- Posts: 16929
- Thank you received: 10375
Bugs: Recent Topics Paging, Uploading Images & Preview (11 Dec 2020)
Recent Topics paging, uploading images and preview bugs require a patch which has not yet been released.
Dragon Con 2016 Report
- Michael Barnes
- Topic Author
- Offline
- Mountebank
- HYPOCRITE
Same old same old, by and large. I think the defining image was seeing this girl wearing a Batman Totoro shirt applying makeup to a zombie. Yes, Batman Totoro. As if that would in any way NOT piss off Miyazaki. As if that in any way honors either of those things. How fucking lame. And I love both Batman and Totoro.
Or maybe it was the steampunk leather fetish POKEMON mask. Maybe that was the defining moment. Seriously, who would buy such a stupid item. Let alone at like $200. So much mash-up shit, so many people trying to figure out how to define themselves and express who they are by the media they consume.
Anyway, the Dealer’s Room had vendors hawking the same shit they’ve been peddling for decades, with the addition of somehow MORE mash-up crap like the Batman Totoro thing. When you have little kids, you also notice how much sleazy-looking white trash garbage gets slapped on T-Shirts, comic books, posters and so forth. Tasteless junk for people with zero taste or dignity.
I saw the CMON booth. I walked right by and didn’t even look, even though I wanted to see what Black Plague stuff they had.
There was no one selling any kind of miniature stuff, which was also disappointing because I was in the mood to make a foolish purchase. Absolutely no out of print or rare games.
We did buy a very nice 1960s advertising print with a pink elephant on it.
Ran into a friend of mine from waaaaay back. Turns out he just got hired to do design work on Stranger Things season 2. Bastard. He gave my kids a pretty neat illustration of Finn and Rey, so I guess it’s all good.
Found out that another old friend of mine, this guy that I thought was a homeless man the first time he walked into my store, is like the 2nd-ranked Netrunner player in the world. I wonder if everyone knows about the “Jimmy Johns Sandwich Incident” of 2005. It may discredit him, I don’t know.
Cosplay, yawn. Lots of stuff, it all runs together after about an hour of it. I’m just genuinely no longer impressed by any of it because EVERYBODY (but me) has an amazing costume. Every other girl was Harley Quinn, so lots of asses ranging from reasonably shapely to shoggothly flabby in hot pants. For some reason, Link was a huge costume this year for boys and girls. Lots of Overwatch. There were adult men dressed like the Stranger Things gang, which was just pretty dumb. Jabba Trump was pretty funny. Best was probably some older folks that did Captain Gloval and Lisa Hayes from Robotech/Macross. My kids were Harry Potter and Cinderella. Every year I think that I will never see anything as cool as the dudes that were the cops from THX-1138. Or the couple that were Dave Vanian and Captain Sensible. Most of the shit I don’t even know what it is, so I surmise it is either some Adult Swim shit or an anime thing that no one over the age of 18 gives a flying fuck about.
Celebrity sightings- none. Celebrities do not attend Dragon Con in any capacity. Well, there was Judge Reinhold. That was kind of cool since I just watched Beverly Hills Cop. I wanted to tell Alex Kingston that I don’t like River Song but she was not at her table. Karen Gillen was there somewhere, but since she’s pretty she probably got harassed and had to leave. I dunno.
The Cruxshadows had their usual table that makes it look like they are a world-class rock band when they are really just sad goths beloved only by other sad goths that gather at large festivals in Europe. And Dragon Con. Seriously, who still listens to this kind of umpteenth generation electro-goth crap? That ship sailed 15 years ago.
The Starbucks line was too long, which pissed me off because I wanted a new chili mocha.
There was a line that snaked all the way through Atlanta to get into some Game of Thrones panel. Quote my wife, who is actually working on some kind of GoT promo as I write this- “what are they even going to talk about?”
