A-kon 21 Photos

We spent the weekend of June 3-6 in Dallas at the downtown Sheraton hotel for A-kon 21. This is an anime/comic convention, now in its 21st year (obviously). There were literally scores of costumes — there were probably as many people in costume as there were out of it. I took over 100 photos, most of which turned out beautifully. I’m going to attempt to attach them to this post. We’ll see how that works out.

Our friend Alanora paid for our tickets and for the hotel room. We spent three nights at the Sheraton, which is across the street from the convention center. It was jam-packed full of convention goers, and by Sunday the place smelled like a gym locker room. Geeks seem to revel in B.O.

There were several seminars, of which we attended only one, on “Story-Driven Web Comics,” which was conducted by Mookie (author of some popular comic whose name escapes me right now) and two other people. The seminar was 45 minutes of very free-flowing conversation without much of an agenda. It was mildly interesting and very amusing, as Mookie is a funny guy. There were also parties and balls, including a Steampunk Masquerade. We attended none of these, as by the end of each day we were so tired we didn’t even have the energy to drink the liquor we brought with us. We fail at partying.

We spent our days wandering the Artist Alley, where I handed out many Rending the Veil business cards (and hope to hear from some of the artists for future issues of the magazine), and in the Dealer’s Room. In other words, we walked around looking for items to spend money on. We did very well, I think, in controlling our impulses — sometimes to the point that we missed an opportunity we regretted later.

The highlight of the affair, other than the extremely cool costumes, was meeting the two people who draw and write the Two Lumps comic. I got a picture of Kara with them, and they drew us impromptu “commissions” on the backs of free card handouts. Free of charge. Awesome!

I got to meet the man who wrote The Last Unicorn book, and some Marvel comic guy named Herms, as well as a bunch of other artists I can’t remember right now.

Enjoy the photos! Click the images for larger. Next year, I intend to wear a costume, and I want to sign up to have an artist booth, even if it means I have to be on a waiting list for a couple of years.