At Comic Con, Emergency Tailors Keep Cosplayers in Character

When cosplayers descend on New York Comic Con, they’re looking to meet their favorite creators and show off their outfits — but they often end up in need of costume triage. Armed with glue guns, zip ties, Popsicle sticks and safety pins, the Paladins of Cosplay come ready to fix wardrobe malfunctions — like a dangling shoulder pad, an imploding jetpack or any number of hazards that costumed fans face.

“I really love helping people,” said Law Asuncion, 46, who founded the Paladins in 2017. The group is named after the pilots of the robotic hero Voltron, and the term is also an olden-days word for champion. Asuncion and the repair team will be at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, home of New York Comic Con, through Sunday.

Asuncion with two of his trusty tools: scissors and glue gun.Credit…Jordan Macy for The New York Times

The Paladins’ initial purpose was to find like-minded cosplayers who had a passion for the craft of costume; they would meet up and create outfits together. The Paladins have transformed themselves into the monsters of the film “Pacific Rim,” Voltron and his trusted pilots and a collection of sinister Batmen from DC’s “Dark Metal” comic book story line.

They soon realized their costume expertise could be used for a greater good. “The original concept of the repair station probably was born out of seeing random cosplayers using hot glue in the middle of the show floor,” said Asuncion, who is an I.T. specialist for a medical device company. The Paladins set up their first table in 2021, the year New York Comic Con returned to in-person attendance after going virtual in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

At that show, they came to the aid of Boba Fett, the “Star Wars” bounty hunter. “He looked immaculate,” Asuncion said. But his jetpack, which was created using 3-D printing, was problematic, he recalled.