When The Geeks Converged On Mill Ave [Recap]

Tempe’s Geeks’ Night Out had a stellar turnout last Thursday night.

Its attendance boosted my optimism of our local nerd scene and filled the evening with many costumed characters. I’m really glad it got the TV and internet promotion it did; I think it all worked.

With my kids not feeling great (it’s going around) and the wife at home with them, I dragged out a niece and nephew to keep me company. Naturally, they converged almost immediately on the “game truck” that had showed up. They spent most of the evening showing younger kids in there how to play Mario Kart.

Too bad because they missed a few Batmans, a handful of Avengers, and tons and tons of Star Wars characters – including my homeboy, R2.

Lots of artists showed up as well, showing off their creations, including Halo artist (and Nightmare Before Christmas fan) Big Chris:

Our friend Stacey from Dream Photography Studio was their with her family and she graciously shared these pics for me to post. (Stacey is going to be part of my Phoenix Comicon coverage team – her photography is great and I’m excited!)

I’m already hearing rumors that this will not be an isolated event and that Tempe was very pleased with how things turned out, so keep your fingers crossed for a return of Geeks’ Night Out next year.

In closing, some predators:

“Oh, Expletive!” A Phoenix Artist’s Geeky Take On Being Impossibly Outnumbered

You know that moment when hundreds of knife-wielding virus-infected maniacs have you cornered?

Do you remember the strange mix of fear and exhilaration that poured over you as you stopped running, slowly picked up your own knife, and turned around?

Phoenix designer Safwat does, and has channeled it into some snazzy prints and shirts for you.

“The series is called “Oh Expletive!” and while it is essentially about odds being stacked against you, it is my rather geeky take on the topic using 8-bit creatures, flame throwers, shark attacks, unicorns and zombies.”

And dinosaurs, I might add:

Not only are they fun to look at, they can’t help but bring an “Expletive, yeah!” smile to your mouth as you browse through them. They’re all worth viewing.

Safwat handily surpassed a recent Kickstarter goal to start making shirts, so if you’re hankering to sport one of these bad boys, swing by and pledge some cash as they should be in production soon.

While you wait for your shirt, enjoy his highly enjoyable Kickstarter video:

My 2 Year Old’s Recap of Encredicon & Sci-Fi-Friday [Recap]

On Friday night I took my son Jonas with me to Downtown Mesa’s geek-themed 2nd Friday.

The evening consisted of a bazillion comic and video game artists, a handful of costumers, lots of cool people, and suprisingly cool(ish) weather.

This time, though, I gave Jonas a camera and let him take the pictures for this recap.

For a 2 year old, I think he did an awesome job! He must have downloaded some talent from his mother’s genes.

(But we probably need to work on getting that finger out of the way.)

Some visitors from a galaxy far, far away decided to visit for the evening:

First stop was Gotham City Comics:

Then we swung by The Royal to say hi and exchange books.

Got a nice tweet from it too!

Then we swung over to HeatSync Labs where this little rover was cruising around, feeding video back to the front of their space.

Jonas loved it, which is weird because he’s terrified of Rumbas for some reason…

Last stop was Evermore Nevermore where Scott Shehi drew Jonas a picture of “Pie-Man.”

(You and I know him as “Spider-man.”)

This may have been Jonas’ favorite part of the evening due to that big red bowl on the bottom left of the picture.

Evermore Nevermore also hosted the SciFi Fashion show, which was very steampunk oriented with a few time traveling hotties thrown in the mix:

Technically, we did go check out the LEGO display at the Mesa Arts Theater, but it was pretty dang dissapointing – hardly anything there, and what was there was not worth posting about. Oh well.

We had a great evening, got to see some awesome folks (like Sarah) and even met some readers for the first time.

Mad props to Mesa for morphing into a kind of East Valley nerd mecca, and a big thanks to Jonas for taking the pictures!