The Adventures of Kiel and Jami

Hey, gang! It's Halloween, but I doubt we'll be doing a big costume post this year since Jami and I are going as "exhausted bride and groom."

That's right, we finally tied the knot last weekend, so I figured my last celebration of the insane week that's been would be to share a bad ass comic that the great Joe Hunter drew for our big day. It's even got some Halloween stuff in it! Check the whole thing out on my personal blog, and we'll be back next year dressed up as some kind of teenage robots or something.

Halloween 2011: Jesus Left Chicago & Other Adventures

All right!

Once again, the collective crew of The CKT have made it through our traditional Halloween adventures. Well, Ben has been unfortunately delayed in his costuming, but I believe he's rocking out in some kind of Satanic getup this weekend (NOTE: I have no actual confirmation of Satanism in Ben's life). As in year's past, we're happy to provide the highlights of our ongoing attempts to act like more like children the closer we get to 30. Let's run down our nights one Cool Kid at a time!


Kiel!

So over the past few years of living in Chicago, my girlfriend Jami and I have gotten back into Halloween in a major way. And while we've had some pretty decent couples costumes the past few years (recall: Flint & Lady Jaye, Chuck & Blaire, Scott & Ramona), this year I think we took things as far as we could in assembling pieces to be Ned and Cat Stark from "Game of Thrones." The actual choice for costume came late in the game, but once Jami decided this was the one, she also decided to make a lot of the costumes herself on a sewing machine she got last Christmas.

Baby did a good job too! The capes and my tunic and other bits and bobs were put together by her, and she painted up my shield to be a bit more Winterfell-ish (you can't read it in his pic, but it says "Winter Is Coming" across the front). My main contribution was super-gluing the world's cheapest Hand of the King broach. More on that in a minute.


Jami was a little bummed we couldn't find some suitable fish flair into her costume, but she pulled Cat off pretty great (that wig was super long and out of control!). Overall, our goal at Halloween parties has become tallying how many people actually know what we're supposed to be. This year about ten folks knew, many of them from the Song of Ice And Fire books and NOT the TV show. Props.


On Friday night, we went and saw my buddies Wally Dogger play in the musical costume of ZZ Top at a bar in the Loop. The openers were a band dressed as Doctor Teeth And The Electric Mayhem (who I was told played some Muppets shit but were rocking some modern pop song when we showed up) and a band of dudes in USPS shirts who played as, you guessed it, the Postal Service. They were all right, I guess.

But the Dogger crushed it as ZZ Top. Pauly was in character as Billy Gibbons all night, and they made their way through most of the big hits: Tush, La Grange, Gimme All Your Lovin, Cheap Sunglasses, Sharp Dressed Man and you know what they closed with. Solid night.

Also: at one point, Dogger guitarist Swerve came up to me and said, "What's that pin for?" I say, "I'm the Hand of the King." Swerve says, "You give the King handjobs?" And I say, "No, I said I'm the Hand of the King." And Swerve says, "Yeah, but what if the King wakes up some morning and is like 'Hey, where's my hand?'"


While we were at the show, we saw a couple good costumes. This new guy to the crew named Brandon impressed with a Starfleet uniform. I've said it before and will say it again: Star Trek cosplay is the original cosplay. Also: my pal Thumbtack is up there and his costume is...well...it's Thumbtack's costume.


Here's Pauly's fiance Megan as Mrs. Potato Head and Swerve's girlfriend Elise as Harry Potter. I know the latter is pretty obvious from this pic, but when I first saw her, I thought the tie signified she was a waitress or something? Megan's also a pretty involved Halloweener (a few years back she came to our party as a functioning beer pong table), and this year I thought her hat really pulled Mrs. PH together.


Saturday night, we headed out to the 'burbs for a party with Jami's grad school crew. I don't know if you can tell, but her friend Lauren as Snow White above is like seven months pregnant. She's hiding it well up there, but it made for a super adorable costume at the party. Tiff is Snooki for the second year in a row, but I fucking loved it both times because of all that bronzer. She's actually quite pale!

