Greetings, fellow pop culture fanatics! "Cosmic Play" was primarily inspired by the (for me) new experience of attending comic/sci-fi conventions and my exposure to the phenomenon of cosplay. The concept of characters imbued with the powers/attributes of characters they are cosplaying came easily enough, but the plot for the story didn’t coalesce until I remembered reading about the tiny town of Las Penitas, Texas, which according to local legend is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The idea of adding a quest to the story was a perfect solution for me, insofar as the entire story is a self-conscious commentary/dissection of common tropes in science fiction and fantasy. I managed to weave the legend of the founding of Las Penitas by lost Spaniard soldiers with local Civil War history (the final battle of that conflict took place here in south Texas) and the conflated legends of the Fountain of Youth and the Holy Grail, into a fantastic quest down the historic Rio Grande River, featuring such locations as the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge and the famous Port Isabel Lighthouse, and featuring such unique players as a Heavy Metal superhero brought to life off the comic page, and an extremely jumbo shrimp. "Cosmic Play" is at once a critique and a love letter to pop "nerd" culture, and a semi-serious rumination about such topics as creativity, the need for fantasy, and the desire for youth, told through the words of a disparate cast of sci-fi/fantasy fanatics and creators.