An Interview With Cosplayer and Bad Ass Sir Julius

I was always into art and comics/anime from a young age. I would always draw comic and anime characters. My grandmother and parents noticed my ability to draw early, and would always give me art supplies on my birthday or Christmas. This also included projects like model airplanes, cars, and figures. Fast forward to 2008 and I’m in Manhattan hanging out with friends. We were walking near the Javits Center when we saw everyone dressed up as different characters. We asked someone what was going on and they told us that New York Comic con is currently happening and about to finish but we should have about two hours left if we wanted to check it out. Obviously it wasn’t as huge as it is today because you were still able to purchase tickets at the door. We went for the final two hours and seeing everyone in costume and figuring out that it was called cosplay had me intrigued and I wanted to try it myself. I definitely knew from then that I wanted to build my own cosplay so knowing I had a full year until the next comic con got to work. My plan was to cosplay something that would stand out with something I liked. I had just been hired to be an employee with GameStop at the time and Halo Reach was about to release. That’s when I found my Cosplay, Halo armor. I looked up tutorials on how to make armor and came across a technique called pepakura and spent the next year making my first cosplay Master Chief.

Any favorite cartoons or anime growing up vs. now?

I don’t want to sound cliche but we can all admit Toonami played a big role in most of our introduction into Anime. Some of the characters I used to draw when I was younger were always from Dragon Ball Z. Then you had Rouroni Kenshin, Trigun, and Mobile Suit Gundam Wing. As for Western cartoons we had Fox kids so there was Spider-Man, X-men, Batman/Batman Beyond, and more. As for today I honestly can’t keep up. There’s so much to watch now but anime like Full Metal Alchemist, Attack on Titan, and Demon Slayer are a few that I have gravitated to.

Who’s your top artists on Spotify looking like? Or rather what artists are you listening to at the moment?

My favorite music category is NeoSoul and R&B. So I’m mainly listening to the likes of Maxwell, Snoh, and Gallant. Then you can’t forget the classics like Michael Jackson, Prince, and Floetry . I enjoy Hip-Hop and rap as well but my main thing will always be Neosoul. 

What convention are you most excited about in 2024 or 2025?

This is honestly my most active year when it comes to cosplay and conventions. I didn’t start branching outside of New York Comic Con until 2021 when I attended my first Katsucon. Which is where  I met a lot of close friends. So Katsucon which happens every February is one for 2025. I attended Blerdcon for the first time last year and had a blast, the vibe was basically a giant cosplay cookout and I will be there again this year. I just recently got approved to be an Influencer for Anime NYC in August, and of course, the con that started it all for me, New York City Comic Con in October.

If you could have one super power, which would it be?

Teleportation . The ability to instantly be anywhere you wanted whenever you wanted always intrigued me. Plus you don’t have to deal with traffic anymore 😅

Any words you have for future cosplayers coming up in the scene?

The best advice I can give is to not let people dictate what makes you happy. I have been cosplaying a lot longer than my peers and I saw how it has evolved and became something you can commercialize and profit from. Whether it be as an income or popularity, and with that there’s always competition. The only person you should be competing with is yourself. There’s also a substantial amount of racism in the community. With the evolution of social media and the rise of Tiktok and Instagram, even though it helps us, trolls have also been given a platform and will consistently tell you that you shouldn’t cosplay a character simply because that character isn’t a person of color. Don’t feed into the negativity and continue to do what makes you happy. People often like to use the “It’s my opinion” defense. I usually counter it with “I understand that’s your opinion and you have every right to it. Just like I have the right to say that your opinion is shit”