The party was full on with folks in costumes and fire tossers and stuff. There were some folks dressed up as Spike and Dru (those "Buffy" fans aren't going anywhere, guys) as well as this hilarious kid of about 11 who was super pumped I could tell that his costume was supposed to be Steampunk (Steampunk Van Helsing to be precise, which I should have known from the crossbow). But the award of the night went to these folks:


I think Scott Pilgrim's costumes are going to be around for a while at Halloween. This pair was great because duder was a super big comics fan, and he said last year he got really bummed because he went as Mr. Sinister and no one knew what he was supposed to be, but I spotted Todd Ingram from across the room, and we high fived.

Late that night, I stopped off at one more party to see my buddy Guy Zach Nie, and guess what?


"Do you know a girl with hair like this?" BOOM! It was pretty spectacular catching up with The Guy for the first time in maybe three years.



Rickey!

My girlfriend Sam and I went to a costume party at a friend's house on Friday and we dressed as Gonzo, the Great and Animal! Sam even made the Muppet costumes from scratch!

On Saturday, we braved the snowstorm and went to the Chiller Theatre horror convention with two objectives: Meet/take a photo with Elvira and buy some DVDs.

Sam convinced me to dress in my Pee-Wee Herman costume from last year cause it would make a more fun photo with Elvira, whose appearance at the show would be her last in costume EVER.

The show was STUPID fun. Every single person there was nice and excited to be around. And Elvira! We found out she was doing one of those photo op things where you go with her behind a curtain and take a photo with a backdrop. But that was at 6 PM and cost $40, and we wanted to leave earlier than that, so we found where she was signing and walked into that area. Dominique Swain, Martin Landau, Furio from Sopranos, Robert Carradine and a bunch of others were in the same area, but Elvira's line was so long it stretched from one side of the room to the other and then back again. So we fought the crowd to get in it.

The line was so long that being in the back of the line meant we were snaked back to the front of the table and got to stare at her for a second. She's so gorgeous in person! I mean, that woman is polite and energetic and just breath-taking. I asked Sam to go over and ask her handler how much it cost to take a photo with her. The lady told Sam it was $60 at the table. Holy shit! I don't have that much money!

But as Sam's about to walk back over and ask how much it costs just to say hello to Elvira, someone grabs my arm from behind. IT WAS ELVIRA!

She'd gotten up to take a picture with a fan at the front of the line and spotted me. "I want to take a picture with Pee-Wee," she said out loud so her handler could hear her and get the Mistress of the Dark's cellphone camera. Sam looked back in the chaos at me - her eyes wide.

So, I'm standing there. Elvira's got her arm around me to my left. "Can you do the laugh?" she asks. And I can, really well, so I do it. She's cracking up. "That's great, I love it!" she squeeled.

So, in Pee-Wee's excited voice I say, "If you love it so much, why don't you marry it?" And she's dying! She's laughing hard! So I put my hand on her left hip like it's a prom picture.

Her booth lady snaps it, but there's no flash. "Do you mind waiting while we get the flash on? I want to put this online," she tells me up close. "Sure! That'd be so rad!" I tell her. By this point I have no charm left and my brain is melting and holy EFF, it's ELVIRA! And she's asking ME if it's okay to take a photo!

So in the second picture attempt, I raise my free right arm in a screaming pose and she's laughing and I know it's better and the flash goes off and she says thanks so much - Elvira's thanking me!!! - and I can't think straight and I say thanks to her. Just a real fast, "Thanks!" And she'll never know how much that whole series of events meant to me - how heartfelt and sincere my thanks was.

Cause I've this lady has been an idol of mine my whole life! And I never made it a point to meet her, let alone try and get a picture with her. And this was her last appearance IN Elvira make-up on the East Coast. And this whole thing happened during THAT!

So Sam is pretty dumbfounded, too. And I feel like I'm dreaming. And she asks if I want to stay in line since I didn't end up taking a picture with her on MY camera phone. And I tell her nah, this story is better than ever getting a picture with her. And so we walk away.

A little while later, the electricity went out - TWICE. The whole con floor went BLACK. The snow knocked down power lines. But everybody kept having fun. The electricity came back up and everything was fine. Cause like I said, everybody was completely polite and fun. Just a really nice crowd.

