It’s one of the most humiliating, disappointing moments in all of superfandom (which is really saying something). A devotee of a semi-obscure but still beloved TV show or film goes to the trouble of creating a painstakingly accurate costume based on a favorite character, attends a sci-fi or comic convention, waits for the praise and adulation to sink in, and then… nothing. Nada. Zilch. No one there even recognizes the character or—worse yet—misidentifies it as something more recent or relevant. That’s the dilemma faced by a disgruntled admirer of the late, lamented Adult Swim series Harvey Birdman, Attorney At Law in a new cartoon by Leigh Lahav and Oren Mendez entitled “When No One Gets Your Cosplay (Or The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance).”
With that telltale subtitle, most viewers will probably correctly guess that this is formatted as a parody of that other Birdman, i.e. the one that just won an Oscar. Not only is the unsuccessful cosplayer mistakenly identified as Michael Keaton’s washed-up fake ex-superhero, he asks himself some of the same tough questions, like “How did I end up here? This place is horrible. Smells like balls.”