When you’ve gone to enough comic conventions, you notice that some characters are far more popular with cosplayers than others.
After attending conventions for nearly 25 years now, my husband and I can tell you that while we still love a good Disney princess, Deadpool, Wolverine, Spock, Harley Quinn, Doctor Strange, Princess Leia, or Mario cosplay, we have literally seen dozens of them before.
When you’ve seen as many cosplays as we have, you really start to appreciate costumes depicting characters that people tend to overlook. Here are some characters you rarely see cosplayed, spotted at the 2023 San Diego Comic Con:
Mimic
Dungeons and Dragons has some legendary characters, all of which are cosplayed entirely too rarely. But the Mimic disguised as a treasure chest is perhaps one of the most iconic monsters from the game. Despite that, this is the first Mimic cosplay we’ve ever seen —luckily, we kept our distance.
Princess Caroline
While Bojack Horseman was a runaway success, people tend to prefer cosplaying as human cartoon characters, like those from Rick and Morty, Futurama, South Park, and Bob’s Burgers. Fortunately, this woman was brave enough to take on the challenge of Princess Caroline, along with her adopted porcupine baby, Ruthie. She confessed that she longed to find a Bojack of her own one day to join her on cartoon cosplay adventures.
Robin Hood
Along that same line, while you’ll find dozens of Disney princesses at every convention, you practically never see characters from Disney’s Robin Hood. In fact, I’ve only seen one other costume from this movie, when a girl wore an incredible furry Maid Marian cosplay at Wonder Con. These two were having a ball as Robin Hood in his stork disguise and Prince Jon, complete with Hiss.
Gary the Scholar
While SpongeBob and Patrick cosplays pop up with somewhat regular frequency, Gary costumes are still rare. This one takes things a step further by depicting the character from one specific scene of the show, where SpongeBob enters Gary’s dream to find the snail can now talk and read.
Ammit
Ever since the show was released on Disney+, there have been plenty of cosplayers dressed as Moon Knight. But one look at this costume will tell you why it’s practically unheard of for someone to dress as Ammit.
Comic Book Hellboy
For the same reason, it’s understandable that most people dressed as Hellboy look like Ron Perlman from the movie, not the comic book character. A few prosthetics may be a minor challenge, but wearing 3D, comic-painted pieces over every part of your visible body takes things to a whole new level.
Lestat
These days, if you see a vampire at the con, chances are they’re part of the What We Do in the Shadows crew. While that show is fantastic, and the cosplays are usually a delight, this 1600s Lestat cosplay was a refreshing change from the blood-drinking norm.
Dick Tracy and Breathless Mahoney
You’d think there would be more Dick Tracy cosplays at SDCC, considering he’s one of the most famous characters from the Golden Age of Comics. Then again, the Dick Tracy movie is not exactly a beloved piece of film history. Even so, it was a delight to see Dick Tracy and Breathless together at last.
The Antler Queen
As popular as Yellowjackets may be, most of the characters look plain enough to make them difficult to cosplay. For this reason, the handful of costumes we’ve seen from the show include large groups of girls sporting the show’s iconic lettermen jacket. This Antler Queen is truly a rare sight though.
A Lifesize Chucky Doll
Sure, there are tons of Chucky cosplays out there, but usually, they are done by someone old enough to have actually seen the films. What’s different here is that the little girl in the costume is about the same size as the Chucky doll in the film.
Cowboy Spider-Man Family
What are Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker, and Eddie Brock to do without big city buildings to swing from? I honestly don’t know, but I would love to see this Spider-Man crew do their thing in the Old West.
Geek Gal Dresses
Every year a handful of clever seamstresses create one-of-a-kind geek dresses for the convention. While multiple people do this, each creation is unique, which certainly earns these two a space on this list for their adorable TARDIS and Star Trek fashions. Whether these technically count as cosplay is debatable, but there’s no arguing that they look great.
Photographs by Zeon Santos.
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