Cosplayer Of Color Profile: Enasni Volz

To celebrate Black History Month, we take a moment to highlight seven cosplayers of color whose contributions to geek culture and the greater cosplay community go well beyond their costumes. Third up:

Enasni Volz

Enasni Volz is an active, honestly enthusiastic, and sincere cheerleader of her fellow cosplayers — especially of those who cosplay two of her favorite characters: Mad Moxxi of Borderlands and Harley Quinn of DC Comics. Quite accomplished and well-known in her own right, Enasni never compares herself to others, refuses to play the “who wore it best game,” shuts down negativity, and is sincerely supportive and welcoming to her peers. Her Harley Quinn cosplays have been showcased and lauded all over the world, and she’s worked for Gearbox Software as their official Mad Moxxi at San Diego Comic-Con. This could give any cosplayer an ego, but instead of getting a chip on her shoulder, Enasni pours goodwill into the fandom communities she loves and pushes herself to keep learning and growing.

No one could ever get away with calling her a fake nerd girl. She has an insightful knowledge of DC comics, emphasis on pre-New 52, and recommends hunkering down with all that “No Man’s Land” has to offer. Anyone who comes onto her pages talking trash about Borderlands, especially in regard to certain characters of progressive sexuality, will be civilly, but thoroughly, schooled.

Enasni cosplays the characters that she loves, sometimes stepping away from Moxxi and Harley to take a comic turn as Old Greg or Jayne (a genderbent Jay of Silent Bob fame). She has this to say to new or hesitant cosplayers of color who want to take on a character of a different race: “Do it. Really. Do it.” If a cosplayer encounters a jerk who “thinks he/she has something clever to say,” her advice is to block it, delete it, ignore it, and focus on the fun.

To see her extensive array of Harley Quinn and Mad Moxxi cosplays, and to see her take on the bigger builds of Battleborn characters, go to her website or Facebook. And don’t miss her entertaining and boozily informative in-character web series, Moxxi’s Happy Hour.

For more incredible cosplayers of color, find and follow the #29DaysofBlackCosplay hashtag on Twitter and Instagram. And find Gogo Incognito at http://Facebook.com/GogoIncognito and http://Instagram.com/geekchicsuperfreak.

Feature photo by Mike Rollerson Photography.