I got to do a little gaming with some old friends- we played…SCYTHE! And it was loved by all at the table. No one complained about it not really being a 4x game so take that, internet. I was the Crimeans and played for an early win but got stomped by Saxony. Then we played Crokinole on a board that doubles as a Dune board (seriously, this was awesome and I want one). A friend of mine’s dad makes them, come to find out- wooden-youknow.com. I sat in on a Captain Sonar game, it looked OK but I’m not sure what the fuss is about. Seemed like a way more complicated multiplayer Battleship. Played Kaleidos for the first time, if they ever have a world championship, I am going to stake my claim. I am seriously like the greatest Kaleidos player of all time. I was quadrupling everyone else’s scores.
Wandering the gaming area, I saw tons of games where I had previously thought “who the fuck would ever play that”. Like, people actually playing Ninja Burger. WTF. Lots of the usual, boring junk you’d expect. I swear they may as well have roped off half the room for Codenames. There was no miniatures area that I could see, but I also didn’t really go looking for it. They had an arcade of obscure Japanese games in the gaming area, that was pretty neat.
Got to hang out with the legendary Will Kenyon for a while, haven’t seen him in a minute. He was NOT playing TI3, which was weird.
Games not seen in the gaming area- Zimby Mojo, anything GW, Star Trek: Ascendency…so in sum,not anything I am really interested in right now.
I dunno, it was more fun than last time, except for having my badge get snatched right as I walked out of registration. Right off my lanyard. That was pretty shitty. Oh, and my wife’s friend took her son to the parade and they were BOTH sexually assaulted by a man who unzipped his pants and rubbed his dick between them. Only at Dragon Con, I swear to god the losers that go to these things.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
DC is definitely a con that has outgrown its britches. I almost want it to split into a spring/fall con or something, but any one aspect of it can't carry itself, it has to be the whole sloppy mess. Except the film screening track. That tiny screening room can burn and die for all I care, I wish that panel was run by a guy who WANTED the films to be SEEN.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Michael Barnes wrote: I dunno, it was more fun than last time, except for having my badge get snatched right as I walked out of registration. Right off my lanyard. That was pretty shitty. Oh, and my wife’s friend took her son to the parade and they were BOTH sexually assaulted by a man who unzipped his pants and rubbed his dick between them. Only at Dragon Con, I swear to god the losers that go to these things.
[blinktag]WHAT [/blinktag]
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
- Michael Barnes
- Topic Author
- Offline
- Mountebank
- HYPOCRITE
- Posts: 16929
- Thank you received: 10375
I didn't proactively look for it, but I was told there was SOME miniatures gaming in the downstairs gaming room...which I was also told was almost all D&D, Magic and Pathfinder. So I'm not sure what happened there, there's always been lots of minis tables. Maybe they were somewhere else, I don't know.
Yeah, you know, when I started going in 1992 it seemed like a big deal that attendance was 4,000. Back then, it was still called Dragon Con and Atlanta Comics Expo, so it was still very classic SF TV, fantasy literature, comics, and games oriented. I remember when it hit 18,000 and it was like WHOA. And then all of the other stuff started creeping in until it turned into this catchall "pop culture" thing with bands and everything. Now it's even more than that with way more attendance and all kinds of disparate, random stuff. And virtually no Trek fandom, which still makes me kind of sad...no more drunk, aging Klingons.
But yeah, I've seen it change a lot. From Bettie Page look-a-like contests to Cry for Dawn look-a-like contests (give me a break) to the outrageous costuming now. I've been through the Crow craze, Whedonmania, Charlton Heston cancelling his appearance, the rise of Star Wars fandom...the furries showing up...Pern fandom disappearing...nobody ever really caring about Tron like they should.
