This year’s Dragon Con was a blast. Every year I get to make new friends and it’s easy when you have over 72,000 people in attendance. Across the five-day celebration, those who attended were able to raise more than $210,000 for Dragon Con’s official charity this year, Arthritis Foundation Georgia Chapter.
This year, I made sure to make time for the media party, where I chatted with people from other outlets and even met Samantha, one of the directors who made the event possible.
While at the party, I couldn’t help but notice everyone gathered around a pair of twins. Intrigued, I asked a new friend who they were. To my surprise, she revealed they were James and Oliver Phelps, the actors who played the Weasley twins in the Harry Potter films. I’m sure my Harry Potter-loving friends would be disappointed in me, but I honestly didn’t recognize them.
As each year comes and goes, the ledger of guests grows wider and wider. While I wasn’t able to speak with everyone I requested, I enjoyed my time talking to JP Karliak and Panterona Cosplay. JP’s voiceover résumé is extensive and includes anime, video games, and most recently X-Men 97’s Morph. He was initially an actor but moved into voice acting thanks to his acting coach. In the realm of video games, he’s done major titles like Crash Bandicoot (Dr. Nefarious Tropy) and The Suicide Squad Kills The Justice League (The Joker). When it came to X-Men 97, he didn’t need to “find” the character, he just played himself. Since Morph is non-binary and JP is part of the LGBTQ community, he saw Morph and himself as parallel: both dealt with the same struggles growing up and grappled with acceptance.
Panterona Cosplay was a good time and she’s really funny. If you’re unfamiliar with her, she’s an award-winning cosplayer, a fashion and cosplay designer, and a convention organizer from Trinidad and Tobago. There’s a hilarious story behind what got her into cosplay. When she attended a convention in Trinidad, she saw someone cosplay as one of her favorite characters and disapproved of how it looked. So the only way she could fix it was to do it herself, with petty being the source of her foray into cosplay (I’m sure some of us have done the same because I know I have). Cosplay is one of the ways she gets to express herself artistically, putting fashion designs, acting, and drawing all into one. When you do that, you become that character and start to emulate them from start to finish. I asked her how she deals with “Con Crunch” where cosplayers push themselves to finish their cosplay at the last minute, applying all the finishing touches. She tries not to deal with it because it’s not good for her. “Don’t do it.”
Since 2016, Dragon Con has empowered fans to nominate their favorite properties for awards and then select Dragon Award winners by voting. Here’s how the results turned out:
Best Science Fiction Novel: Starter Villain by John Scalzi
Best Fantasy Novel (including Paranormal): Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros
Best Young Adult / Middle Grade Novel: Midnight at the Houdini by Delilah S. Dawson
Best Alternate History Novel: All the Dead Shall Weep by Charlaine Harris
Best Horror Novel: Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig
Best Illustrative Book Cover: Of Jade and Dragons by Kelly Chong
Best Comic Book / Graphic Novel: Monstress by Marjorie Liu, Sana Takeda
Best Science Fiction or Fantasy TV Series, TV or Internet: Fallout, Amazon Prime Video
Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Movie: Dune: Part Two by Denis Villeneuve
Best Digital Game: Baldur’s Gate 3, Larian Studios
Best Tabletop Game: D&D The Deck of Many Things, Wizards of the Coast
Overall, I really enjoyed myself this year at Dragoncon. One thing I noticed was a lot of people were handing out ribbons. They do it every year, but I saw it happen more often than in the past and I ended up collecting a lot. Beetlejuice seemed like it was the theme this year even though the film’s release date is set for after the con. From the staff’s cosplays to the themed food and drinks, Beetlejuice was everywhere you looked. You can see more awesome cosplay from Dragon Con on our Instagram.
It’s always good to see the Nerd community come together and have nothing but pure fun. Can’t wait to go back next year. Speaking of which, go ahead and get your passes and hotel now while they’re available.
-TBZ
Photos: Gabriela Martinez