Over Labor Day weekend Seattle becomes the center of the video game geek universe. PAX 2010 was huge and it brought video game developers from all over the world together with their fans. There were a couple of big announcements, not the least of which was the phoenix-like return of Duke Nukem Forever, but there were a lot of smaller and independent games there as well that were deserving of attention. We tried to strike a balance between the big names and the little guys in our coverage of this year’s expo and this week we bring you the first of three shows all about PAX.

In this show we have interviews with The Guild co-producer Kim Evey, Ska Studios makers of The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile, Runic Games makers of Torchlight 2 and Broken Rules makers of And Yet It Moves. We also have some details on Tera the new MMORPG from En Masse and the new LEGO Universe MMO.

Our Geek Week

Surprisingly, there was more to our Geek Week than just PAX!

• Read Night of the Living Trekkies by Kevin David Anderson and Sam Stall
• Playing Dungeons and Dragons Online (look for our coverage of DDO coming up later in our PAX wrap-ups)
• Went to the Bonebat Comedy of Horrors Film Fest. Short version: It was a blast and we can’t wait for next year!

Geek Week By Proxy
This weekend was also Bumbershoot weekend in Seattle. Normally it isn’t too tough for us to skip Bumbershoot and go to PAX, not because Bumbershoot isn’t fun but because PAX is so overwhelmingly awesome. This year, though, there was one event at Bumbershoot that we really wanted to see; the 30 year retrospective of underground comix put on by Fantagraphics. We missed it but fortunately local photographer, friend-of-the-podcast and long time Shannon and Matt supporter Ron was there and wrote up a report for us.

A 30Year Survey of Seattle Alternative Cartoonists

At 2010 Bumbershoot Visual Arts

Larry Reid (of Fantagraphics) organized and curated this show. Good choice since he has been here since Seattle emerged as a hotbed of alternative art, especially cartooning. During the preview on Friday when I attended, he was mixed schmoozing and basking in the attention that the show was getting. He told me that perhaps 20% of the show came from his collection. Almost all the rest came directly from the artists.

He was also cheerfully answering questions and there were a lot of them – many of the visitors to the show had not been born when Cecil C. Addle sat in his signature rowboat and noted that “Bangor is the most scenic ground zero on Earth” in 1978. I miss Ray Collins.

Graduates of the cartoonist incubator (Evergreen State) were well represented although none of Matt Groeing’s work was there. Vintage Lynda Berry included the original of “Poodle with a Mohawk”, the original of her 1983 cover for The Rocket, one of her paintings of the Seven Deadly Sins as the lead piece in the show, and the original painting of the cover art for “The Good Times are Killing Me”, I wonder what my copy of the first edition of “The Good Times .” is worth.

When Lynda Barry emerged on the comix scene she was making more selling paintings (from Larry Reid’s gallery in Pioneer Square) than from her comic art.

Other luminaries of this world represented in the show include Peter Bagge, Pat Moriarty, Jim Woodring (never my favorite – he’s even weird for my taste) and Megan Kelso, another Greener.

There were a lot of tear sheets from The Rocket, The Stranger, and various ‘Zines accompanied by either the original art or a print of it. However, what I really enjoyed was seeing the sketches, the studies if you want to be arty about it. Never mind how outrageous the final product looks, those people could really draw!

--Ron
www.ronfstop.com

Much as we try, we can’t be everywhere so if you see or are part of a geek event that we miss, send a re port to seattlegeekly@gmail.com. We’d love to hear your stories!

PAX 2010 – Friday

• Since Blizzard didn’t even bother to show up to PAX this year, the best source of Warcraft news was the Raid Warning Podcast panel which we were honored to be a part of. The recording of the panel is available on their site now, so check it out!



• Kim Evey, co producer of The Guild
  • We were lucky enough to catch Kim Evey while she was filming the Jonathan Coulton portion of Yeshmin Goes to PAX for mediocre films. you should watch it. It’s funny.





• Ska Studios and The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile





• Tera from En Masse
  Tera promises to be an MMO “beyond ‘point and click,’ where position, timing, and aim determine success in combat, and player characters climb, jump, and swim over and through obstacles.” There will be six playable races at launch; Human, High Elf, Castanic, Aman, Popori, and Baraka and eight classes; Warrior, Lancer, Slayer, Berserker, Archer, Sorcerer, Priest, and Mystic. The controls we experienced during our hands-on at PAX were tricky with mouse and keyboard, fortunately the game will support PC compatable console controllers. Just in our brief experience, two analog sticks on a controller would work much better for the extremely dynamic combat system the were showing. Also, please note that the compressed YouTube video below does not do justice to how pretty the game is.





• LEGO Universe
  The big appeal of LEGO Universe is, of course, being able to build stuff. The game is a full MMO with a persistant world, lore, and a deep original storyline but you will also be able to bring wildest creations to life with a user-friendly programming language. The game is extremely family friendly and although no exact system specs have been released, they will be “minimal”.





• Torchlight II from Runic





• And Yet It Moves from Broken Rules

Contest

We have a brand new copy of Night of the Living Trekkies by Kevin David Anderson and Sam Stall, published by Quirk Books (of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Dawn of the Dreadfuls fame.

This sci-fi/zombie/comedy/adventure follows a group of rag-tag Trekkies getting together for the fifth annual GulfCon (billed as the “largest Starfleet Convention in the western Gulf Coast region”).

Our heroes are dressed in homemade uniforms and armed with prop phasers-but soon find themselves defending their hotel and convention center against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Suddenly, all of their useless knowledge about particle physics and old Star Trek episodes has genuine real-world applications! And while hotel employees and regular civilians are dying left and right, our Trekkies summon strength and courage by emulating their favorite starship-voyaging characters.

Packed with hundreds of gags referencing Star Trek, Star Wars, comic books, and fan conventions, Night of the Living Trekkies reads like the strange lovechild of Galaxy Quest and Dawn of the Dead. Journey to the final frontier of zombie science-fiction satire!

Check out our Contest page for your chance to win!

Music

Music this week was ‘I Hate your Blog’ and ‘Forbidden Planet’ by MC Frontalot off of his album Secrets from the Future. Frontalot performed ‘I Hate your Blog’ live at the PAX Saturday night concert with assistance from the one and only Beefy! Check out the video

Next show: Episode #77 – PAX Saturday wrapup – Including interviews with Fugazo, The Behemoth, Reverb, and a couple interviews we took on the D&D bus!

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