Hundreds of costumed comic book fans swarmed the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Augusta on Saturday for the annual Augusta Con.
This was the convention’s fourth year, assembling a wide variety of vendors, authors and artists to sell and celebrate varieties of popular culture, from videogames and comic books to anime and sci-fi films.
“This one’s more of a merge between the pop culture with the animated- based stuff,” said event manager David Hess, who organizes similar conventions that may have a more niche focus, such as Georgia Horror Fest.
Many vendors on display were first timers at AugustaCon, and many were creators just starting on the tour circuit.
“This is my first time at any type of con,” said Gary Jones, a transplant from Augusta to Greenville, S.C. who started publishing his first comic book series, “Lionheart” and “Brontide,” last year through his publishing label Divergent Comics.
Anthony Hilton is a third-degree black belt in Taekwondo who also makes maps for tabletop roleplaying games. Donned in his martial-arts gi, he presented his brand of custom maps at the convention, called “Black Belt Maps.”
“The most famous [tabletop roleplaying game] is Dungeons & Dragons, but there’s a billion other ones,” explains Hilton, who set up at AugustaCon for his second year, with appearances scheduled for several other conventions in the coming weeks. “Any of them that need a physical map, I can make them that map: sci-fi, post-apocalyptic or fantasy.”
Hotep, an artist and writer based in Atlanta, presented his Afrocentric brand “Black Lion and Cub,” with comics, trading cards, a children’s book and even an anime series geared toward younger audiences.
“I’m a proud father, so I wanted to create an animated series that reflected children’s faces like my own children, but then also could tell stories that weren’t empowering, educational and appropriate,” he said.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
