Dragon*Con Post-Mortem

Well, I'm back...

Alessia and I attended Dragon*Con 2009 in Atlanta this weekend and had a real blast. She has already posted her reactions and since we did all the same things, I'm gonna try to avoid repeating her thoughts... with one major exception.

I too wish to say how cool it was to be a part of the Thriller world record attempt. Even if they find some technicality we missed and deny us the official recognition, we all have that awesome moment when the laughter stopped and the excitement of accomplishment burst out. (Yeah, I know...all I devoted was a few hours to it while Lauren and the rest of the team worked on this for months. I hope they don't mind my leap to inclusion, but I really do feel like all 900+ participants have become a sort of team. It was that cool.) By the way, in the practice video that Alessia posted, I am the white-shirted Pirate at the very beginning.

I've been to several Comic-Cons, including back in the days before Hollywood really discovered it. Dragon*Con has that sense of camaraderie which characterized the original Comic-Con, although it is a bit more diverse in the interests and is already bigger than Comic-Con was in the early eighties.

I loved the diversity of the costumes. There are so many people walking about in costumes that they obviously made themselves. Not obvious because they look cheap...obvious because they don't. They are very individual and show signs of the love invested in them. The fact that some of the people in the costumes are attractive doesn't hurt, but I will also say that I would far rather take a picture of a person wearing something they made and love than a booth babe wearing something because she is receiving a paycheck.

We dressed up three of the four days and were quite flattered to be asked to stop and pose. After Friday, when we wore our Hammer and Anvil outfits in tribute to Dr. Horrible, we thought the remainder of the weekend we would be fairly anon. The H & A double entendre plays well with this crowd, so we expected some attention. But we actually were stopped more often on Sunday. Personally, I'm gonna lay the credit for that at the feet of my partner. She looked fantastic in her black pirate top and corset and high boots.

The fact that neither of us looked anything like Johnny Depp probably helped as well. Sometimes there is too much of a good thing.

We attended a panel about the Hobbit movie, saw Felicia Day a couple of times and saw way too much stuff that we wanted to buy. Through major exercise of willpower, we managed to keep the car only slightly stuffed.

Things I'll remember?

-Felicia's face when presented with a questioner who told her that since she had not been able to find any Bad Horse/Penny slash, she wrote some.

-Lunch with friends whom we dearly love and see far too infrequently.

-Being told to scoot in closer and for the people standing to move to the left (if you were there, you know what this means) and then Chitty Chitty Bang Bang causing a traffic jam around the piano.

-The obvious enjoyment shown by the celebrities in being reunited with their friends and the way they were so gracious with their fans.

-Kids on MARTA staring at the costumes and whispering to their parents. How they smiled back when we said hello.

-Fantastic costumes not just in the halls or panels, but being worn by people we know and love.

We are already planning to return to Atlanta next year, this time staying downtown so that we can avoid the transit time-sink, although I have to say that the trains were very easy to use. We didn't really hit any of the late night parties due to being dependent on public transportation and next year I would like to dance a bit and maybe take in the parade.