Chaka Cumberbatch is a name that has a catchy ring to it — maybe because it’s the alias for Little Rock’s beloved heroine. A nerdy babe posing as a web producer for a news station by day, she is really a benevolent vigilante skimming the headlines for the next villain she’ll bring to justice after quickly donning a form-fitting costume in the backseat of her car (because when was the last time you saw a phone booth?). But this is all speculation … or is it?
Q: How long have you been into comic books and cartoon characters?
A: It started at a young age. Being military, my dad moved around a lot, ... so I started reading because that’s something you can take with you everywhere. When you’re upset because you have to leave your friends, it’s ok because you can still have your comics and your cartoons. I’ve got four little brothers and sisters, and we would all watch cartoons together, just the difference was that they would eventually get older and grow out of it, and I wouldn’t. I would just keep hanging out with the younger ones, and we’d keep watching cartoons. I just sort of never really stopped.
Q: What is cosplay? What got you into cosplay?
A: Cosplay for me really started in high school. There used to be this magazine called Shojo Beat, and it would compile all these comic books from Japan — like they’d bring them over and translate them and put them in a magazine and put it out every month — and that’s when I first learned about conventions and that people went to conventions dressed like their favorite characters. ... I was into theater and was always into costumes anyway. I loved Halloween. I loved dressing up. I was completely in love with it, and it wasn’t until I graduated and had been in college for maybe two years when I went to my first con. It was A-Kon 19 in Dallas. It’s their longest running anime convention, and I wanted a costume and didn’t have one. I just went with a group of my anime club friends — it was a Japanese anime club that we had at UCA — and I saw all the costumes and all the work people put into them. It was way more intense than I could have imagined, and I was just in love with everything and took pictures of it all. The next year I went back and I had two different costumes, and the next year and the next year and the next year. This past year was my fifth year at A-Kon. It was my fifth year cosplay-versary. ... People get into it because they like dressing up, they like cartoons, they like comic books. You can really see how much people love their “fandom,” as they call it.
Q: Is there a large cosplay following in Arkansas? Do you have companions who dress up with you?
A: I wouldn’t say in Arkansas. I know a handful of people just from Anime Club and different nerd events. Every nerd in Arkansas knows someone who is connected to someone else. I call it the nerd web. We only have a couple of small conventions here, so most people that I know who cosplay, a lot of them go to Tokyo in Tulsa, A-Kon, Izumicon, cons in Louisiana and Missouri ... There are all sorts of little cons within a couple hours driving distance that people here go to. There aren’t really any here, but once you get into Texas — everyone is in Texas.
Q: So you recently returned from Comic-Con in San Diego. Will you tell me a little bit about your experience and what costumes you brought with you?
A: Comic-Con is the grandfather of all the cons. It is massive. I’ve been to Dragon Con, which is the only other comparable con in the U.S. (it’s in Atlanta every Labor Day weekend), ... so I thought, having gone to Dragon Con for two for three years, I was pretty well-prepared for Comic-Con, but I was not. It is a giant industry monster of a con. It takes over the entire San Diego Convention Center and behind it, and there is all sorts of stuff happening offsite within a 5 or 10 mile radius. It’s such a large con and there are so many people who go to it that it’s kind of hard to cosplay at that con. Usually you’re used to a convention center here and a hotel [nearby], so you don’t have to walk very far — you’re not walking miles and miles and miles in heels and if something breaks or snaps you can run upstairs [and fix it]. You can’t do that at Comic-Con unless you’re paying like $3,000 to stay next door. So the cosplay community at Comic-Con isn’t as big as some other cons, but people put way more into it because they know that all the news outlets go. Whatever you wear to Comic-Con, you’re going to be looking at for 10 years on the internet. I had an amazing time. I went to several panels, and I had my superhero princess group that I walked around with all day Friday. We were interviewed by a bunch of different people and took a bunch of pictures. ... As far as costumes, I brought Storm, my ballroom Tiana and my superhero Tiana and a girl version of the Joker. One of the challenges that you face flying to an out-of-state con like that is costumes and props getting through a flight. I brought my Sephora beauty box and it got completely destroyed in the plane ... I don’t know what they did to my suitcase to destroy it through 10 layers of clothing. I met a girl who brought all these costumes in her luggage and her luggage got shipped somewhere else and on the third day of the con it went to the wrong hotel.
Q: What’s something about cosplay that’s often misunderstood?
A: When you hear about people wearing costumes and running around, people think all sorts of things. People think it’s some weird sex thing. Or at Dragon Con especially because there is this big football game each year, you basically get nerds and jocks in the same city, and it very rarely ends well. A lot of times if you’re at a con but you’re walking outside the convention center people take it as an invitation [to pick on you]. The guys especially because you’ll have shorter, little guys wearing costumes who get picked on a lot. ... I really don’t see too much of a difference between a football fan going to a game and painting his face and wearing the team jersey and dying his hair and a comic book fan going to a convention dressed as Superman. It’s the same thing. It’s just showing what you love.
Q: Who did you see/meet at Comic-Con there that made you the most star struck?
A: I camped out for three hours to go to the Breaking Bad panel because I’m obsessed with [that show]. I was actually wearing Storm one afternoon walking out of a bar and I was walking across the street and I see this giant head of hair. My favorite band is Coheed and Cambria, and their lead singer Claudio Sanchez has this giant trademark fro of hair ... I saw a blonde chick with him and knew that she was his wife. ... He stepped aside and got a picture with me. He was really sweet. ... I walked past David Boreanaz and almost didn’t recognize him until I saw a giant horde of females running after him. At New York Comic Con last year I made eye contact with Stan Lee, and he waved at me.
Q: What other kinds of functions or places do you wear these costumes?
A: I make the costumes just for conventions. I’m going to wear Tiana to one of my best friends’ [child’s birthday parties]… other than that I just wear them at conventions, which sucks because we only have them a couple of times a year. ... I end up going to about three or four a year.
Q: All of your costumes are handmade, right? Did you teach yourself how to sew?
A: I commissioned a couple of them from a girl I know in Atlanta, then I started learning to make all my own costumes. It was about 50/50 there for a while and then I learned to sew this past year and got really into props and accessories and wigs. Wigs are my big thing. For the most part I make all of my own [costumes] now. Learning to sew has been a game changer. I made a Princess Tiana gown, and I was originally going to have it commissioned ... the first girl wanted $650. The second girl wanted like $450, but that was after I talked her down from $500. I was just like, I know a lot of that is labor. I bet I could do this myself. It took like three months, but I did it. From that point on I was just like ok I’m making everything myself.
Q: As a child, what did you typically dress up as?
A: The pink Power Ranger. And I made a pink Power Ranger costume last year, but I hate it. … I liked Minnie Mouse a lot. I liked Tiny Tunes, which was like the teenage version of Looney Tunes. They had one named Babs Bunny, and I loved her. When I was three I told everyone that was my name for two years. It was awkward.
Q: Who is your favorite comic book character?
A: Zatanna. She is a magician superhero in the DC Universe. She is amazing. A lot of people say Wonder Woman or Super Girl, and there are a lot of really, really good female comic book characters, but I love Zatanna so much. She doesn’t really work with anyone else. She was in the Justice League for a while I believe, but for the most part she does her own thing and she doesn’t have laser vision or anything. She just uses magic. Really she just uses her words to do everything. All of her spells she casts by speaking them backwards.