Last week was another busy one here at the Geekly Factory. First up, we were interviewed for AnotherPassion.com, a blog “created to inspire and motivate creative professionals and those seeking to make a living following their passion”. We were incredibly flattered, not only to be thought of as worth interviewing but also to be associated even peripherally with the words “creative” and “professional”. In addition to being a top notch blogger Rasmus Rasmussen, the man behind Another Passion, is an accomplished photographer and snapped a few pictures of us to accompany the interview. Check it out at AnotherPassion.com.

On Sunday we hit up Mourning Market and ran into a number of goth friends and other superbowl-dodgers including Dmitri from Tormented Artifacts who clued us in on his latest creation; steampunk playing cards. The art on the cards is amazing and I just wanted to share the coolness.

There is a lot of local/follow-up news as well before we get into the official roundup.

Alert listeners will remember our interview with Leo from Geeky Cookies in Episode #47. At the time of the interview the Geeky Cookies website was undergoing a major revamp and was down. It is now all done and available to handle all your sugary snack needs. OMNOMNOM!

Next in the follow-up section, way back in Episode #21 we talked about chiptuners I Fight Dragons as part of our Geek Music 2 show. The big news from them is that they have been signed to a major label! They will be recording and releasing their first full length album for Photo Finish / Atlantic Records and playing live shows around the country as part of the MTV “Too Fast For Love” tour.

Finally, some news for those going to Emerald City ComiCon who want to get something signed by Stan Lee. Obviously Stan Lee is going to be a huge draw, he is only at the convention for Saturday and only doing one autograph session so to help regulate the crowd the con is going to require tickets to get items signed. Here is the word, straight from the ECCC website –

Autograph ticket for Stan Lee’s SATURDAY ONLY signing are now on sale through Brown Paper Tickets. Tickets are $40.00 and each ticket entitles you to one (1) autograph from Stan “The Man” Lee – there is a limit of three (3) tickets per person. Here is the direct link:

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/98792

After purchase, you will be e-mailed a confirmation and ticket number. Print this out and bring it along with your matching photo ID to booth #1105 and there you will receive your on-site autograph ticket.

You will be assigned a time slot for signing – this time will be e-mailed to you in advance so you can plan ahead and know when to show up for your autographs. You can show up for later signings, but not earlier ones, and your ticket will still be honored. This ensures that there is a set number of people per signing and everyone gets a chance to get their items signed in an orderly fashion. There will be no photos available during the signing times, there will be a separate photo opportunity with Stan Lee at the show.

All information will be e-mailed by March 7th.

Monday News is under the fold

Has it been a year already? Why, yes it has! This week we celebrate the anniversary of the Seattle Geekly podcast with e-mails and voice mails from some of our amazing friends and listeners, plus we interview Len Wein, one of our Geek Heroes and co-creator of Marvel Comics’ Wolverine, Storm and Nightcrawler, DC’s Swamp Thing, editor for Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons on Watchmen and innumerable other accomplishments. We also have our first impressions of Star Trek Online and an interview with Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated curator Mike Schneider.

And, as always, we have the weekly Geek News and geek events in the Seattle area.

Billy the Fridge (middle) and Death*Star’s Cosplay (left) and MC3PO (right)

Just a couple of quick items before the news roundup. This Friday was Nerdcore Night at the Blue Moon Tavern in Seattle featuring performances by Billy the Fridge and Death*Star. It was a really good show and an impressively large crowd. Hopefully this means that there will be more weekend nerdcore nights in the future. We also learned that Death*Star is going to be playing a set and appearing on panels at this years Norwescon! We’ll have more pictures up on our Flickr page and some video on YouTube from Friday’s show soon.

Also this weekend was the Science Fiction + Fantasy Short Film Festival put on by the EMP|SFM. We’ll be having a full rundown on this week’s podcast but the short version was that it was an incredible slate of films and we quite happily sat in the Cinerama for close to seven hours to see everything. There was also a big announcement regarding a new exhibit coming to the Science Fiction Museum in October. Details are still sketchy but the staff at the SFM is putting together what sounds like will be an absolutely amazing Battlestar Galactica collection. EMP|SFM officials told us that the exhibit will be mostly artifacts from the new series, including a full sized Colonial Viper and a full sized Cylon Raider. What makes it especially exciting is that this is not a travelling show, this is being put together by and for the SFM. The BSG exhibit is scheduled to open October 10 and you can bet we’ll be talking more about this as additional details become available.

Finally, don’t forget to tune in this Thursday for the First Anniversary Seattle Geekly Podcast! We have an interview with a really cool guest and we’d love to hear from our listeners about how you all discovered our little corner of the geekiverse. Send us an e-mail or leave us a message on our voicemail line, 206-201-2352.

Monday News is under the fold.

