Comic makers!

In the first issue of Make on pages 172 and 173 we have a very cool cartoon from Howtoons.com, if you’ve never heard of Howtoons go check them out now. And speaking of toons–This weekend I’m going to drop in on the Emerald City ComicCon in Seattle, WA. If I’m lucky, I’m going to try and score an interview with Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade for one of the upcoming MAKE:audio shows. If you’re in the Seattle area, seeya there!

Updated: Mission accomplished, I made it to the Emerald City ComicCon in Seattle, WA– I haven’t been to a con in a few years so it was interesting to see what’s new, what’s changed and some of the new themes emerging. I interviewed Jerry Holkins also known as "Tycho" from Penny-Arcade for our upcoming MAKE:audio series, it turned out really well. I think I got the hang of recording the best possible way with Podzilla. On a somewhat related note, when you pull out an iPod running another OS with a big mic attached and a homemade battery pack people kinda freak out, the iPod for so many is "closed" but with a little tinkering it’s a full-on portable NPR.

The show was fairly large, it goes on for 2 days tons of people, lots to see. I saw this panoramic photo on flickr that really captures it. I think I was standing beside this guy, weird to see the photo on flickr, and so soon.

This is something new, well, new to me– It seems like all those fan films that people are making and posting are being put on DVD and sold (along with a lot of other content not available). Grayson was $15.

Another fan film on DVD.

There was some cool software demos from Animation Master, he made a 3D Homer Simpson fairly quickly with it.

I wanted to interview this guy and ask about his proton pack, but he seemed pretty busy with Jedi and Jawa.

I thought comics were relatively in the clear as opposed to all the backwards issues we have with music, video and copyrights– nope. I learned parody has been under attack lately from a lot of companies, even U.S. Customs. More here.

Marvel sends folks out to evaluate portfolios, I eavesdropped in on the advice this fellow was giving, it was really interesting.

I see these Storm Trooper guys all over Seattle, they’ve since seemed to have grown their ranks with some Jawas.

Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade! We will be posting the interview soon, it turned out great!