A bit delayed, but finally got around to write this although it has happened about two weeks ago. Work has been pretty insane this month to post anything recent, but at least here's my article on it.

Dragon*Con is America's largest, multi-media, popular arts convention-focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film. The con is hosted in Atlanta, Georgia, and packs about 20,000 scifi geeks, nerds, freaks, and movie fans every year. I have been going faithfully for 3 years now, attending my first one in 2002 and never looking back since. The convention also has an annual parade that kicks off every Saturday morning, which is quite a scene seeing stormtroopers and Klingons alike marching downtown.

As well, Dragon*Con also hosts musical artists; this year Jean Loves Jezebel, Cruxshadows, Emerald Rose, Bella Morte, Voltaire and others perform each night for all gothy types and freaks alike.

Starting off on my article for this year was attending the TOR 40th anniversary of Dune party that Dragon*Con hosted, which featured Kevin J. Anderson as its speaker. He was there to speak highlights about the prequel novels he has written with Brian Herbert, along with the new release of the book The Road to Dune, due in Sept of this year. The book contains unpublished chapters and scenes from Dune and Dune Messiah, excerpts and articles, and an original novel by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson based on a detailed outline and extensive notes left by Frank Herbert.

I briefly spoke with Kevin as he signed my Dune prequel books and I learned when writing characters for Lucasfilm, you do not have any ownership of anything you create, which is why he was dissatisfied with what had happened with Kyp Durron after he wrote his Jedi Trilogy books (he called Kyp a werewolf, due to all the changes he keeps going through: dark, light, dark, light, etc.). He didn't like the route his character had taken after the books, but as he said, you don't have a say once you release your story to them, they own it.

Oh, and they also had cake shaped in the cover of the new Dune book. Pretty impressive. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to take a picture of it. Oops!

Also featured at D*C were charity events to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina and the local Georgia 501st was there to help. Stormtroopers marked in the logo of the local Red Cross were taking contributions from conventioners, and the con was also hosting a blood drive. According to the community blood center, on Friday they collected 44 units at D*C, setting a new record for most collected at a SF convention in the U.S.

Later that evening, I attended Wrestling! D*C has a local wrestling chapter that hosted their events and it was insanely fun. I honestly don't know what was more amusing to watch: the wrestling itself or the witty comments of the nerds and geeks in the audience, as they pointed and poked fun.

Afterward, I mingled around the crowds, shopped at the dealer's rooms, went out to eat, headed back to the room, rested, then got ready for the big event of costume show-offs that happens every night at D*C. Every night around 8pm until the wee hours of the night, conventioners show up in the main lobby of the hotel and show off their latest costumes. Some are quite impressive, some are quite bad, and some are quite... err... revealing. One was rumored to have shown up years ago only in police tape wrapped around certain areas of her-- well, you get the point.

On Saturday, The Dragon*Con parade began around 10 A.M. but I did not attend, due that I was still asleep after staying up way too late Friday night. I am sure it was quite an event to see, though. A steady diet of caffeine, sugar, and alcohol kinda in the course of three days catches up after a while. Heh!

What I did attend was a Star Wars panel named Star Wars is Forever, which was hosted by Steve Sansweet from Lucasfilm. He was there to present highlights from the prequels, news from Skywalker Ranch, and upcoming projects for this year as well as the later years to come. The entire panel was done in question and answer format and a lot of my questions were answered from the fans who did the asking.

Steve answered questions about the upcoming TV series that is in the works, and you will hear this first on Star Wars Epics. He said the first project for Lucasfilm will be the 3-D animated Clone Wars series, focusing on the events before EP III. They have started first drafts, expecting a release date sometime in the end of '06 or beginning of '07. After that series is completed, the live-action TV series will then begin to hit the storyboards, which will happen in '07. That series will take place between EP III and EP IV, so that is about 18 years of coverage when you think timeline.

Also, Steve informed that Lucasfilm's main offices have now relocated from Skywalker Ranch to a new facility in San Francisco. An old military academy named The Presidio, has been bought by Lucas and he has moved his company there. Skywalker Sound will still remain at the Ranch.

To conclude, he touched base about the new release of EP III on DVD, which will have deleted scenes, commentaries, and a bunch of other tidbits. Steve was nice enough to allow one of the deleted scenes to be shown to the fans and it was well received with cheers. The scene was the debut of Mon Mothma with Senator Bail Organa and Padme. Yay! Also, he showed previews of the upcoming release of Empire at War and the new Battlefront game. No news if they have anything in the works, KOTOR-wise.

Afterward, I went to the dealer's room again, got a few autographs from a few celebrities, got pictures of them with me, and did some promotions for Epics by placing flyers and business cards at various booths. The local Georgia 501st was even nice enough to promote us by letting us distribute our SWE cards at their booth as well.

After dinner, I attended a Stargate SG-1 panel that basically discussed the new season of SG-1 and touched a few details about the new season of Atlantis. Nothing really new to report as the panel was pretty much fans speaking to fans and not actual celebrities. God, those are stupid.

The rest of my article details on Sunday's events and include pictures and an interview with Michael Stackpole, the author of the X-Wing Rogue Squadron series and I, Jedi. I would post it here, but no pics are allowed to be posted and it looks way better with them.

Anyway, head on over to Star Wars Epics.com to see the entire article complete with pics and a video clip.