Chattanooga Pulse

The 2010 Fandom Girls Calendar has returned to Chattanooga after its Labor Day outing at Dragon*Con in Atlanta. The Fandom girls will be offering their own tasty baked goods and will be on hand to sign their calendar pages at Dicehead Games and Comics on September 26. Dicehead will be hosting a “Streetfighter IV” tournament on PS3.

Maria Price works as a project manager for the Fandom Girls Collective.  Besides Maria as “Wonder Woman,” the 2010 Fandom Calendar Girls include Maria Vixen (Miss Fandom), Constance Jessica Nicole, Mel, Corrine, Ch4otic Neutr4l, Kel, Bambi, Lynn, Leslie, Alice and Gizmo. Distinct Images Photography, one of the calendar’s sponsors, has produced the calendar photos, which are charming and very well composed.

Each girl has a role in this calendar’s production, aside from their “cosplay” roles, in creating the calendar pages. All are local Chattanooga girls.
To create “cosplay” characters, people employ different strategies, much like Halloween; some will work to develop the exact detail of a particular character, while others derive with style a particular genre look.  Maria Price cannot recall when she didn’t like to dress up, and her version of Wonder Woman wondrously leaps into life from the pages of the classic comic.

Cosplay presents a form of performance art that anyone can do. The enactment of a cosplay persona builds confidence and camaraderie in the case of our fandom girls; the whole effect becomes enhanced by their cooperation with each other. On a larger scale, conventions and events, like the upcoming tournament at Dicehead, build exuberance and community among the participants. This cosplay participatory culture has something in common with people’s increasing interest in tattoos.

Recently, at the Third Annual Tattoo Convention here, Jessica Brown, who has her upper arms inked with “Dream” and “Delerium” (two of the “Endless” from Neil Gaiman’s “Sandman” comics), shows how characters can be a part of our personal personas. One of the calendar girls, Gizmo, uses ordinary ink to create various forehead designs that look like tattoos, while contributing to the evolution of her own persona.

The proceeds from calendar sales will go to the Mary Ellen Locher Foundation, a scholarship fund for secondary education for children who have lost a parent to breast cancer or who are children of breast cancer survivors.

Maria Price emphasizes that so many people are affected by breast cancer, directly or indirectly. To me, this type of performance art, which brings images to life, seems partiucalrly appropriate in this context. So get your calendars, and enjoy the baked goods and company at the gaming event.

Fandom Girls Calendars are available at their web site, www.fandomgirls.com.  But how much better to get them at the their personal appearances, and, of course, at the upcoming ConNooga.

Fandom Girls 2010 Calendar Signing and Bake Sale
2 – 6 p.m.
Saturday, September 26
Dicehead Games and Comics
6231 Perimeter Drive
(423) 553-1960