Inspired by the thread here, I’ve also been pondering a literary character costume.
While a costume from The Count of Monte Cristo would be cool, I’ve actually been playing around with the idea of the dressing as Neil Gaiman’s Marquis de Carabas from Neverworld. It would be a fun costume with lots of trips to thrift stores and costume shops because his costume would essentially be a lot of mismatched and flamboyant outfit pieces.
So how about you guys, got any costume ideas?
– IG
I was at a party once where a friend dressed as a post-riparian Ophelia. It was pretty cool.
One year we went to a party as Gaiman’s Endless. Whoever played Dream really sucked at it–he put on white face paint (he’s very darkskinned), and wore black, and that was it. My long red hair meant I was a shoo-in for Destruction, so I wore flannel and hiking boots and made up a painter’s palette, and had lots of folks ask me if I was Bob Ross :smack: .
Other ideas…hmm. It’s a good theme idea, and I’ll have to think about it. I like my Count of Monte Cristo idea (i’m all about the gimmick costumes), and I might try that this year.
Daniel
I’m being a luckdragon this year. I just finished my costume.
Okay, so it’s a loose interpretation of luckdragon. I made a paper mache white dragon mask with red eyes and a mane, and a long white/silver fitted dress with a tail. No wings. Luckdragons swim through the air, so they don’t need wings.
I keep thinking about being Sabriel, with a bandolier of bells, a silver and blue surcoat, sword, and a little white cat with a red collar asleep on my shoulder.
Last year I went to a nightclub as a Pre-Sinking Numenorean. I wore a long lavender satin Elvish/Nouvea Art type gown, heavy sparkly jewellery, and a silver tiara and veil. If I’d had more time I would have been a Post-Sinking Numenorean, with the same, but encrusted in sea creatures and seaweed, and my face painted to look drowned. I may resurrect it in a year or two and redo it.
If I had to do something like this, and had a guy that I could rope into the picture, I think it would be great fun to go as Monsieur and Madame Defarge from A Tale of Two Cities.
[nitpick]
Neverwhere.
[/nitpick]
Other than that, I’ve got nothin’. 
The best literary costume ever. From Wikipedia’s entry for Fritz Leiber, quoting Judith Merril:
Of course, that only worked for Leiber.
Go as THE SHADOW and your wife can go as The Generic Sultry Mysterious Woman In Peril.
I have a Hogwarts professor costume my ex-wife’s mom made for me. It’s a simple black tunic (like what Snape wears) but with a green surcoat. It has a Ravenclaw patch on one shoulder and a large circular Hogwarts crest patch on the back. If the weather is cool enough, I also have a Ravenclaw scarf. Oh yes, and a wand.
Since the only teacher officially identified as a Ravenclaw (what’s up with that, anyway? What has JKR got against the nerds of the wizarding world?) is Flitwick, I really should make up my own name and C.V. in order to answer the inevitable “who are you supposed to be?” question.
“Yes, ahem, Professor Kizarvexius here. My subject? Muggle studies. I’m eager to teach the history of magic, but Prof. Binns has tenure, and since he’s already dead, it doesn’t look as if he’ll be retiring anywhere this century. Or the next, I daresay.”
I was Miss Havisham once, and Luna Lovegood once, because I’m really good at looking long-haired and batty. Not really sure what, if anything, I’m dressing as this year.
I once went as Mayland Long from R. A. Macavoy’s Tea with the Black Dragon.
I have always, always wanted to go as Scout from To Kill A Mockingbird, in her Ham costume (you could even stick a knife in it). I’m sure it would be rather uncomfortable, but it would just be so satisfying when people “got it.”
monica, I came into the thread to post that I have a friend who dressed up as Madame Defarge. It was awesome.
That would be the best! Picturing Scout in her ham costume always cracks me up.
A friend and I dressed as sirens one year (the Odyssey kind, not the kind on top of police cars.)
Does Peanuts count as literature?
Probably not, but I was Marcie. white(ish) sweatshirt inside out, dark shorts, and a barrette in my hair aimed at making my hair shoulder length rather than somewhat longer.
NO ONE figured out who I was without help. 'Course it didn’t help that Peppermint Patty didn’t show up.
I was in good company, though, Lucy was also unrecognizable and someone came as Belle (Snoopy’s sister).
Charlie Brown, Linus, and Pigpen were all part of our pary, and all easily recognized. (People did laugh at Pigpen–he was filthy–smeared with fresh mud-- but only in strategic ways–no dirt on the back of his shirt or jeans, so that he could sit on furniture without upsetting the hostess).
Two years ago, I dressed as Aziraphale from Good Omens, as my roommate and I matched Aziraphale and Crowley fairly well for looks and personality. Three years ago, I was Hawley Griffin from The Invisible Man/League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and discovered that a costume where absolutely no skin can show is the biggest pain in the ass imaginable.
Some day, when I learn to sew, my dream is to make a Rincewind costume.
Rincewind just wears a really down-at-heel wizard robe, right? And a flattened hat?
It might be fun to go as Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester sometime, if I feel up to all the sewing, and Mr. Lissar wants to do it.
Granted, my makeshift costume was inspired by the movie (plastic black derby hat, mascara under the eye rather than fake eyelash, white shirt & pants, black shoes) moreso than the book, but one Halloween at Grad School, I really did make a 'orrowshow Alex from A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (tho my body is more Dim-esque).
Last literary costume- grey shirt, black pants, dark jacket, mustasche & goatee,
carried a “bloody” wooden stake- I was Abraham Van Helsing. About a decade ago.
I did go to my last Ren Faire as Twoflower, but it was difficult to act as a parody of a tourist when there were men there with uglier Hawaiian shirts and larger cameras…
For all the many eccentric costumes I’ve worn for Halloween, the closest I think I’ve ever gotten to “literary” were Waldo (of Where’s fame), and Opus the Penguin. But then, I seem to usually go more for inanimate objects or abstract concepts.
Ah, cosplay (i.e. “costume play”).
I took some shoddy pictures with a digital camera the two times I went to a convention in Orlando. I even dressed up myself (and got my brother into the act, too).
Making the outfits was tedious because I was too scared to use a sewing machine.
I would love to do the pink-pallete Luigi (from the Super Smash Bros. games), but I have no idea where I could find something resembling his hat.
Me too. My favorite was when I got a fencer’s mask and a plastic rapier, dressed all in white, and carried a sign saying “Equal work for equal epee!”
Daniel
