Sci-Fi Fans Chase the DragonCon

Saturday, thousands of bleary-eyed science-fiction fans lined up on the streets outside the downtown Hyatt Regency. They were looking for fairies, and even more unlikely creatures.

Eventually the road filled with mysterious beings coated in sparkles and green paint, their gossamer wings floating in humid Southern air. They were followed by a troupe of mournful vampires, a couple of Spider-Mans, Aeon Flux, Superman, a fleet of Klingons on motorcycles, a mass of Harry Potters, assorted characters from Babylon 5 and of course an entire phalanx of stormtroopers marching more or less in formation behind a gaggle of Princess Leias.

It was the fourth annual DragonCon parade, celebrating the infinite diversity that is fandom at the nation's largest science-fiction convention.

Somewhere upward of 20,000 fans descend on Atlanta for this event every year, filling three massive hotels to share everything from their comic-book collections and home-brewed Lord of the Rings fan fiction to gigantic Transformer costumes they've spent months creating for the Masquerade Ball contest. It's also a place for entertainment companies to hawk wares to the early adopters of the culture industry.

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