DCU: Next Generation --Dragon Con '98

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DCU: Next Generation > > Dragon Con '98

It was a hot Sunday morning when I loaded up the family and headed down into Atlanta for the rush of fan-boy geekishness known as Dragon Con. The family?! Yes, the family. What good is a hobby if you can't share it with your family? Anyway, getting my wife Lisa to come down was a lot easier when I called it a "sci-fi" convention instead of a "comic book" convention. Go figure. Being the benevolent webmaster that I am, I thought I'd share my premiere convention experience with you.

Here's me and my daughter Charis with Kevin Anderson, author of the X-Files hardcovers. This was my first stop for the day, and a really good place to start for me since I'm such a big X-Files fan!

The follicly challenged individual signing comics is the illustrious Peter David, writer for Supergirl and Young Justice. It took me nearly an hour of waiting in line to reach the table. I even got to see Peter explain to a kid who brought a stack of about 50-100 comics that THREE was the limit. Good stuff. Trust me.

Me and Peter David. Peter signed my copies of Tangent Wonder Woman, Young Justice #1, and the racial tension issue of Supergirl. And the best part -- he remembered who I was from the e-views, the site, and the message board. Cool, huh?

At the DC booth, I took some time to browse through the myriads of black and white previews they had available. Also, at some times during the day artists dropped by to do sketches for fans. Sadly, I didn't have time to wait in the lines, but I did get this pic of Brian Stelfreeze (in the rainbow-colored hat) and Howard Porter (in the khaki cap) while they did some fan sketches.

Yep, Together with my wife Lisa, my daughter Charis, and my son Evan, Dragon Con '98 was a family affair (no Buffy and Jody jokes, please!). Some of the spokesmodels kinda brought a little shock to the "family outing" status, though (and no, I didn't take pictures of the scantily clad spokesmodels, so don't ask.). Here's Charis holding her copy of Superman Adventures #1 that she got at the DC booth. And of course she's smiling because she knows one day that all of dad's comics will be available for her to read too.

And here's Evan, still sucking on his pacifier. He enjoyed the day, but got tired a little sooner than the rest of us. He didn't like waiting in the lines too much either.

Apparently, EVERYBODY there wanted to meet Ray Bradbury. This is the line from my perspective. Shortly after we got in line, Dragon Con workers closed the line and had to turn people away.

And here he is -- Ray Bradbury, the heart and soul of modern science fiction! Meeting Ray was definitely the high point of my Dragon Con experience. Unfortunately, because of the lines, we were limited to one book to be signed and barely time to say hello, but luckily, when I mentioned trying to find my copy of his "Mr. Electrico" article, he stopped, wrinkled up his face in thought, then talked to me about how he was trying to find his copy also, and how he knew it was somewhere in his basement. All in all, it was tres cool!

Being new to the whole convention experience, I had expected to see more goofballs dressed up in costume. Coming on Sunday, I was told, I shouldn't expect to see many costumed fan-geeks. Oh well, I did get to see Sailor Moon walking around with her pal Sailor Jupiter, though. (Although, she looked a little "different" than I remember her from the cartoon ...)

And finally, on my way out to get the family home, I managed to snap this pic of the man in the mask, Anthony Daniels, better known as C3P-O from Star Wars.

So there you have it -- Dragon Con '98 as seen through the eyes of a newbie.