Dragon*Con

Dragon*Con: Atlanta’s infamous (and the Nations biggest) annual convention for all things Sci-Fi, toon, super natural, comic book and anime.

Although this event has been happening for 22 years (2009 was the 23rd) and I, myself, have been in Atlanta for about the same, this was my first time attending (and my first time at any con for that matter) and I was super excited to see the costumes. Yes I know there is more to it than that but being the un-fan-girl that I am and the avid sewing and fashion enthusiast, I was thrilled at the thought of being surrounded by thousands of people in not just costume but in character.

So come Saturday Tunde and I arrive somewhat early sans badges because we don’t need no stinkin badges…. wait, I think we do…crap, we forgot to get badges!

Is this the end of the road for our bloggers? Have they missed yet another year of concentrated fan-dom? Will this trip have been in utter vain?

Uh…no.

So began our quest for badges. It is here that I became fully aware of how amazingly well organized this event is. The fact that they have been doing it for so long is evident and it amazed me how completely and fully they took over 3 major downtown hotels. There were very well informed & sometimes costumed helpers at every street corner keeping an keen eye out for confused looking guests (like ourselves). Colored tapes marked who goes where in the registration area. Free water and plastic cups at every turn. Cross-walk and traffic monitors. I felt very at ease throughout the whole process as a local and believe any out-of-town visitors would be at ease as well….although we did have the upper hand when it came to navigating to more affordable off-site food vendors ($7 for a burger??!)

But I digress. Soon after we began we successfully obtained the badges and began the next part of our quest: explore the awesomeness that is the Con!

Like I said before I was mainly interested in the costumes and characters as was Tunde. So we ran around from hotel to hotel snapping pictures like we were collecting trading cards. It’s amazing how easily one gets caught up in this. I knew very well that they were not real but the excitement and energy around them was all consuming. These attendants had spent all year getting up to 4 costumes done (one for each day) so people like us (and people like them) can share a brief moment of joy and adulation and take a picture of and/or with them…the character they shared memories with, grew up with or didn’t know at all but was in awe of irregardless….

Oh look, Rogue! Boba Fett! 4 Supermen! Look @ that blue guy! It’s that guy, Tunde who is he? Rorschach…aw a little baby Rorschach. Look @ that fuzzy guy! Excuse me sir, who are you? Furling from Stargate? (well actually you never see the Furlings on Stargate except in episode 200 but nobody bought the Koala creatures they showed)…. yeah, nerd central.

We did attend some of the scheduled events but not many. We walked around the pavillions and checked out a lot of comic book artists and vendors of all sorts of wares. But, for me, the best was the MC Chris concert Sunday night…you know the guy that does the voice of MC Pee Pants on Aqua Teen Hunger Force? Yeah, that guy. It was awesome…and hilarious. He looks like a fan boy and talks like an MC but with fan boy lingo (and his voice is just about as high as the ATHF character). I also had fun partying with a whole different crowd.

And so the night went on and the crowds got thinner and after 2 ambulances pulled up to the hotel to carry off 2 over partied individuals, we decided to head home and process everything that went on this weekend. We also took like 10 rolls of pics so do me a favor and check them out here on the FreshIam blog