Emerald City Comicon Hits Seattle
AUTHOR: Emily
Looking for something to do this weekend? If you love comics and can make your way to Seattle, come check out the ninth annual Emerald City Comicon!
We’re not going to have an official Undead Labs booth, but a bunch of us will be there for fun — the con’s become one of those awesome events that local artists and comic book fans look forward to every year.
To try and twist your arm a little more, I’ll share a few of my show must-sees.
Our art director Doug Williams will be peddling his wares at table H-13 on Friday, bringing along a set of five prints. They’re not zombies this time around, but they’re still pretty sweet. If you can’t make it out until the weekend, don’t worry. His stuff will still be available for the rest of the show.
- In zombie-related news, Max Brooks will be set up at table 302. He’ll also be hosting a zombie survival panel at noon on Saturday in room 4C3-4, so don’t forget to check that out, too!
- Zombie comic writer, friend of the Lab, and holiday-card-licker extraordinaire Mark Rahner will have copies of his series, Rotten, available at table J-06. It’s one of my favorites, so I highly recommend picking it up if you have a chance.
- You can find another friend of the Lab and all-around great guy, Chew creator John Layman, at table 706. Chew isn’t zombie related (even if it does highlight the eating of body parts), but it’s still a freaking amazing series.
- Since it’s a Seattle show, ECCC attracts a lot of talented local game artists. If you’re not sure where to start, here are some of my good friends:
- Matt Barrett and Kristen Perry will be at table C-17
- Katy Hargrove will be at table L-09
- Trevor Howell (and, as mentioned, Doug) will be at table H-13
The PopCap crew (Plants vs. Zombies, anyone?) will also be out in full force, with a group of their artists setting up in row K.
Of course, there are a ton of other things to see and do. For example, you can pose for pics with The Shat, meet the Boondock Saints, geek out with Data and Riker…
Yeah, I’m going to stop now. If you couldn’t tell, this show is one of my favorite events of the year.
I hope to meet some of you there! If you spot a red-haired chick wearing a brown Undead Labs hoodie and lugging around a huge armload of books, it’s probably me. Flag me down, tell me you read this, and I may have something cool for you. Or, if you’re a Twitter user, follow @undeadlabs and keep an eye on our tweets. I’ll let you know when I get to the show, and you can start your hunt from there.
See you this weekend!
Emily
its a who’s who of awesomeness.
Dear Undead Labs,
I have a few suggestions for the website and game that I believe would be helpful for both you and the community.
1. Forums- the interest in class3 and class4 games are growing very fast and the people interested in the game have no dedicated place to speculate on the game. If you create a forum you’ll be able to receive wide amounts of feedback and ideas that some developers wouldn’t have thanks to the diversity of thoughts. Plus its kinda confusing to post ideas in the comments.
2. Support-create a support section on the site because when bad things can happen, they normally do. The online support in conjunction with the forums will allow you to tackle the glitches and problems much more easily then finding the problems yourself because the community can easily find specific bugs in gameplay.
3. Demo- beta or demo to try and fix bugs before wide scale release.
4. I suggest also that for Class 3, instead of 1-2 players I suggest you amp up the number to 4 because I don’t know what psychological aspect of a small group watching each other makes it so much greater the experience but 4 people just seems to work well, Nazi Zombies, Left 4 Dead. If its just two people, the party gets split, and instead of playing class 3 the two might choose instead to play with their friends.
5. Slow zombies vs Fast Zombies- in recent years there’s been a push for fast zombies. I don’t know what gameplay your going to have i.e. any shot will harm the zombies vs only shots to the head harm zombies. Truly a massive wave of zombies moving at a snails pace is infinitely more terrifying than 4 zombies running like kenyans in the olympics such as in left 4 dead.
6. Map Creation- For class 4 you should definitely have map creation. Some of the most popular games have a thriving community thanks to the map editing tools in the game and the ability to download other’s custom content. I suggest an ability to modify terrain, buildings, weather, lighting and zombie spawns, as well as AI spawns which will make the playtime for the game infinitely longer.
Unfortunately I’ll be on duty this weekend and won’t be able to make it. However I hope you have an awesome time and maybe discover a few new series to get into.
Wish I could make it, but that is a bit of a drive from Houston. Hope everyone who goes (both fans and devs) have a great time!
I would go ,but Seattle is a little bit too far away from where I live and I don’t really have the time for a four day drive.
First, a question. Is that a Zombie Dragon in pic 2???!!! LOL I figure those pics are just random.
Second, why are the big things in cities out on the coast? Why aren’t they held in a central area like Vegas, or Arlington? I wish I could go all the way to Seattle.
I’m on the east coast, so I think I’ll have to pass. Sounds like a great time, though.
i live all the way out in BFE(Arizona) fuuuuuu< so its hard to do. Buuuut kinda my thing *happyface* plus its a perfect place for a zombie apocalypse, well so is where I live, a secluded town 40miles away from the nearest city, plus mountains lol!. but maybe I’ll see you guys sometime in the near future…keep up the good work on “class3″ and “class4″ looking forward to playing them both (even though they are the same game)
my comment left out a detail< I would like to move to Up-state Oregon or Washington, love the forest, rain and gloomy skies(overcast)
*Maniacal cackle* Of ALL The weekends to be busy!
Don’t feel too bad if you can’t make it. Our office is only 2 miles from the convention and i can’t go.
I need to kill zombies, my lust for blood hasnt been quenced in 3years!! please for the love of Zombie Jesus, hurry up with the game!!!!!! my brains cant take the stress, anyways, find a good name for the game yet”????