This week we're excited to share this interview with Kyle and Chantel of Creative Cosplays Magazine. As submitters and as readers, we were thrilled to peak behind the curtain on a magazine! Kyle and Chantel shares how they got started, what the work entails, and why they started a cosplay magazine.
The Magazine
Who are the creators behind Creative Cosplay Magazine?
We are Creative Cosplays Magazine, a cosplay magazine that my wife and I started back in 2019. We are two cosplayers that fell in love with the cosplayer community and wanted to help create a fun way to showcase all the talent within it.
How did you decide to start a magazine?
When we met back in 2016, we both were fans of comic characters. My wife was a lover of Harley Quinn, and I was all about Spiderman. Our first big date was a trip to a comic convention where we both began our relationship with the cosplay community. We began going to more conventions together and cosplaying each time, growing our interest in it. She began the Instagram share page that is @Creative.Cosplays where she wanted to help share the amazing talent of others. After having some of our work in another cosplay magazine, and myself being a Graphic Designer, we thought that we could create something even better. This was also around the time when we had kids and time for creating our own cosplays had to be put on the back burner. We wanted to remain involved in the community and put together our first issue and have been doing them ever since.
Rewards and challenges
What’s the most rewarding thing and most challenging thing about working on the magazine?
The most rewarding thing about creating our magazine is providing everyone the opportunity to have their amazing work published. One of the best feelings of cosplaying is when you get to a place all dressed up and people want to take a photo of you or with you. With our magazine, we give everyone that same opportunity to experience that feeling no matter what your level of experience is. So, seeing the responses from those who do get published has been the most rewarding thing so far.
Some challenge that we have with working on our magazine is time. I also work full time and have to juggle 2 kids. Luckily during covid, I was able to work from home and it really helped to provide some extra time to put these issues together and try new things. But now, with having a new job right around the corner, having the time to work on them will become limited and more difficult. Since it is just us, a lot goes into design and marketing, but we have been able to manage so far and will continue to create them for as long as we can.
The typical day
What does the typical magazine product cycle look like for you? A day in the life when you’re working on the magazine. How many hours are you putting into the magazine during slow times and busy times?
So each magazine varies in how long they take to complete, but we give ourselves about a month to work on each issue. The variable that can make things tricky is making sure we get enough submissions within that time to fill up an issue. Luckily our CCM family and support have been incredible, and we are able to get enough to fill an issue within the first couple of weeks after submissions are open. We spend a good amount of time putting everything together before sending proofs out for review and making changes as needed before everything is finalized and sent to be printed.
We now have a couple of issues that we put together. Our Seasonal issues are the largest and will consist of Cosplayers, Photographers, Season Winners, Articles, and highlighting someone whose work really stands out to us at that time. Our Mid Season issues are the smallest issues that we put together in-between seasons that focus more on cosplay photography. Showcasing the best photos submitted in a full-page format. And lastly, we have our Themed issues that we work on when possible, where we get to have fun focusing on a single theme (holidays, shows, movies, etc.).
On pursing passion
What do you do full-time currently? Do you see yourself doing this full-time? Why or why not? What would have to happen for you to take the plunge?
That is our goal. I currently work as an Engineer to help pay the bills, but it is not as much fun as creating our magazine. And my wife has the hardest job of taking care of our two amazing kids. We still have a while to go until our magazine is at a point where we could do it full time. Luckily, we continue to grow and look for ways to help us get there. As soon as we get there though, we surely will take that plunge.
Do you have any recommendations for people looking to do more with cosplaying and using their passion to support themselves?
That is a secret code that we are still trying to crack. We see so many talented cosplayers out there who have solved it and have found ways to make a living off of their love of cosplay. We have met many who started out when we did and now have grown by magnitudes just from improving their craft. There are so many avenues now for creators to take and opportunities to sustain ourselves while continuing to develop the craft. It all just depends on your desire and ambition to make that happen. It all takes time and effort that you just have to go for. Take some chances and try new things until you get there. We are still on that path and hopefully will get to a point where can become the world's best cosplay magazines.
Favorite memory
What’s your favorite cosplay memory?
Our favorite cosplay memories are getting the opportunity to meet people who have been in our magazine when we attend a convention. Meeting those who have supported us has been a great feeling and motivates us to keep going. Having more opportunities to be involved at cons that we haven’t had prior is always rewarding as well. Hoping to soon team up with people to host one of our own in the future. We have been able to do some pretty awesome stuff since we started including creating our first comic book, Steel and Nova, which is an origin story of our CCM mascot heroes. We are in the process of having it colored now and should be done this year. That has been a great achievement of ours to have worked on. We also now have our very own custom suits made of those same heroes that were created by @napiers_inc, which we are so excited to have. So many great memories and achievements so far, and we hope they continue.
Mengshu is a co-founder of Coscove. Growing up in Canada, Mengshu loved theatre, dance, and all things photography. She did photoshoots in costume before even learning what cosplay was! Find her on Coscove: coscove.com/mengshus
