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About
The Short Version.
The Alter Egos Society is comprised of a collection of artists, writers, and other superhero enthusiasts who have lent their time and efforts to working on costume-related projects in the Portland, Oregon area. Founded in 2007 by Benja Barker, the AES has produced a series of video shorts (all distributed online), started two annual costumed events (“Power Struggle” in the Spring and “Ceasefire” in the fall), and released an amateur short film (“ARCHIVES OF THE FANTASTIC: The 9th Cosmic Convergence”). Profits raised from DVD sales and event tickets are donated to p:ear, a local non-profit that mentors homeless youth. The Society’s events are regularly supported by many local comic shops and companies, with Spring event assistance provided by Drunken Rampage Events. Part of the mission of the Alter Egos Society is to explore the various mythos of superhero genres through costume making, role playing, filmmaking and other forms of storytelling.
The True Origins of the AES!
In The Beginning…
In 2007, some friends in Portland got to talking about making fancy-pants superhero costumes. Having been obsessed with superheroes since our tender years it wasn’t an unusual conversation, but we wanted to give ourselves a good excuse. We needed to have a party.
We moved beyond the house party idea and decided to go all out with a venue. It looked like we’d have make the event for profit so we could afford it (and we didn’t like that idea). The original goal was to indulge our creative fantasies. Money tends to muck that up. That was the gist of our conversation. Then the obsession set in.
A friend suggested we make the event a fundraiser for a charity. That was the idea that gave the original (nerdy) idea the heroic purpose it needed.
Another friend volunteered for p:ear and we were quite impressed with their mission and approach. Seeing their value for creativity shared with homeless and transitional youth definitely squared with our own values and we decided our event should benefit them.
Later On…
We held our first event at the Someday Lounge in downtown Portland, in October of 2007. We got several bands to play and “best costume” prizes were sponsored by a local restaurant and a comic book shop (we love you, Bridge City Comics!).
The response to the event was great (or super, if you will) and gave us the impetus to make it an annual event.
Since then we’ve partnered with Drunken Rampage Events to host our springtime costumed pub crawl, Power Struggle. We’ve also been very super lucky to have an increasing amount of support from many local comic book shops and companies. Having finished making our amateur short film epic, ARCHIVES OF THE FANTASTIC, and with another of our annual costume events always around the corner, the future looks bright and nerdy indeed.