Day 4 of Dragon*Con, Monday, offers up a mixed bag of emotions. Most attendees are exhausted and maybe missing their beds at home. At the same time, there are nearly 55,000 geeks, all like-minded, all connected by fandom, in one place enjoying things they love. So looking at faces around the convention toward the end of the day on Monday reveals a little post-con depression. There are a few cosplayers left on Monday mixed with attendees hitting repeats of panels they may have missed earlier in the show and others trying to negotiate last minute deals in the dealer room, the art show, and the two exhibitor halls.

This seems like a great time to look back on the experience and recount my three favorite moments of Dragon*Con 2012.

3. Kill Bill in person!

There were more amazing costumes than I could even shoot with my camera running 14 to 16 hour days. With all the detail and gadgetry that went into this costume and that one, seeing simple but well executed costumes from a big group all working together is just hard to beat. After midnight when the parties were in full effect and the lobbies of the four convention hotels were jammed with con goers, a giant group of Crazy 88′s from Kill Bill strolled in and started striking badass poses. In a few minutes, The Bride barreled in bloodied and beaten and the next thing you know she was standing sword drawn in front of them, with all of them dead on the ground! We have the pictures to prove it here at Geeks of Doom!

2. Stan Lee

Stan Lee‘s panel was one of the best fan panels I’ve ever attended. While he really didn’t offered up anything in the way of news, he did talk a bit about his career and the many movie cameos he’s done. He even spoke well of his creative partner from the early days, Jack Kirby. I had always been led to believe that Lee had taken sole credit for the creation of Marvel Comics’ greatest characters. After seeing the panel, I see that he in fact plays the ego thing for comedy effect, so it’s possible he has been taken out of context all of these years. The thing is, the man is really funny and after sitting in a panel listening to him for an hour, it’s easy to see why he became the face of Marvel Comics. Don’t be fooled there is some true ego there, and a little of it is well earned. The best line of the panel came after he had said something that the crowd really thought was funny. He followed with:

“God d@#n, I love myself!”

Hilarious.

1. Rose McGowan

The number 1 moment of the weekend is a little personal, but it should appeal to Geeks of Doomers, too. This is the great thing about Dragon*Con, there’s major moments and there are little personal ones too all mixed into a giant convention. I briefly met the very attractive actress Rose McGowan. She may be most notable from the Grindhouse movie Planet Terror, but she was also in the television series Charmed and many other genre friendly shows and movies. She caught sight of my press badge and the exchange between us went like this:

Rose: So, you’re a Geek of Doom?
Me: Well, yes I am.
Rose: That’s awesome.

Great stuff! Until next year, Dragon*Con!