Moving to Atlanta was never in my plan. But, as my life goes, nothing seemingly in my plan is ever really in my plan. Bumps and curves delegate new mini-adventures that I play out according to The Powers that Be. I guess I could say that I feel lucky in a way to be in Atlanta. It’s a progressive city with rural charm and beauty. Every Labor Day weekend an event occurs in Atlanta – an event so great and powerful that it attracts nerds and geeks by the thousands and it takes over eight Atlanta hotels. I call it my Christmas. Others call it Dragon Con. Dragon Con is the largest Science Fiction and comic book convention on the east coast. It’s not the San Diego Comic Con, but it’s definitely second to it.
I am a geek. There’s no escaping that fact. My evolution into geekdom started when I was young and living in central Massachusetts. Channel 56 hosted Creature Double Feature every Saturday and for four hours I was geeking out to old Science Fiction/Horror films like Ants, Godzilla, Dracula, and The Mummy. My love for Sci Fi/Horror grew as I did and I soon found myself enthralled with movies like Alien, The Lost Boys and The Star Wars trilogy. I was completely caught up in the chimerical world of perfect escapism.
I had heard of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and I knew my sister was a fan but I had never seen the show. I even *gasp* dismissed it a silly. However, she forced me to watch it while visiting me in San Diego and I was instantly hooked. What was this clever show? Wait…what? Isn’t the pretty blonde supposed to die in the beginning of the show? Nope! This show was different. It completely switched the script on the old cliché of the pretty blonde getting killed in the beginning by turning her into a slayer feared by vampires and demons. The fact that she is just a girl going through all of the teenage coming-of-age dramas and the fact that the setting of the show is high school couldn’t be any more perfect. The dialogue is witty, is fluid and is swiftly delivered when adding comic relief in the middle of a highly dramatic scene. As an educator, I even use Buffy the Vampire Slayer to teach an epic hero unit. Buffy, like Luke Skywalker, follows Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey and…she’s a female epic hero. Let’s be honest, people. We don’t have too many female epic heroes, do we?
Once you become addicted to something written and directed by Buffy creator Joss Whedon, you soon find yourself in what us addicts call The Verse which consists of all the fantastical settings and characters of any and all of Whedon’s creations. Dragon Con even has a Whedon fan track as if we’ve become our own subgenre. There are the anime geeks, the comic book geeks, the steam punk geeks, the Star Trek geeks, etc…and the Whedon geeks.
Who knows what will come of Dragon Con 2012. With The Avengers coming out in May (and yes, I will probably fly to LA to watch the premier with my sister), I’m sure the Whedon fan track will leave this chic geek completely satisfied.
Random scenes from D*C:
Wicked Sarcastic 