{"id":411621,"date":"2026-07-25T03:41:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T03:41:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/411621\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T03:41:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T03:41:18","slug":"san-diego-comic-con-2026-volunteers-bring-superhero-dreams-to-life-with-custom-cosplay-wheelchairs-at-sdcc-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/411621\/","title":{"rendered":"San Diego Comic-Con 2026: Volunteers bring superhero dreams to life with custom cosplay wheelchairs at SDCC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">SAN DIEGO, Calif. &#8212; At San Diego Comic-Con, a nonprofit is helping young people express themselves through wheelchair cosplay, transforming mobility devices into custom creations inspired by fandom.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">One young attendee moved through the convention in a wheelchair designed as &#8220;Battle Cat&#8221; from &#8220;He-Man,&#8221; while another showed off a customized chair he said exceeded his expectations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;I don&#8217;t think I really could have expected how incredible and detailed and good-looking this actually turned out,&#8221; Derek Thatcher said. &#8220;It is just so nice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The group making these dreams come true is <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.magicwheelchair.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Magic Wheelchair<\/a>, a nonprofit that promotes inclusion and self-expression through wheelchair cosplay.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;We&#8217;re not just celebrating fandom and comics,&#8221; said Christine Getman, executive director of Magic Wheelchair. &#8220;We&#8217;re celebrating the freedom that wheelchairs give us and we&#8217;re helping kind of rrewritethe narrative about what it means to be disabled.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The volunteers are the group&#8217;s superheroes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;It&#8217;s garage builders, professionals,&#8221; Jeff Watamura said. &#8220;I&#8217;m a teacher and we do this at school.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The costumes are meant to be more than visually striking, supporters said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;It&#8217;s a big deal,&#8221; Scottie Foertmeyer said. &#8220;It goes beyond getting a costume. Like, that&#8217;s cool and it looks great and it&#8217;s fun. But the mission&#8217;s actually empowering kids.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The program is provided at no cost to families, including transportation to the event, lodging at the convention, badges and the finished wheelchair design.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;And the beauty of this whole thing, one of my favorite parts, is it&#8217;s entirely done at no cost to the families,&#8221; Shawn Thorsson said. &#8220;So everything they get, they get transportation to the event, lodging at the convention, the badges, all of that and then this goes home. It belongs to them free and clear.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The latest cosplay wheelchair was unveiled Friday afternoon and now belongs to a 16-year-old from Long Beach.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;I have no words for how awesome this chair is,&#8221; Isaiah Mejia said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Magic Wheelchair is based in Oregon, but its goal is to help people all around the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">For more information, go to <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.magicwheelchair.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">MagicWheelchair.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2026 OnTheRedCarpet.com. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN DIEGO, Calif. &#8212; At San Diego Comic-Con, a nonprofit is helping young people express themselves through wheelchair&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[164778,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-411621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-164778","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}