Dragon Con 2023 Friday Gallery by Wonderllama Photo

Welcome to Mojo Dojo Dragon Casa Con! The Barbie (and Ken…and Allen) take-over of this year’s Dragon Con was epic in all the best ways. After three years away from the party, I was beyond excited to be back in the noise, the energy, the creativity and magic that is Dragon Con.

I knew the colossal success and cultural impact of Barbie would mean fun, imaginative cosplays. I brought two fun Barbie cosplays myself. But I wildly underestimated how many people connected with the movie’s themes and wanted to bring that color-saturated world to life with their personal spin. And, being Dragon Con, personal spin means the most ingenious, absurd, and laugh-out-loud mash-up cosplays anywhere — Barbie-Wan Kenobi, Barfbie, Barbalorians, and many, many more.

Meet-ups are a hallmark of Dragon Con, gathering cosplayers and aficionados of dozens of disparate fandoms, from Star Wars and Warhammer 40k to Disney and Marvel. It was no surprise that the Barbie meet-up was huge. It was far and away the biggest meet-up of cosplayers and fans I’ve ever seen at Dragon Con, a majestic sea of pinks and peroxide blonde covering the entire back stairs area at the Hilton.

Shortly after that I was at the wonderful and incredibly creative Loki meet-up, MC’d by our own Gogo Incognito. The diversity of cosplays speaks to how deeply people connect with the Marvel series, especially just weeks before the season two debut.

I was also delighted to see a Locked Tomb meet-up. The book series is one of the most challenging, complex, and fascinating reads in years. And when a series about space necromancers is full of bone-magic priestesses and their rapier-wielding cavaliers, the cosplay opportunities are endless. I’ve been a huge fan of the series since it came out, and seeing so many incredible cosplayers bring the characters to life was a real treat.

Season two of Good Omens brought out a large group of dedicated, passionate cosplayers. The variations on Azirophale and Crowley were amazingly diverse, and the group was full of deep love for these characters.

After that, I set up in a convenient spot at the Hilton patio to get photos with people. Cosplayers in this gallery include: msgidgetbardot, thegingerohsnap, seenicfx, Everi.Wear, Sionnach.cos, Orion.m00n, Bndgk13, Starryeyed_belle, Kokirileaf, Whovianchick, Kierstanmullinax, Eventual_horizon, Weeabougie.Cosplay, Juyoukiss, incidental.heresy, cocoescape_cosplay, sandjcosplay, pyxxle8, jetgrl, vera_jade_cosplay, themermaider_, Kelly9uinn, Trash_can_cosplay, fantastliv, cupcakesandcosplay, rosesavvy, johndetty, booker_detty, sarkazm2112, and many more.

We now use Smugmug to present cosplay photo galleries and will post all photos there, with a link to each gallery in its own gallery article. This will allow us to give you higher resolution images to download — still for free.

To view the entire gallery, just click on the image below. If you are pictured in any of our galleries, feel free to download the images and use them non-commercially on social media, with appropriate credit.

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This was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, many of the characters being cosplayed here wouldn’t exist. Please consider donating to the Entertainment Community Fund here.