Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

The cover story on Friday’s tbt* is about a bunch of zombies that wander around Tampa Bay now and again.

The Deadite Empire is a group of 100 or more local souls who dress up in gore for kicks, and socialize at pub crawls, horror events, movie showings and the like.  Most of the online action is at their myspace page, but I also found a pretty basic webpage (hey, they are zombies, not webgeeks) with info about the founders.

I had never heard of these guys, but I have seen Batman walking around a number of times, and Peter Pan has been flitting around Ybor City for years.

Thinking about all of these people who costume for more than just Halloween, I figure there must be other Bay area groups that get in costume on a regular basis.

There is a Tampa Bay Anime blog & forums, but didn’t see anything about getting in costume.  Likewise the local Elvis fan club meets and sings Elvis songs karaoke-style, but not so sure about the bejeweled clothes, thick sideburns, and big sunglasses part.  I couldn’t really think of any others to look for.

Maybe you know of a subculture that thrives here in Tampa Bay.  Tell us what you’ve seen, and if you are aware of any websites…