Check out these photos from the first science fiction convention, Nycon, in 1939. They had no idea what they were starting, did they?
Snappy dressers, too. Imagine if broad-breasted suits were still the norm at conventions today, rather than the melange of witticism-bearing T-shirts, cat ears and jerkins. I’m a big fan of dressing for comfort — and you need comfortable clothes when you’re clustered around a table in banquet chairs of debatable comfort for four or six hours at a time — but I also recognize that outward appearances influence people’s opinions. When WCAX did a story on Bakuretsucon a couple years ago, what did they use for their bumper tease? A shot of the older gentleman wearing cat ears, natch. Hardly surprising, but still a cheap shot.