And later that night, Elvira Tweeted this:




Kevin!

Halloween is my favorite holiday. Hands down. Dressing up in costumes. Decorations. Haunted houses. Costume Parties. I absolutely love it all. But along with the usual festivities, there's another reason I look forward to Halloween each year.

Not too long ago, my friends and I began a yearly tradition for Halloween: every year, we all head to Orlando, Florida, and do a three-day extravaganza at Disney World--specifically hitting up the very, very awesome Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party where we all dress in themed costumes and rock out at the Magic Kingdom! It's tons of fun and we have a blast walking around the park in our costumes, going on rides and taking photos. Past themes included Peter Pan (I was Tic-Toc the Croc), Disney Villains (Scar) and Prince and Princesses (Beast).

Now, you may have noticed an non-human theme in my costumes. Keeping with that, this year, when we decided our theme was going to be X-Men, I immediately jumped at the chance to dress as one of my favorite characters: Kurt Wagner, aka, the incredible Nightcrawler! I decided to go with the movie version of the costume because not only was Alan Cumming absolutely amazing in the role but also because I would have looked TERRIBLE in tights. Completing the X-Men was: my friend Chrissy as Emma Frost; her boyfriend Dustin as Cyclops; Dustin's best friend Johnny as Gambit; and my friend Amanda as the very awesome Kitty Pryde.

Before we get to the pictures though, I want to share my favorite story of the night.

The evening was coming to a close and before heading back to the hotel we decided to hit up one more ride: Splash Mountain. Now, if you've never been on this ride, let me sum up. It starts off as this nice water ride through an inside cavern. It's very peaceful, and there's nice music, animatronic woodland creatures frolicking about and a innocent story about a rabbit playing a prank on a Bear and a Fox. Then all of a sudden, the tone changes, the storyline gets really dark and you suddenly go on this massive drop straight down and get soaked to the bone. Normally, it's insanely fun and totally cool, but considering my costume, I really, really didn't want to get wet. To make matters worse, Kitty Pryde and I were in the front seat. Thankfully though, Nightcrawler's a teleporter.

As we were going down the drop, we all threw up our hands for the picture, and as soon as I saw the flash of the camera, I curled into a ball and ducked, which caused the massive splash of water to fly right over me and smack Gambit in the face. I then popped back up like I was there all along. Whereas the others were soaked, I was totally dry. It absolutely looked like at the last moment I BAMFed away for a second. It was awesome.

So, anyway, it was a really great trip and I can't wait for next year! And now, pictures!









The Crew

Hey, it's Kiel again! I put out the call to some of our rad bros in the comics biz to share their Halloween's with us too, and they killed it!


Above is Marvel TV bad ass and "Thundercats" writer Todd Casey as Peter Parker, which he wore to be a photographer at a fancy, shmancy Hollywood party. Oo la la. Included is his buddy Ben in a Flash costume that Todd helped him glue together after Ben's boyfriend made it from scratch (maybe they read our Ben's post?).


And it wouldn't be a holiday without a hugable photo of Archaia's Mel Caylo which we have here as our boy snuggles up to a chick-a-dee while dressed as a Hawaiian. That lei joke never gets old on Halloween, y'all.


Finally, to remind y'all of what the holiday is really all about, here's my niece LuLu in a Rapunzel costume she begged my brother to make, and which he dually begged my mother to chip in on (and that's great, because Lynn Phegley thought she was all done with Halloween when I went to college).

Hope you guys got lots of apples with awesome and useful razor blades! See you next year!

How to make a Flash Halloween costume

If I did it when I was seven, you can do it too! Here we go...

1. Get a pair of red sweatpants or pajama bottoms.

2. Get a long sleeve red shirt.

2a. If you can, use a pair of red pajamas, preferably a onesie, but a two-piece can work. If it's got footies, bonus.

2b. No footie pajamas? Locate a pair of yellow rain boots (or just wear your sneakers).

3. Grab some paper, cut out a white circle; color a lightning bolt in yellow--or use yellow paper--cut that out and then glue it on the circle. Use staples, tape, glue, whatever you prefer to adhere the symbol to your chest.

