Exploring creativity at Petaluma’s LumaCon Comic Convention

Superheroes, video game villains and other assorted fantasy characters descend on Petaluma this week, all in the name of literacy and creativity.

The third annual LumaCon Comic Convention for Youth gets underway Saturday with a cast of characters ranging from the well-known to the obscure, part of a pop-culture phenomenon known as cosplay, the combining of “costume” and “play.”

Participants create elaborate costumes and assume the identities of their characters at the free event. Those attending just might show up as Wolverine or Wonder Woman, or use their imaginations to pull together outfits depicting characters from web comics or graphic novels.

“The costumes are just astounding. They’re really beautiful,” said 14-year-old Nicki Watt, a Maria Carrillo High School freshman who is helping plan LumaCon. “You don’t have to know the characters at all to really admire them.”

Cosplay is one of the draws to LumaCon, the brainchild of librarians from Petaluma Regional Library and Petaluma and Casa Grande high schools. Watt is part of the regional library’s Teen Advisory Council that’s helped develop LumaCon.

“It’s a great way to promote literacy and art within the community,” Watt said.

Although she isn’t into cosplay, she loves the thought and creativity that goes into it.

“There’s so much dedication in what they do. It’s just amazing,” she said.

Fellow Teen Advisory Council member Lauren Castillo, 15, has more than a tiny bit of experience in cosplay. She’s done 13 cosplays since discovering the art form three years ago.

A self-taught comics and anime artist, Castillo finds additional creativity making costumes and assuming the identity of favorite characters from video games or comics. She attended last year’s LumaCon as Mettaton, a charismatic, gray-faced, robotic TV host from the “Undertale” video game.

The Casa Grande High School sophomore said there’s great fun in every aspect of cosplay, from selecting and researching a character to putting together a costume and getting into the persona at events.

Inevitably, she said, cosplayers will be asked to pose for photos.

“When you’re a cosplayer, you have to expect people will come up to you and be ready for that,” she said. “You don’t want to do a standard pose. You want to be in character. I’ve had a lot of people stop me over the years ?for photos.”

Lauren attributes the popularity of cosplay to the fact participants can explore “different and more exciting worlds than what we see (in daily life).”

Cosplay is popular across all ages, backgrounds, cultures and time zones, with participants around the globe. An annual World Cosplay Summit held in Japan is now in its 15th year.

Castillo has found there’s a link within the cosplay community, something beyond being creative.

“I’ve discovered a lot of cosplayers are really, really nice people,” she said.

When she put on the pink wig, cupcake hair adornment, colorful dress, bright striped socks and neon shoes of her Trickster Jane Crocker character at a convention and people recognized her from the web comic “Homestuck” series, she was quickly embraced.

“Someone recognized me and came up and gave me a hug,” she said. “They brought me over to a group of 20 other people.”

Castillo assisted last year when Petaluma Regional Library hosted a workshop for cosplayers, offering tips and ideas. Her greatest advice? “Definitely try it. Just go out there and do it.”

She admits she isn’t much of a seamstress but modifies repurposed clothing with glue, tape and craft supplies - whatever it takes - and considerable imagination. Face paint and makeup also help nail a character.

“You can make a lot of cool things from cheap things,” Castillo said. “You just have to be crafty with it.”

Cosplayers appreciate the effort, she said, and more than understand if a costume isn’t an exact replica. She suggests novice cosplayers keep their options open by looking beyond the gender, body type or ability of the character. “Nobody’s going to pay too much special attention (to details),” she said.

Castillo’s cosplay characters have included 11 from “Homestuck,” an action-adventure series about a group of teens who unwittingly cause the end of the world. A costume for one of the series’ characters, an underwater princess named Feferi, is among her favorites.

Whether cosplayers or aspiring or accomplished artists or authors, the kids and teens at LumaCon are all about expressing themselves through the arts. The event includes fiction-writing contests for local students.

Petaluma High School librarian Connie Williams said even in its first year, LumaCon “just hit the sweet spot of our day and time.”

She and fellow librarians Nathan Libecap of Casa Grande High School and Diana Spaulding of Petaluma Regional Library established the event ?to acknowledge comics and graphic novels as legitimate reading material for youth, and to celebrate the artwork and stories kids produce from the genre.

“In our wildest dream, our hope was that we’d get 200 people,” Williams said of the first LumaCon. “It totally, totally exceeded everything.”

Last year’s attendance of 3,000-plus was about double the first year, with kids, teens and families stopping by to check out comic book vendors, teen authors and illustrators and the professional comic book creators who donated their time to promote the genre and support the teens and youngsters pursuing the field.

Williams was happily surprised by the number and variety of cosplayers, from little kids in Batman masks and capes to adults in Spiderman costumes to ingenious teens who used thrift store finds and everyday items to bring characters to life.

Lauren, with her many characters, may sit out this year’s cosplay. The multitalented teen has artwork and handcrafted charms and buttons to display in the Artists’ Alley, but she’ll be there to cheer the cosplayers and their creativity.

Contact Towns Correspondent Dianne Reber Hart at sonomatowns@gmail.com.