Screening rooms...heh, I haven't gone into one of those in a decade. I remember DC '92, my girlfriend was cheating on me with some guy there so I went down to it and watched an almost unwatchable, 25th generation dub of Spider Baby. Long before internet fan films, I saw anime cut-ups where they'd splice Captain Harlock fighting Darth Vader. And back when the Hong Kong thing started happening, I remember seeing City Hunter for the first time there at like 3am and then of course buying a shitty bootleg of it the next day. The last time I went in one was in the late 1990s...my friend and I hijacked it. They were watching the Star Trek cartoon, it was late at night, so we took it over and started showing Japanese wrestling videos...this was back before that stuff was really known in the US. Scorpion matches, rings floating in pools filled with mines, that kind of stuff. Some people bitched, but within 15 minutes the room was full to bursting and people were gathered at the door trying to see. I've slept in screening rooms, which is as far as I'm concerned part of the teenage con experience.
I actually won the film festival one year. I had the only film shot on actual film. Fred Olen Myers, director of "Nude on the Moon" was one of the judges. I never did pick up my trophy or whatever.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
- Michael Barnes
- Topic Author
- Offline
- Mountebank
- HYPOCRITE
- Posts: 16929
- Thank you received: 10375
jeb wrote:
Michael Barnes wrote: I dunno, it was more fun than last time, except for having my badge get snatched right as I walked out of registration. Right off my lanyard. That was pretty shitty. Oh, and my wife’s friend took her son to the parade and they were BOTH sexually assaulted by a man who unzipped his pants and rubbed his dick between them. Only at Dragon Con, I swear to god the losers that go to these things.
[blinktag]WHAT [/blinktag]
Yeah, this happened. The guy was arrested. He had a badge, it wasn't just some random guy that showed up.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
- Posts: 1700
- Thank you received: 786
jeb wrote:
Michael Barnes wrote: I dunno, it was more fun than last time, except for having my badge get snatched right as I walked out of registration. Right off my lanyard. That was pretty shitty. Oh, and my wife’s friend took her son to the parade and they were BOTH sexually assaulted by a man who unzipped his pants and rubbed his dick between them. Only at Dragon Con, I swear to god the losers that go to these things.
[blinktag]WHAT [/blinktag]
Michael Barnes wrote: Well, it's not the first time they've had it out there....
Accidental masterpiece of comic timing.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
It's been about 15 years now since my list trip to the D*C. I feel like I bring the same stories up in the comments to these articles, so maybe this'll be the last time.
I think I first went in '94 or '95. It was my first real con and it was amazing. I played a demo of Dragon Dice with Lester Smith (and my friends and I played that almost exclusively for about a year), bought a bootleg SFII anime movie (before they hit US retail) in the dealer's room (which was an amazing place at the time), got in on the ground floor of the Street Fighter storytelling game, sat in on a panel with TSR reps where they revealed the upcoming Birthright line (which was hype...but we never played) played a lot of fantastic games (Catan for the first time!), and just generally had a great time reveling in gaming. I went to a few tracks and yes there was the Pern stuff, the Star Trek stuff, rooms playing exotic films, I visited with Wendy and Richard Pini (elfquest) I think Danzig was even there trying to launch his comic line. Cruxshadows played their shows, but so did GWAR so it was alright. It was really cool as there was all this, at the time, niche stuff to celebrate.
A couple years go by and we still attend. I join a group that wins the D&D tournament (which paid for the trip), ebay is hitting it's stride so no real need to hit the dealer room anymore, we start seeing some really cool costumes (the first real 'chrome dome' Cobra Commander was my favorite). Cruxshadows played their shows, but Graves era Misfits play once or twice and seems like half the crowd came to just tell him that he and Only suck. One of these years, I have a memorable evening drinking and playing a parlour game with Larry Elmore and his crew. The D*C does start to take on a more party like atmosphere than I felt it had prior, but maybe it was me.