4. The secret weapon: A red swim cap.

5. Cut a domino mask out of red paper and either tuck it in under the cap or cut holes on the sides and run a rubber band or string through to hold it on your face.

6. Take some yellow pipe cleaners you can make little wings out of and stick them behind your ears.

7. Take remaining yellow pipe cleaner and make a "belt" that you can stick by your method of choice to the waist.

8. Voila!

NOTE: I did not make this costume for Halloween, I was just bored.

Be safe out there and have fun!

The Cool Kids Table Vs. Halloween

YO!

As Ben already ably pointed out in his post from the actual holiday, we do it up right for Halloween in CKT country. And aside from our erstwhile editor's own foray into Tony Starkdom, the rest of the blog had a weekend full of playing dressup like children and eating like 40,000 Butterfingers (forget you, R.L. Stein!). Below, we get into each of our experiences on All Hallows Eve, and for more rad costumes, be sure to check out the contributions of our pals Mel Caylo, Ryan Penagos and Chris Ward.


Kiel!

Squeezing one last drop out of the year of Scott Pilgrim, I dressed up as Bryan Lee O'Malley's hero with an eye towards seeing how many people actually knew who I was dressed as (turns out...about 10!).


Is it just me, or is like 83% of the fun of Scott Pilgrim cosplay the act of poorly recreating poses from the book's covers?


My girlfriend Jami ended up going as Ramona Flowers, which it turns out is a much more recognizable look for party people to latch onto. She was a total trooper, even though she was ready to burn that wig by night's end.


There weren't a ton of other comics folks on the prowl at the three parties we hit up on Friday night, but one of them did have a lone copy of Blankets sitting next to a "Peanuts" Jack-O-Lantern. Instant photo op!


I took more than a few pics of the sword because it cost about $40 to make, and unlike the Plumtree t-shirt and the six XL women's winter coat from Old Navy, I'm never going to have any use for it ever again. The nice thing about the sword though is that when people did recognize who I was, they'd instantly go, "Holy shit! You earned the Power of Love!"


Our gimmick for the night was that whenever someone recognized who we were, we gave them chocolate coins. As you can tell, we had quite a few left over at the end of the evening.


This has almost nothing to do with anything else in this post, but I had to share the raddest costume I saw all night: a couple dressed as Finn and Pricess Bubblegum from "Adventure Time!" They were super keen. There was also a girl at the first party dressed as Tank Girl, but I forgot to get that pic loaded to this computer. I promise to put it on Tumblr later.


Rickey!

Here's me dressed as Pee Wee Herman. We went to a party on Saturday and then to the [infamous NYC] parade on Sunday. It was freezing and didn't seem organized in ANY way, so we wandered around for about 2 hours trying to find a place to stand. When we finally found a place, which was the run-off of the end of the parade, the organizers started cutting the parade at a block earlier than us, so we had to go in search of another spot to stand. But all the avenues were barricaded, so it was like they didn't want anybody to get in to see the parade. Later, as we were trying to cross an intersection about 2 avenues away from the parade, the cops closed off the pedestrian walkway, trapping about 150 people on each corner. This drunk idiot started shouting at the cos and then some younger guys under him started at him to stop screaming in their ears and then a fistfight broke out literally RIGHT next to us. It was nuts. We ended up having to walk over to Union Square to catch a train all the way back to where we started so we could catch a train home cause the cops blocked every sidewalk heading in the subway's direction. I was like, "Hey, can you tell me where I can catch a train form here if the sidewalks are all blocked off?" and the cop I spoke with was like, "Uh...To be honest, we're closing off this whole neighborhood cause the crowds are turning into mobs."

So we walked way way out of our way to get home.


Kevin!

Every year, me and a few of my friends attend Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween event at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. It's a pretty rad tradition where Disney dresses up the Magic Kingdom all Halloweeny and there are special parades and fireworks and such. Tons of people show up in costume and it's a bunch of awesome fun every year. Also when we attend, me and my friends dress in themed costumes – previous years including Peter Pan and Disney Villains, and this year being Princes and Princesses.


