This year’s Dragon*Con has had no shortage of Battlestar Galactica panels. While this reporter missed Mary McDonnell and Michael Hogan’s early Friday panel, I managed to catch the Friday evening and Saturday morning panels with cast members: Luciana Carro, Aaron Douglas, Michael Hogan, Alessandro Juliani, Kandyse McClure, Mary McDonnell, Michael Trucco, Kate Vernon, and science advisor Dr. Kevin R. Grazier. Now that’s a fleet mouthful!

The lively banter of Battlestar Galactica panels never disappoints the fans. While the number of interesting …

Blood donations at a science fiction convention hit a world record today. Since Thursday, 1,700 people registered to donate, 1,400 were eligible to donate, and over 1,800 units of blood were donated, including platelets and double platelets.

There are still two days to go. 3,000 units, here we come! Donate in the Marriott, rooms A701 and A702, 10AM to 7PM.

A light morning mist failed to dampen the enthusiasm of the crowds lining Peachtree Street Saturday for the Dragon*Con parade.  In nine years of attendance, these two reporters have never before been able to attend the event.  It’s not hard to catch sight of the amazingly authentic costumes around the hotels, so we wondered if the parade would be as good as advertised.  To dig up the truth, we squeezed into …

Special Awards

Jeff Carlisle                         Best Alien                               “Alien Painting”
Paul Vincenti                     Best Amazon                         “Athena”
Bill Weiger                          Best Dragon                           “You have her attention”
Peter Mohrbacher          Best Horror                            “Uriel”
Stephanie Law                  Best Fairy                                “Page of Wands”
Roy Mauritsen                 Best Spacescene                    “Taking the Space”
Lindsay Archer               Best Warrior                            “Thane’s Broken Dream”
Mark Helwig                     Most Humorous                     “Evilution”

Artist Choice Award

Tom Fleming                     Artist Choice                           “Reverie”

Charity Pigs

Tiffany Crosby  3rd Place Charity Pig    “USS Penny Bottom of the Royal Piggy Air Fleet”
Brenda Lyons    2nd Place Charity Pig   “I wanna be a …

Elonka Dunin: game developer by day, cryptographer by night. To clarify, she does not spend her free time in crypts; she makes and breaks codes, and her obsession in recent years has been the Kryptos sculpture at CIA headquarters, Langley.

Kryptos is a commissioned copper structure out of which an apparently random series of letters was carved by artist and sculptor James Sanborn. The letters in fact form a complex code devised by Sanborn following a crash course in …

One of the classiest actors to ever work in the genre, Patrick Stewart spent an hour on a conversation-format panel on Saturday afternoon. Pleasing the crowd right from the start, he took off his cap and, with his signature gesture, Engaged the crowd.

Eric Watts sat behind a desk, orchestrating the interview Carsen-style. Stewart mentioned that he felt, “nervous and insecure,” but within moments, Watts had eased him into a …

It’s the podcast edition of The Dragon*Con Late show for September 5th, 2009. Brought to you by the Dragon*Con Videography Staff and The Daily Dragon.

It’s the podcast edition of The Dragon*Con Late show for September 5th, 2009. Brought to you by the Dragon*Con Videography Staff and The Daily Dragon.

Famous for his role as Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies, Tom Felton captivated the audience the moment he stepped onto the stage and admitted being nervous.   “There’s so many people,” he said with a smile.  “Be gentle, please.”   Felton was witty and sweet, taking the time to thank each fan who asked him a question.  With his dark blue shirt setting off his trademark white-blonde hair, he joked that he first auditioned to be Harry, and they dyed …