Our favorite costumes from Dragon Con 2021

Our cosplayers are burdened with glorious purpose

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Two years ago marked the last time we grabbed a drink in the downtown Hyatt’s bar, ready to watch a seemingly unending display of cosplayers dressed in their best displays of creativity, artistic talent, and puns that would put late-night hosts to shame. It was a long wait, and we’re still in a surreal haze. The return of Dragon Con was exciting, but one couldn’t help but lament the reduced attendance during a year still affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Regardless, Dragon Con 2021 was an escape—a chance to (almost) forget the state of the world while marveling at the cosplay that makes being downtown on Labor Day weekend in Atlanta a truly unique experience to behold.

2021 was the year of the variants (in more ways than one, unfortunately). Characters from Loki dominated the con, ready to be pruned by the Time Variance Authority’s ever-watchful agents. (After all, the Marriott Marquis was the location of their headquarters outside time and space.) Beyond that, the usual slew of film, television, comic, anime, and pop-culture costumes rounded out con-goers’ clothing choices. Our Nexus Event in time for this Dragon Con, the requirement of masks, led to interesting cosplay choices. If your character doesn’t traditionally wear a mask, how do you add one? Many cosplayers amazed us with creative solutions to that problem: masks based on the character’s personality, printed faces, and other outside-the-box solutions that allowed us to attend this summer’s convention rather  than wait yet another year.

Want to learn more about what we saw? Read our highlights here.

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