As you can see, I totally went with a Beast costume from my favorite Disney film of all time, "Beauty and the Beast." Originally I tried to order a costume, but that fell through pretty hard. Thankfully, my mom and sister totally kick butt and made this costume entirely from scratch. My mom found a suit jacket, altered it to add coat tails, added the gold trim and replaced the regular buttons with gold ones. She also stitched frills to a white dress shirt and made the gold vest. My sister painted the horns and added a clear strap so it fit on my head and she made the gloves with acrylic claws, which she painted brown. My contribution included owning black slacks and picking up fangs from the store to give myself Beast's under bite. Whoo! So, yeah. My mom and sis are awesome.


Anyway, pictures include all of us all pimped out in our Princes and Princesses gear, some fun shots with my friend Amanda, who dressed as Belle, and a totally badass image taken by my friend Bridget (Aurora) of us all in shadow. Enjoy the pics and I hope everyone had a Happy Happy Haaalllllloweeeeen!

Ben's Halloween as Tony Stark

I've already seen some pics of Rickey and Kevin's Halloween costumes for this year, both of which were excellent, and if the past is any indication Kiel will top us all, so hopefully all of them will post what they got up to, but I'll start and discuss my adventures as none other than Marvel's own...


...Tony Stark, aka Iron Man!

I fully admit that I stole this idea from roughly two dozen cosplayers I've seen at various conventions over the past two-three years; I figured it would be do-able, but also enough of a challenge that if I did it right, it would look appropriately cool.

The main advantage those dudes had over me was generally natural black hair, so dying that was the first order of business.


Also, as you can see, I snagged some neat accesories, namely the Repulsor Blaster and the Arc Chest Light. I always intended to hit Wal-Mart the night before I needed the costume done and grab whatever was neat and affordable, and I lucked out with these. The Chest Light in particular was a steal as you can clip it on any shirt and I know myself and the gang at Marvel will have fun for months with both gadgets, as they're definitely headed to work with me.

The other thing I didn't have was a goatee, so I grew my stubble out a weak, shaved it like Mr. Downey Jr., then my lovely wife used some black face paint to make sure it didn't look like a 13-year-old boy trying to grow facial hair like usual. I knew from the start that a suit was clutch (tank top wasn't gonna do), so we threw all that together and voila:

Last night I hit my buddy Jordan's Halloween party and had a blast with some friends from college and new folks we've been meeting via him and his wife, Chloe. A very fun group that included another Tony Stark! His costume had a few less bells and whistles than mine, but he did come up with a homemade Arc Reactor glowing from under his shirt by using a glowstick, which I was a bit jealous of. The coolest take away for me me, though, was that there were two guys at one Halloween party dressed as Iron Man in his civilian identity, when only a few years ago most of the general public didn't even know the costumed version--that rocks.


Pictured here from left to right are my friends and I: Taylor as Hunter S. Thompson, Jordan as a Jersey Devil (a devil from the Jersey Shore; pretty clever), Dan as a character from The Town (and he was quite frustrated that I was about the only person who realized who he was) and me.

And then here's me as well as Megan as a Pisces.


Interestingly aside from "Cool costume!" the comments I got the most were "You look great with a goatee--have you thought of growing one for real?" and "You look like David Arquette." On the first, yeah, I've been trying for about a decade; on the second, great, what perfect timing.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween '09: The Year We All Drank In Costume

You know that headline could almost work any year, but seeing as this Halloween fell on a cherished Saturday night, it seems to me like there were even more people in my immediate circle of friends dressing up and drinking at ramshackle house parties. To celebrate, I thought I'd share the highlights (lowlights?) from my own 10-person soirée as well as what a few of the other dudes were doing over the past weekend. Huzzah!




So my girl Jami and I followed up last year's experiment in couple's comic bookery by dressing up as the meanest couple on trashy TV: Chuck Bass & Blair Waldorf from "Gossip Girl." Since we kept it at our place, I didn't quite get to pull off my planned move of answering everyone who asked what I was supposed to be with "I'm Chuck Bass" only to have them stare at me befuddled, but I got to do it a few times. Plus, I'm totally wearing that vest later this week for my business meetings in NYC.

