taken the liberty here of interspersing them with the welcome message on NYCC’s home page:
New York Comic Con is your event. Where you can feel unafraid to geek out.
Where you’re accepted and embraced for being yourself.
(Senator Jacob Javits)
Where you can experience the best in pop culture because no matter what fandom you’re passionate about, we have it waiting here for you.
Be inspired by award-winning comic artists and Japanese anime creators.
Get star struck over your favorite TV and film idols.
Treat yourself to exclusive fandom gear and unique artwork.
But most importantly, create all of those memories with the people you care about the most.
Because this event is for you.
To embrace your inner hero or root for the villain.
To geek out as a family.
To celebrate a weekend together you’ll never forget.