For the first time, Zennie62.com will have covered three major comic book and pop culture events: Wonder Con, Comic Con, and now (thanks to the urging of CNN’s Henry Hanks) Dragon Con Atlanta. Dragon Con unofficially starts today, but officially (in terms of events) starts on Friday and runs through Labor Day.
And what is Dragon Con?
Dragon Con Media Relations says the event is “is the largest multi-media, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the universe! With over thirty-five fan based tracks, 3500 hours of panels, workshops, gaming, a parade down Peachtree, film festivals, art show, comics and pop art, nightly concerts and parties, bands and DJs, tons of costume contests, dealers, and exhibitors, all squeezed into four short days, DragonCon is non-stop FUN!”
The convention draws about 35,000 people to four downtown Atlanta Hotels (the famous Hyatt Regency is the host hotel) for the weekend, based on numbers shared. And while that’s not anywhere near San Diego’s Comic Con number of 125,000 registered attendee, and about 200,000 total (making it one of the largest, if not the largest convention in the World), Dragon Con is still huge – equal to San Francisco’s Wonder Con in size.
But the quibbling over numbers underscores not only just how large these happenings have become (drawing a total of 270,000 people for the three events mentioned), but just how popular comic book and sci-fi / fantasy content has become. Digital media has, and I’ve blogged this before, created a new avenue for the visual expression of some of the most iconic characters, from Iron Man and Spiderman to Green Lantern and to the wave of recent graphic novel creations, most notably Scott Pilgrim.
Now, if you have the time, creativity, and tech savvy, you can make content that others may want to see, and if it takes off, you might find yourself inking some kind of movie deal. While problems in selling print versions of comic books persist and grow, the new distribution channels offered by digital media have given new life to the creations of a number of artists.
OK. Fine. What’s at Dragon Con?
Dragon Con is more than stars, its costumes, a giant parade, and a side of Atlanta I’m looking forward to seeing for the first time.
But. Well, if you follow this space at all, you know this blogger’s a Star Trek fan and had the pleasure of being in this press event at Comic Con where Captain Kirk Prime or William Shatner presented The Star Trek Captains.
Now, Mr. Shatner’s back, and he appears on Friday.
But there are many more people than the man who’s so famous, people imitate him for his birthday. There are authors like Kevin J. Anderson, Terry Brooks, A. C. Crispin, Bill Fawcett, Richard Garfield, Richard Garriott
Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, and Laura Hickman, and film and TV stars like Loni Anderson, Ralph Bakshi, Kristin Bauer, Trace Beaulieu , Jim Beaver, Julie Benz, Erin Gray, Jon Bernthal, Lou Ferrigno Samantha Ferris, Carrie Fisher, Sean Patrick Flanery, Richard Hatch, Gary Kurtz, Martin Landau, Madison Lintz, and Christopher Lloyd, to name some of the notables.
And there’s Shatner.
For me, this is like being a kid in a candy store!
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More to come later today!
And hey! Bloggers wonted!
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Zennie Abraham | Zennie Abraham or “Zennie62” is the founder of Zennie62Media which consists of zennie62blog.com and a multimedia blog news aggregator and video network, and 78-blog network, with social media and content development services and consulting. Zennie is a pioneer video blogger, YouTube Partner, social media practitioner, game developer, and pundit. Note: news aggregator content does not reflect the personal views of Mr. Abraham.