However, as the years go by the gaming recedes into the background, the Pern type stuff starts disappearing, costuming, drinking and general partying takes center stage seemingly everywhere. Space that would have been used for gaming is turning into evening discos. We have shattered hotel doors, dragging buddies out of stalls with puke in their pants, etc dumb stuff. Cruxshadows played their shows, and I think the organizers start bringing in some wrestling. I'm not saying the new crew was having bad wrong fun, but the event lost it's charm for me. I liked that it was a place I could go and play a game with the designer of Minion Hunter or talk Vance Astro with Kurt Busiek between game sessions. But that sort of thing started happening a lot less.
I began to realize it was cheaper and more fun to just have friends over at my place for the weekend.
My last trip was in 02 or 03.
Seems the Cruxshadows don't care and still play their shows.
Now, I see friends on my FB that go. Half never would have gone with the programming that was put up on the 90s, and just about all of them talk all year about their costume they're gearing up to reveal, like we're all waiting with baited breath. Some are cute, but in the end I really don't care about costuming. oh, one or two are always looking for ways they can humorously genderbend your favorite genre characters...what a riot...*yawn*
Again, I'm not knocking people that go, but this seems to have turned into more a celebration of being into being into things (queue Legomancer) more than anything I'd be into and sounds like almost all gaming I'd be interested in is gone.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
- Legomancer
- Offline
- D10
- Dave Lartigue
- Posts: 2944
- Thank you received: 3873
I sort of felt this way about Gen Con a few years ago. If I go to a game con I want to go to a game con and play games. If I go to a comic con I want go to a comic con and see comics. I don't want to got to a Generic Fandom con. I'm not a fan of Fandom Itself. Gen Con felt to me like this. Corsets are not games. Realistic replica weapons aren't games. I have a friend who makes some fantastic comics that the people here would love, who has a KS going right now, who recently tabled at a gaming con and I love the guy and his work, but it's not games.
I don't mind Generic Fandom cons existing, because I know not to go to them. I wouldn't set foot in Dragon Con, because I won't be interested in 90% of what's there. No burn on them, just not something I'd be down for. But getting that vibe also at Gen Con was bothersome, which is a shame, because it would be no big hassle for me to do GC every year or so, organizationally. Just no interest.
I liked Heroes Con as well, because it was a comic con that hasn't grown so big it's now just about Generic Fandom. It's still focused on comics, for the most part.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
There's no aspiring models dressed up in professional grade costumes trying to make a name for themselves as cosplayers. No folks wearing Dr. Who/Firefly mashup shirts while playing some licensed pap game cashing in on nostalgia like Gremlins or the A-Team.
Two totally different vibes.
Yeah, seems a lot of these cons (D*C, comic con, wizard world) have become waterdowned celebrations of media consumption.
Hard Pass.
Conversely, PitCon '17 looks to have the following so far:
DreadBall - 'Glitch in the Machine' season
Dark Future - US Road Cavalry contract competition
DungeonSaga - Base Campaign
DeadZone/Necromunda - TBA event
Man O War - TBA event
(Hmmm...maybe we should sub in Dreadfleet for MoW, so all games will start with 'D'...a theme?)
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
I guess what I mean is, if focus on gaming stuff has gone and it's just open play style gaming in the corners...I can do that at home/game cafe's/game stores. I'm not sure what I'd gain from going to a con anymore.
Likely I'm off base and out of touch though.
Gonna hang up on this thread now and just listen.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
I also think that a lot of the stuff that raises people's ire here like cosplay gets a lot of the media attention and press. Some rando reporter strolling the halls isn't gonna stop and take a picture of 6 FATers playing TI3 . I know people that go to GenCon and even play wargames. Sure they are a tiny minority. But they do exist .
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
So yeah, I might be there, so don't go next year.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
- SuperflyPete
- Offline
- Salty AF
- SMH
- Posts: 10733
- Thank you received: 5119
That whole "dick rubbing" thing is apparently an Atlanta thing. Wasn't the DragonCon originator also a convicted sex offender? Guys like that just need to be beaten to death by a mob while a bunch of fuckers record it and yell WORLDSTAR
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.