A couple of years ago, I was honored to be included on an ad-hoc committee, including Jill Pantozzi, that was to help Pop Reed (the company that puts on many of the Comic Cons in larger cities) reword its antiharassment policy. This included the wording for the Cosplay is not Consent banners that were prominently displayed throughout the convention space.

I’ve recently had a flurry of frantic questions about a photo making the Internet rounds, showing a cosplayer posing next to what appears to be one of those banners, which states that Cosplay IS Consent. I can assure people that this was NOT the official wording for the banners. In fact, here’s a side-by-side comparison (with the cosplayer cropped out so as not to cause her any more embarrassment).

The sign on the left IS the official sign and wording that we approved for use at New York City Comic Con, and now other cons run by Pop Reed. The sign on the right is the clearly photoshopped fake one. There have been other, equally obnoxious variants of the photoshopped sign circulated around the Internet.

Just so there is no confusion…