October is the one month when everyone indulges their morbid and dark sides but some people live that life all year long. This week’s podcast is going to be all about goth culture. We have interviews with some of the staples of the goth community in Seattle including another conversation with Gothic Charm School headmistress Jillian Venters and Club Vogue’s DJ Eternal Darkness.
Game Night
First up on the news front is a reminder that this Friday is the second official Seattle Geekly Game Night! Join us October 23 from 6 – 8pm (or later) at Green Lake Games, 7509 Aurora Ave N in Seattle, for an evening of boardgaming. There will be door prizes and we may end up hanging out at Beth’s Cafe or one of the local watering holes afterwards. We’ll be bringing a stack of games and there will be a selection of munchies and soda provided. We encourage you to bring munchies or (non-alcoholic) drinks as well and any games from your collection that you may want to play.
The rest of your Monday News is under the fold
Boardgames
There is yet another boardgame to watch out for from Fantasy Flight Games with the announcement of Runewars. Runewars is a fantasy war-game that
pits players against each other in a strategic game of battles and area control, where they must gather resources, raise armies, and lay siege to heavily fortified cities.
It has a listed retail price of $99.95, but the game includes nearly 200 plastic miniatures, as well as 3D mountains and other terrain, and hundreds of cards and tokens. Runewars was designed by Corey Konieczka who also designed Middle-earth Quest and the Battlestar Galactica boardgame and it should be in stores late 2009/early 2010.
Boardgame News is reporting an exciting opportunity for aspiring game designers.
AEG is looking for innovative new designs for a line of board games releasing in 2010 and 2011. The games are set in a renaissance city, and the mechanics and theme of the individual designs can explore various aspects of life in the city, (mercantilism, politics, crime, war, etc.) From board, to card, to tile, or other games we are not limiting the type of games we are looking at. As far as play style or experience it could include any style of play from resource management, economics, area control, and more. Euro-style and American-style, nothing is off the table as long as it is fun. Innovation is a bonus!
If you will be attending Essen and think you have a game that fits, please come visit the AEG booth 9-70 and ask for Todd Rowland or Mark Wootton.
If you will not be attending but would like to submit a prototype to AEG please e-mail customerservice@alderac.com and we will get you a game submission form right away.
AEG is also looking at other less specific games that do not fit the above theme for our 2011 and 2012 schedule. Again the only limiting factor is that it is fun. We look forward to meeting you and playing your games.
Books
Douglas Cohen, assistant editor at Realms of Fantasy, announced on his LiveJournal that the magazine is once again open to submissions. Realms of Fantasy is a bimonthly magazine specializing in fantasy art, fiction and non-fiction. Submissions have been closed since January when it was announced that the magazine would cease publication. However after being purchased by Tir Na Nog Press in March of this year the magazine has stayed in print missing only one issue during the change of ownership. Submission guideline for writers and artists are available on Douglas Cohen’s LiveJournal.
SF Scope is reporting that publishing house Del Rey has obtained the mass market paperback rights to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Children of Hurin. The book, one of Tolkein’s “Great Tales”, was edited by his son Christopher and published in hardback in 2007. The Children of Hurin is a stand-alone story set in the first age of Middle Earth elements of which appeared in The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales
Comics
I had intended to put this up in last week’s news roundup but it somehow failed to make it in there. Fantagraphics has announced that Peter Bagge has signed a development deal with Fox and is working on a pilot for an animated series of The Bradleys, the dysfunctional family of Buddy Bradley who was the protagonist of Bagge’s classic series Hate. The series will reportedly be set before the stories told in Hate, at a time when Buddy was a teenager and still living at home.
MMO
Funcom’s modern day conspiracy MMO The Secret World has opened a contest for a chance to get into the closed beta. If you visit the site and take the “initiation quiz” to find which of the games three factions most suits you, you will be entered into the contest. Funcom appears to be moving ahead quickly in spite of a recent massive round of layoffs at the company.
Movies
We travel far afield for a couple of stories on the X-Men movie franchise and its spin-offs. British movie magazine Empire got an interview with X-Men producer Lauren Shuler-Donner about what she is looking for from X-Men: First Class, Deadpool and Wolverine 2. Also on the Wolverine 2 front, Len Wein, the man who created Wolverine, sat down with Australian Sci Fi channel blog Sci Fi Pi and talked about what he thought of Wolverine on the big screen and what he hoped the Japan storyline in the second movie would do for his creation.
Fans of Wolverine in the Seattle area will have two opportunities to meet Len Wein in the coming months. He will be at the Seattle ComiCard Convention November 8 and also Emerald City ComiCon in March, 2010.
In somewhat more local movie news, the Gig Harbor Film Festival was this weekend and the festival’s Filmaker Spirit award was given to the Shumway brothers for their science fiction short Enigma. The Shumways announced their win in an update on their Facebook page. We saw Enigma at MIFFF and were very impressed. If you have the opportunity, check the film out.
TV
Wil Wheaton guest stars on Big Bang Theory on CBS starting tonight. He has written about his experience shooting the show on his blog and CBS has released a promo for the show.
Video Games
CBR’s Robot 6 website is repoting on some downloadable content coming soon for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. Players will be able to add Psylock and Carnage as well as three more yet-to-be-announced playable characters. There is no official release date for the DLC at this time.
Wil Wheaton looks old now that he has a beard, makes me feel old