Dragon Con Review Part 1
I went to Dragon Con over Labor Day Weekend and had an absolute blast! So here’s my review of Friday, with the rest of the weekend review to come. I rolled into town on Friday morning and zipped into the registration area to get my membership badge. It took no time at all, and when I got my badge, I was excited to see that the design featured a woman of color. Pretty awesome that the nerd and geek community is becoming more outwardly welcoming with decisions like this. More on the badge in part 2…
Pictured: The amazing badge art by Afua Richardson
With a few minutes to spare before my first planned panel, I took some time to just walk around and get accommodated to the area and layout of everything. I got a chance to see some of the amazing cosplay that Dragon Con is renowned for, but I didn’t want to waste too much time and miss out on my first panel, so I went and got in line to see Wallace Shawn, also known as the Sicilian from The Princess Bride. He was absolutely wonderful, sharing stories about Andre the Giant and his playwriting career, while also revealing that his favorite popular movie that he’s been in is Clueless. Surprising!
Pictured: An inconceivable line to Wallace Shawn
Pictured: Wallace Shawn talks about scaling the Cliffs of Insanity
After Wallace Shawn, I had intended to go to a Star Trek: TNG panel, but I ended up being too late to make it in, so instead I took a few hours to walk around the con, make some purchases, and grab a bite to eat. I took my time and enjoyed myself as much as possible, before ending my day with four straight panels.
Pictured: I was really excited to find an Unbeatable Squirrel Girl!
The first afternoon panel also ended up being slightly frustrating and upsetting. I love Avatar: The Last Airbender, so when I saw that there would be a panel on good and evil, I knew I had to go. As it turned out, the panel was moderated by writers from the website Black Girl Nerds. They ran a great presentation connecting some of the philosophies of good and evil with the show, but then they opened it up to questions from the audience, and things went south. Almost every “question” seemed to be a guy getting up to explain to the panel how they had gotten it wrong. All I could think was that here were accomplished women of color who write about nerdy things for a living being told that they don’t know what they’re talking about. The fact that the audience felt privileged enough to speak to the panelists that way felt upsetting to me, especially imagining how they must have felt, though the silver lining should be that Dragon Con is seeking out people who aren’t just white men to run panels.
From there, I went straight to a presentation on Masculinity in Star Wars. The panelists for this session were all authors, including Claudia Gray, Timothy Zahn, and Kevin J. Anderson. I spent a lot of time reading Anderson and Zahn when I was in high school, so this was pretty exciting for me. The panelists took a fascinating look at how masculinity is viewed in Star Wars. The only regret I have is that they didn’t cover the problematic nature of the I love you/I know exchange between Han and Leia.
Pictured: Star Wars authors talk Star Wars
Immediately following that panel, Claudia Gray and EK Johnston held the release for their new Star Wars books. I stuck around for that, and although nothing especially enlightening came out of it, I did get to witness a great interaction between their editor and an audience member when he asked why all of the new books were about women characters. The editor’s scathingly sarcastic response got a wild round of applause.
My final panel of the day was called “Sex and Gender Issues in Comics,” and I didn’t know much more than that. As it turned out, the panel gave three academic scholars a chance to present their research, followed by a discussion and question and answer period featuring Kelly Sue DeConnick, writer for Captain Marvel and Bitch Planet, among other works. The research presented concentrated on all different aspects of gender and sex as it is presented in various comic books, from Batman’s masculinity, to sexual assault. Great research all around, which also introduced me to the term “musculinity,” which is the term that refers to women characters who are presented as being muscular, and therefore less feminine.
Pictured: Kelly Sue DeConnick and three fantastic scholars
The true star of the panel, however, had to be Kelly Sue. I could have listened to her talk all day, but I’ll leave you with one thing she said which has really stuck with me. An audience member asked her how we can change how female characters are written, and she said the following:
“I’ll tell you what I’ve said before in a very sarcastic way. Pretend that they’re people.”
Following this, I knew I had to buy the first two volumes of Bitch Planet, which I found on the vendor floor on Sunday and bought for myself. The panel was supposed to run from 10-11, but we ended up talking comics and academics until almost midnight!
I headed back to my temporary Atlanta housing for the night to get a night’s rest before continuing my Dragon Con experience.
Coming up next: My Dragon Con Saturday Review