Before he was a neo-Nazi, Clayton Sanford was a cosplayer.
It was May 2008 and the occasion was Anime North, one of the largest annual anime gatherings in North America. Thousands of people descended on Toronto, dressed as Japanese cartoon and gaming characters. Sanford went as Roy, a character from Nintendo’s Fire Emblem series, complete with sky-blue armour, gold-handled sword, and a plume of striking red hair.
It was Sanford’s first cosplaying event. In photos he strikes various warrior poses, usually unsmiling and faux fierce-looking with a thick red wig and gold lamé flecking his costume. “I’m always serious. Because Roy is hardcore,” he wrote as a caption to one of these pictures.
A decade later, the now 31-year-old Sanford was deeply involved in another (decidedly less colourful) world, this one populated by proud racists who decry immigration, denigrate minorities, and espouse mass deportation and occasionally genocide in an effort to make Canada white again.
As “Axe In The Deep,” Sanford hosted This Hour Has 88 Minutes, one of the most popular and enduring white nationalist podcasts in the country. From September 2016 until mid-May 2018, when it went dark following inquiries from VICE, 88 Minutes was a gleefully profane, forever hateful take on the news of the week. (more...)
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