We are always on the lookout for new, unusual or unique projects in the world of geekdom and this week we are highlighting some of the better ones we have found recently. We talk with Dane Ault from Monkey Minion Press about his zombie greeting cards, Dave Calabrese from Cerulean Games about their first game for the iPhone, playwright Alexander Harris about his new superhero themed project and we welcome back Star Trek historian Larry Nemecek who fills us in on the significance of the number 47 in the Star Trek universe.

All that plus a new giveaway contest and the weekly geek news and geek events in the Seattle area!

We have a selection of 8 greeting cards from Monkey Minion Press including 4 valentines, 1 birthday, 1 St. Patrick’s Day card and 2 generic greeting cards. The cards are sealed individually in plastic and would make great wall-art if you didn’t want to use them as cards.

The contest runs from today until February 7 with the winner picked on February 8. We’ll ship them to you via USPS in time for Valentine’s Day!

“How do I enter?”
Please register / log in to our website, and leave a comment on THIS POST. You can just say “hi” or whatever! One entry per person please, we’ll delete any multiple or offensive posts. Make sure you use a valid e-mail address when you register so we can contact you if you win!

“How will you randomly pick someone?”
We have D&D dice of all shapes and sizes, even a 100 sider! We’ll roll and see who wins!

I am totally out of ideas for something to lead in the news post with, so I’ll just throw out a quick reminder that this week’s podcast will be another iteration of our “I Didn’t Know THAT Existed” theme in which we hope to introduce you to some geeky products, activities and trivia that you may not have known about. There is also still plenty of time to enter our The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born giveaway.

Your Monday news is under the fold

There is a lot of cool stuff on the horizon this year, including a lot of great conventions. This week we talk to three local geeks to get the scoop on just a few of the events to look forward to. We have interviews with organizers from Crypticon, Steamcon and the Maelstrom International Fantastic Film Festival and the Oracle of Seattle Geekly, Isaac Alexander who collects and maintains the Cascadia Events and Convention news page for the Northwest Science Fiction Society blog.

As always, we also have the weekly geek news and Seattle area geek events.

“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” With those words, millions of readers were introduced to Stephen King’s Roland – an implacable gunslinger in search of the enigmatic Dark Tower, powering his way through a dangerous land filled with ancient technology and deadly magic. Now, in a comic book personally overseen by King himself, Roland’s past is revealed! Sumptuously drawn by Jae Lee and Richard Isanove, adapted by long-time Stephen King expert Robin Furth (author of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower: A Concordance) and scripted by New York Times bestseller Peter David, this series delves in depth into Roland’s origins – the perfect introduction to this incredibly realized world; while long-time fans will thrill to adventures merely hinted at in the novels. Be there for the very beginning of a modern classic of fantasy literature!
–Amazon Review

We have a BRAND NEW hardback copy of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born to give away. This volume collects the first seven issues of the comic and is a perfect way to start catching up on the series.

This contest runs from now until Sunday, January 31 and the winner will be picked Monday, February 1. We’ll ship the book to you via USPS.

“How do I enter?”
Please register / log in to our website, and leave a comment on THIS POST. You can just say “hi” or whatever! One entry per person please, we’ll delete any multiple or offensive posts. Make sure you use a valid e-mail address when you register so we can contact you if you win!

“How will you randomly pick someone?”
We have D&D dice of all shapes and sizes, even a 100 sider! We’ll roll and see who wins!

Yesterday was our monthly Game Night at Green Lake Games. We busted out a classic of the adventure game genre, Talisman (currently published by Fantasy Flight). We played with the Frostmarch and The Reaper expansions and it took pretty much the whole four hours. Fantasy Flight’s fourth edition is just as fun as the original and the expansions have not run into the balance issues that plagued some of the expansions in previous editions. It can be quite a time commitment to play, although a couple of the “alternate endings” included with the Frostmarch expansion can potentially cut down on the end-game. The rules are moderately complex at first but Talisman is definitely one of those games that is extremely easy to pick up once you get into it.

If you missed our game night this month, keep an eye on our Game Night Page for next month’s date.

Before getting into the news, I wanted to pass on one quick announcement from the fine folks at Norwescon. Tickets are now on sale for the Guest of Honor Banquet which will be the Thursday of Norwescon, April 1st, from 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM. Tickets are $30 and the night includes a talk by Guest of Honor Vernor Vinge, the presentation of several awards and scholarship donations, and you may win a prize! There is a PDF of the banquet registration form on the Norwescon site and of course you must be registered for the convention as well.

Credit where credit is due department: the strip at the top of the page is from one of my favorite webcomics Garfield Minus Garfield which is pretty much a must-read.

Your Monday news is under the fold

We had a great time with our Star Trek trivia night at Neptune Coffee. Five teams competed, answering questions written not only by us but also from two guest contributors!

Keep an eye on our Trivia Night page to find out what is coming next month!

If you couldn’t make it this month, all the questions are under the fold. How would YOU have done in the competition?