For 51 weeks out of the year, Russell Thorne is a mortgage loan officer in Nashville.
But for five days at Dragon Con, he dispenses with the suit and tie and puts on Army camo gear and becomes a Cosplay Medic. It requires no medical degree. Instead, you simply need the proper glue or tape to fix a loose shin guard, a broken heel or stray rabbit ear.
Thorne, at his 16th Dragon Con, is part of a crew of 35 to 40 volunteers who roam multiple hotels to “treat” thousands of cosplay attendees over Labor Day weekend. He began performing procedures in 2018 and helped form an official group in 2019. Last year, he made 300 repairs before conking out on Sunday night.
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho
On just his second day at work Friday, he reached 100 repairs before 2 p.m. His top four go-to repair tools? Super Glue, bobby pins, safety pins and duct tape. (So MacGyver was right about the duct tape!) He also keeps a bunch of dowel rods to help support broken swords or other weapons.
“We have a presence at every costume party,” Thorne said. “We’re at photo shoots and all the big parties. When people start drinking, things start falling off costumes!”
The vibe among many attendees early Friday afternoon was a mix of excitement and anticipation. There was still plenty of convention to go. And photographers had no shortage of visual stimuli to choose from.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Besides the usual array of witches, princesses and pirates, there were Care Bears, the heckling Muppet Show duo of Statler and Waldorf, a wacky looking Bob Ross and a man dressed as Norm MacDonald’s “Saturday Night Live” version of Burt Reynolds in a big yellow cowboy hat. And staying topical, more than one woman dressed as the scoreless Australian break dancer Raygun and at least one man emulated Yusuf Dikec, the cool Turkish sharpshooter who went viral during the Olympics.
“The people watching is the best,” said Nicole Pitts, a 33-year-old Atlanta native who now lives in Baltimore and has been coming to Dragon Con on and off since she was 16 years old. “It’s Halloween for adults and everyone is at your level. We all get a week to be weird!”
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
This is just the second time for her husband James, a linguist who admittedly went super obscure playing Lord Sigmar from a tabletop wargame called “Warhammer: The Old World” that is more popular in Europe than the United States. “I just wanted to do what I wanted to do,” he said. Yet, given the makeup of the attendees, he said at least 10 people recognized his “Warhammer” references.
His wife Nicole opted to be a stunning OG Harley Quinn in tight red and white spandex and domino mask holding a hammer made of PVC and duct tape.
Both received huzzahs from admiring fellow cosplayers for their workmanship. “I had a small girl, 7 years old, walk up and wanting her picture taken with me,” Nicole said. “Her name was Harley. Those young nerdy kids. I love them!”
At the same time, “as a woman, you do get the occasional creeper,” she added. “The good thing is this community doesn’t tolerate it. It gets reported. Otherwise, you can lock eyes with someone from across the Pulse Bar and quickly become besties. You’ve made a friendship for life.”
She also likes that this convention is driven by the fans unlike San Diego Comic Con, which is dominated more by the big media corporations.
This will be the largest Dragon Con since 2019, when attendance exceeded 85,000 and some attendees complained it had become too crowded. The pandemic caused Dragon Con to shut down in 2020 and organizers have gradually upped the capacity each year. This year, attendance will hit 72,000 over five days.
Rachel Reeves, convention co-chair, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that “we feel like we’ve found a sweet spot in the low to mid-70,000s. We still stay at this level for the foreseeable future or until we are able to expand our footprint.”
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
Andrew Heil, a mechanical engineer from Huntsville, Alabama, was also inspired by “Warhammer” like James Pitts, but he spent three months building a futuristic space warrior instead. He placed his armored character on stilts that elevated his height from six foot four to seven foot eight.
He provided friendly advice to another cosplayer who wanted to build something similar: “Place shocks in your stilts,” he said. “That reduces the impact on your knees.”
Admirers kept taking photos with him to the point he admitted, “I’m a little sweaty. It’s only like 1,000 degrees in here!”
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
His father Bob Heil was nearby in a much less stuffy outfit playing the “Impressive Clergyman” (no name given) from the 1987 movie “The Princess Bride” with a strange speech impediment that changed the “r” into a “w.” He offered to give any couple a “mawwiage” ceremony. By noon, he had mock betrothed seven, including Dalton Page and Paige Hoven.
Page, moments after the fake marriage, actually got down on his knee and proposed to his now fiancé. “I went out of order. I got married,” he said. “Then I proposed.”
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