Half-Life 3 Release

There’s a reason game like Half-Life 3 get released “when they’re ready”. I don’t even want to know what QA was like on this one.

 

Source: Dorkly.

VANCAF 2012 Con Report & Gallery

The Vancouver Comic Arts Festival was welcomed with gorgeous weather this Saturday. Northwest crowds now have a reputation for filling out events like this, and today was no exception. The convention floor was packed with attendees and exhibitors. The Yaletown Roundhouse was a great venue with a mixture of modern and historical decor. I saw and met many of my favourites here,  but I also discovered comics that I had never heard of that are hits by any objective standard.  It just goes to show how important these events are. Google’s pretty good, but it can’t introduce you to all these comics in one search query. I mean, how much is a Post-it comic like Savage Chickens going to have in common with a medieval comedy epic like Much the Miller’s Son? Hit the jump if you want to see more of pictures of the convention and the exhibitors.

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Vancouver Comic Book Burning, 1954

Even Vancouver wasn’t safe from the moral panics of the 1950s. Over 8000 comics were burned at this rally by the Jaycee Youth Leadership committee in 1954. “No significant improvement” in Youth behaviour was observed as a result of this burning, but it was rallies like these that led to the Comics Code of authority and the lack of diversity in western comics up until the 1990s. I love that in true Vancouver fashion, “Rain dampened the affair”.

Source: Vancouver Is Awesome.

Emerald City Comicon Photos

See? I told you we were on hand at Emerald City Comicon! My buddy Theo Hua was kind enough to get some sweet shots of Seattle’s comic book tour de force. You can check out the rest of his photos after the jump, and check out his website, www.nekomitech.net.

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The History of Vancouver in Comics

Stevie Wilson over at Scout Magazine has posted a fascinating article about the history of Vancouver in Comics. Editorial Cartoons, Fanzines and the like are apparently a great resource for first-hand historical records. They are so good, in fact, that the UBC Library had a trial archive on their website up until March 16th. I’m rather miffed that I hadn’t heard about it until now, so write an e-mail to rare.books@ubc.ca and let the faculty there know that we want to see the history of Vancouver in comic book format.

Scout Magazine.

‘Axe Cop’ Animated Series Coming to Fox

http://youtu.be/4ZquaoUMfIc

Television is about to get awesome. We all know Axe Cop as the web comic that was drawn by a 29-year-old and written by his 5-year-old brother. Variety reports that the Fox network has ordered 6 15-minute episodes of Axe Cop to be shown in their Animation Domination block along with The Simpsons and Family Guy for the 2013-14 TV season. Unfortunately, the series will probably be written by adults, and in keeping with TV’s more conservative mores, will be shown on an adult schedule. Let’s all hope that they can keep the series inimitable insane logic intact! At the very least they should be able to bring that badass narrator back.

Source:Variety

FanExpo Vancouver 2012 Photo Gallery

Now, what would any good convention be without Cosplay? Vancouver brings out its best Comic Book costumes out against the backdrop of the beautiful Vancouver Convention Center!

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Fanexpo Con Report

After 17 years of entertaining in Toronto (a.k.a the center of the universe), the organizers of FanExpo decided it was time for Vancouver to have a comic convention of its very own. While Vancouver has has had many anime, sci-fi and comic conventions before, it hasn’t really been able to scale up its events for those world-famous convention centres it has down at the water front. Anime Evolution was probably the nearest contender, with well over 6,000 attendees at its 2010 outing.

The Vancouver Convention Centre is a gorgeous place to hold a fan event. It’s a shame there hasn’t been one there before. FanExpo took place on the lower level of the West building, which opened in 2009. The opportunities for cosplay photography are exquisite. You have the sails of Canada place, a clear view to the North Shore, the Olympic Torch sight, as well as Portal Park across the street. It’s got that right mix of nature and futuristic cityscapes that make for great shots.

The organizers of FanExpo were expecting to merely break even with 12,000 attendees. They blew that figure out of the water with over 20,000 attendees. People were lined up out the block to get in, and by noon they had completely sold out. And this is with almost zero promotion on the convention’s part! The Canadian Video Game awards had no problems giving out all their tickets within minutes. Last year, they had to get their audience to bunch up at the front so they would look like they had an actual crowd. Much kudos needs to go to the staff of the FanExpo and the convention centre, who were extremely professional at keeping the foot traffic moving.

The exhibitors hall was very impressive, even though they weren’t expecting this many people. The guests were positioned at the back of the hall, and were quite accessible for anyone who wanted to walk up and say hi.

Our cosplayers had a great turnout for the many first-time con-goers at the convention. The 501st legion and the Ghostbusters of BC held some great booths this year and took lots of pictures with the attendees. There wasn’t much room for any giant “hall-sweeper” type costumes, but rest assured, with a venue this size we will definitely see more elaborate costumes next year.

I can definitely say that Vancouver has really joined the big leagues of cons with FanExpo Vancouver. This town was hungry for a convention, and FanExpo delivered in spades. We’ll see more of what our fair city can do when Anime Revolution comes to the convention centre in August. I hope to see you there!

See You at Fan Expo Vancouver!

In case you haven’t noticed, Fan Expo Vancouver is coming to the Vancouver Convention Center this weekend! This will be the first Vancouver incarnation of the 17 year old Toronto Event. Guests include Lou Ferrigno, Adam West, Burt Ward, Marina Sirtis, Kevin Sorbo and a whole lot more than you can shake a phaser at! There will also be the Canadian Video Game Awards, Cosplay, and tons of exhibitors. I’ll be spending Saturday at the convention, so keep watching this space for photos and con report next week!

Emerald City Comicon is happening RIGHT NOW


In case you haven’t heard already, the Emerald City Comicon is taking place at the Washington State Convention Center from March 30th to April 1st. Everyone will be there. EVERYBODY. There’s Wil Wheaton, Mike Allred, Kurt Busiek, Adam Baldwin, Edward James Olmos, James and Oliver Phelps, George Takei, Maurice Lamarche, Bender Bending Rodriguez himself John DiMaggio, and literally too many others to list. We here at Raingeek have had to settle for a limited presence at this event, but I do believe we will have a photographer on hand at the show this Saturday. Check back here for our exclusive gallery!