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9/2-The day before the kickoff.
I awoke early and made my way to LaGuardia Airport to make the first of two connected flights that would get my beige ass to Atlanta — I would have gone for a one-stop direct, but I booked too late for that to have been an affordable option — and as I made my way to the terminal's food court for a quickie breakfast, I ran into friend and former DC colleague Scott Nybakken.
I asked him if he was also on his way to Dragon Con, but instead he was headed to visit some friends in the Carolinas. I should have already figured he wasn't headed to the con because DC doesn't set up a presence there, but it would have been great to have him around as a companion and convention drinking buddy.
After two uneventful and packed U.S. Airways flights, I disembarked in Atlanta and opted to take the MARTA train system to the hotel, rather than get fleeced by the available shuttles and taxi pirates who charged an average staring fare of $16.50. Word to the wise when attending Dragon Con: always take MARTA because it's only a twenty-minute ride from the airport to Peachtree Center, which puts you off right smack in the middle of where all of the con's hotels are, and the fare is a mere $2.50 each way. To an everyday subway rider like me, it's completely painless.
Upon arrival at the Hyatt regency, it was already quite apparent that things were gearing up for Dragon Con and there was a palpable air of a powder keg of geekishness being primed for ignition. I took it as a good omen that the first thing I witnessed during check-in was a guy who'd brought his own homemade version of MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000's Tom Tervo, only with a different color scheme and equipped with weapon-arms.
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This time around I was invited to share a VIP suite with con guests Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti, both of whom are old colleagues from my days in the comics biz trenches and very dear friends, especially Amanda, whom I grew up with and have watched flourish as one of the best cartoonists around over a three-decade-plus trajectory. We ended up with a lovely room located on the 21st floor and when one looked over the the floor's ledge, the vertigo-inducing effect brought to mind the seemingly endless depths of the Krell machine as seen in the sci-fi classic FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956).
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Once within the confines of my portion of the suite, I set up my modest "media lab" and set off to pick up my press credentials from the con's media liaison room.
Once I clipped on my ribboned press badge, I set off to explore the surrounding area and chronicle the sights of the pre-con mishegoss. I encountered my first cosplayer of the show on the way out of the hotel, an enthusiastic Brit who rocked a female variant on the classic Batman costume (but significantly not a representation of either the classic or current Batwoman).
As my travels brought me outside into the considerable Atlanta heat and humidity, I noted the gigantic, completely unsubtle inflatable Jaegermeister bottle at poolside, a monolithic idol to potent alcoholic libations and a portent of the many "con babies" that were likely to be conceived over the next few days of copious drinking and sybaritic costumed fornication.
One of the unavoidable aspects of the show for attendees is the nightmare of picking up their tickets/badges via the pre-registration line, and it became a lengthy ordeal for many.
Once I clipped on my ribboned press badge, I set off to explore the surrounding area and chronicle the sights of the pre-con mishegoss. I encountered my first cosplayer of the show on the way out of the hotel, an enthusiastic Brit who rocked a female variant on the classic Batman costume (but significantly not a representation of either the classic or current Batwoman).
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One of the unavoidable aspects of the show for attendees is the nightmare of picking up their tickets/badges via the pre-registration line, and it became a lengthy ordeal for many.
When I arrived to check out pre-registration and pick up the con's program and schedule book (which were not to be had at the media room due to them not having been delivered yet), I was staggered by the volume of the line which, according to one of the security guards at the entrance inside the hotel, numbered around 1200 people, and that was just those who'd made it inside the building.
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Another word of advice to those who may someday attend this con: always know where the nearest liquor store is. It is guaranteed to be cheaper than the bars found in the hotels and you can pick up cheap foam coolers with which to stock your room with your own mini-bar.
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Once back at the hotel and fully set up, I hit the revelry in earnest, leaving A.C. and Jimmy to attend the post-wedding barbecue of comics superstar Adam Hughes. As I waited for the elevator down to the lobby — the first of many very looooooong waits over the course of the weekend — I encountered a guy dressed as Charlie Brown in his infamous fucked-up ghost costume from IT'S THE GREAT PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN.
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So then I hit the Hyatt's bar.
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I actually took things kind of easy on the first night, enjoying the costumes rather than getting completely faced (like I did last year). The one sad note of the evening was seeing a woman dressed as one of the Droogs from A CLOCKWORK ORANGE from behind and, when I asked if I could take her picture, discovering discovering she was crying her eyes out to a couple of her friends, over what I cannot say. She sweetly asked me to "give her a minute," despite her tears, but I opted to let her alone, hopefully to recover her moxie and enjoy the rest of the weekend.
With that, I retired to the suite, where Amanda had returned from the barbecue and was readying to get some sleep before what would be hours spent signing in Artists Alley the next day. Alas, both of our efforts at slumber were thwarted by the cacophony of all-night partying on all floors of the hotel making its way to the 21st floor in a fashion concentrated and focused by a trick of the hotel's acoustics. The din was unbearable, a melding of con-goers and that uniquely Southern breed of football fans who were there to celebrate the start of college football season, and by the time that things finally died down, the place was filled with all manner of screaming and the sounds of police cars, fire engines and ambulances arriving at the Hyatt and the neighboring hotels literally every five minutes or so. We eventually were able to glean some small amount of shuteye somewhere near 4AM, but this was only the night before the con proper got underway, so the true tumult had yet to begin...
TO BE CONTINUED
1 comment:
Chicks and Alien attraction - it's gotta be the tongue...
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