Jami's pal Chris popped in as the Hulk (posing here with Jami's sis Carries as the Hamburglar). Every year, Chris' Halloween goal involves dressing up as whatever allows him to layer on the most body paint, so mission accomplished on that goal. Also of note was the fact that even though I'd have guessed he'd have to go to eBay, he picked up a pair of Hulk Hands new at "Toys R' Us." Hulk Hands, you guys...more popular than either of that characters movies combined. Some day, we're going to be old men, and there will be young 20-something Turks coming up in the comics industry who talk about Hulk Hands like we do about Superpowers figures and the X-Men arcade game. *shudder*




My guitar player Pauly and his girlfriend Megan came out even though they'd gotten blackout the night before as members of Team Zissou at a party with our bud Nice Peter, so it's all aces for them. Pauly was a cow, and it disturbed everyone to no end that at any given time in the night his hand would absent-mindedly reach down and start jerking as his rubber utters. Later on, we made semi-use of Megan's Beer Pong costume by setting the board up on the ironing board and whipping golf balls at the empty Velcroed cups. I won. Also: grog's little bro Jimi showed up without a costume, so I made him wear a hat and be Hobo Indiana Jones.


Our food spread was defended by Bruce Lee and featured Laffy Taffy (Best joke of the night? Q: Why did the skeletons cross the road? A: They didn't. The dogs ate them.) and Geoff Johns' beloved Monster Cereals. When we took our final pic of the night, Carrie's boyfriend Steve looked at the "Astroy Boy" figures in her Happy Meal purse, asking me whether I thought that movie was just a blatant ripoff of Mega Man or what. I wasn't sure how to answer that.



Meanwhile, several states away, Rickey and TJ dressed as Golden Age superheroes, doubtlessly confusing everyone they were with. I'll let Rickey explain:

"My girlfriend and I were stunningly invited to a superhero costume party by NON-comics industry friends along with TJ and his wife, so I got to wear my first ever superhero costume! Although I DID have a Beast Man outfit from Masters of the Universe when I was 6. My girlfriend made my whole outfit complete with a winged helmet (which held vanilla pudding just 24 hours prior!), red booties and a lightening bolt-emblazoned shirt. I took the helmet off for everything but pictures and TJ lost the cape so we could dominate at beer pong (cause we're a natural, god damned team) before he unleashed the full fury of a fog machine inside the tiny room we partied in. He's a hellion. Also: our ladies are BOSS."



As you can see, Rickey's gal Sam was a convincingly radical Zatanna while TJ's wife Emily went as Black Canary. When I first saw Em's picture on Facebook, the whig had me totally missing that it was her. I guess that shit does work for secret identities after all.


Later, the crew's entire photoset devolved into shots like this one because, as Rickey told me, "TJ just turned the fucking fog machine on full-blast cause he was drunk. And it was funny. We were in that tiy room fiulled with fog for WAAAAY longer than is probably healthy for people. And the guy I was playing beer ping against at that point was getting super annoyed that he couldn't see the cups anymore and went so far as to accuse TJ that we were cheating, hahahaha! I even stopped playing full-on and just started throwing my ping pong ball as hard as possible at their end of the table. Then I stole a handful of Tootsie Rolls and dipped out."



Lastly, I spotted these sweet pics of Sean's Missus dressed up for her school day of teaching middle schoolers to sing as Victoria from "Twilight." Honestly, knowing Sean, I just figured Amy was trying to get super Irish, but the red eyes should have been a giveaway. In a hilarious and unsolvable misunderstanding, Rickey and I both thought she was also wearing makeup to make her look more pale, but apparently that's just how she photographs under the sickly fluorescent lights of America's public school system. Seriously, it's like the secret plan of the government is to take the segment of the population that think about how much they hate their looks more than anything in life and lit their skin to highlight acne. I hope all kids everywhere wore bad ass masks to school on Friday and then went off on a three-day candy binge instead of doing math.



UPDATE!: I knew as soon as I posted this, my brother would get around to posting pics of my too adorable for words nephew and niece, starring as a pirate and Foofa from Yo Gabba Gabba! Bask in the cuteness glow of superior genes.