Dragon Con Review Part 2

Saturday morning dawned with the prospect of the big Dragon Con Parade, but I had decided to skip the crowds of the parade in lieu of going to a panel featuring Afua Richardson, artist for World of Wakanda, as well as being the creator of this year’s badge art. Afua showed up decked out as Wonder Woman, and filled us in with all of the technical details that went into creating the badge art. It turns out that she had about two days to come up with a design and get it to the organizers. The woman on the badge is actually pulling double duty, as she will also be featured in a forthcoming graphic novel by Afua called Aqurius: The Book of Mer. While this was all very interesting, she also took some time to talk about the hidden symbology in her World of Wakanda covers, which always ties in to the storyline of the issue. After she finished talking, we had a dragon trivia contest, with the winners snagging some awesome cover art. I won three prints for knowing that Hagrid’s dragon from Harry Potter was named Norbert (and later Norberta) and got her to sign them for me!

Meeting Afua-as-Wonder Woman

I had scheduled a little bit of down time in between sessions for Saturday which allowed me to do some wandering around before getting in line for “An Hour with Scott Adsit.” Until this panel, I had no idea that Adsit was so well known amongst Dragon Con attendees, so I was pretty excited to be in the second row for his session. At the appointed time, Adsit jumped out, grabbed a microphone, and started talking. He covered topics as varied as his time on 30 Rock, hie early days of stand-up, and his first break on Mr. Show which involved a very…uncomfortable sketch. The best part of the session, though, involved him talking to a little girl from Kennesaw completely in character as the robot Baymax from Big Hero 6. Adorable, right?

Pictured: The hilarious Scott Adsit in contemplation

I got in line for my next panel very early, and it’s a good thing I did. I wanted to see the cast of Agents of SHIELD, and I ended up in line for over an hour to get in. While I think the show was at its peak from halfway through season 1 up through the end of season 3, I still do enjoy watching, and was excited to see Ming Na, Brett Dalton, and especially my favorite on the show, Elizabeth Henstridge. The panel did not disappoint. Henstridge came out wearing a shirt that said “Strong Female Character,” Brett Dalton was surprisingly hilarious, and Ming Na was amazingly quick-witted.

Pictured: TV's Gemma Simmons, Strong Female Character

After another break in the action to walk around and grab dinner, I got in line for the Georgia Philharmonic Orchestra. This is a concert they put on in conjunction with Dragon Con every year featuring film and television scores. I missed out on it last year to my disappointment, so I was committed to making it in this year which involved braving quite a long line. This event was the only part of the weekend that was a little bit disappointing. It was fine, but nothing special, and certainly not worth the wait. Still, I’m glad I know now, and I’ll know that I don’t need to go again next year.

Pictured: Georgia Philharmonic Orchestra, probably playing Star Wars music

I ended up leaving the concert a few minutes early to make it to the Comic Studies Roundtable, featuring a group of academics who study comic books, as well as Kelly Sue DeConnick (again) and her husband Matt Fraction. I guess I should mention that Fraction is also fairly well known as a comic book writer for Sex Criminals and Hawkeye amongst other work. The panel essentially just opened up to questions from the audience, which was again a standing room only crowd at 10:00 PM about academic issues in comic books. They discussed gender issues, race representation, erasure of comics by black and Jewish creators, and more in the 2 ½ hours that they talked. I’m fairly certain that I’ll make it a priority to come to more sessions by this group next year.

I left my Sunday fairly wide open, as I intended to drive home after my last panel rather than stay the night, so I left myself with a panel on feminism in Star Wars in the morning, and the big (and I mean BIG) Alton Brown Good Eats panel in the afternoon.

Pictured: An R2-D2 I found wandering around

Pictured: Punk meets Star Wars

Dr. Carol White led the morning panel, focusing on how we reached a place where Leia is viewed as a feminist icon. Her presentation included some historical documents in the form of film reviews from 1977 that described Leia as a damsel in distress, despite the fact that she more than holds her own with Darth Vader and Tarkin, and is one of the leaders of the Rebellion. Dr. White also was able to make some connections between how Star Wars fed into the public’s desire to see a clear good and evil, as well as good winning, after the confusion of Vietnam.

After three hours of walking around, buying some long-desired prints from artist Karen Hallion, buying the first two volumes of Bitch Planet, and seeking out Afua Richardson in full cosplay as Gwendolyn from Saga, I joined the line for Good Eats.

Pictured: Afua-as-Gwendolyn

The panel filled all 3,000 seats in the Marriott Atrium Ballroom, and Alton Brown and his crew proceeded to entertain us for the next hour, before making the announcement that they would be coming back with a new series. All-in-all, the panel closed out my weekend in entertaining fashion, sending me home happy and tired.

Pictured: Alton Brown closes out my weekend

#DragonCon #AfuaRichardson #AltonBrown #ComicBooks #ScottAdsit #AgentsofSHIELD