Saturday we made it back to PAX with the idea of spending the day in panel discussions. We of course ended up wandering the grounds taking everything in again (the people watching is nothing short of epic), playing more games in the exhibition hall, and only made it to a couple of panels before calling it a day. The first panel we attended featured prominent members of female-oriented gaming communities, talking about how their communities......

Seattlest took a break from the HQ today to head down for some early time at the Penny Arcade Expo. We wanted to get our pass and our bearings a bit before the bulk of the crowds arrived, and it's shaping up to be quite the weekend. Lines were already long, crowds were building, and the swag was flowing freely. It's nerd nirvana, and you won't want to miss out. Seattlest spent most of......

Bumbershoot has completely dominated the press this week, but for gamers, this weekend holds importance because of the Penny Arcade Expo, the gaming convention run by the local crew behind gaming/geek culture comic Penny Arcade. The Penny Arcade Expo (aka PAX) starts tomorrow (tonight if you include the pub crawl), marking the the fifth anniversary of the event, and as with every prior year, it looks to be the largest yet, with an expected......

"Reading-the-funnies" by Greg Phipps (El Gregein) How much do we love you, sweet Flickr pool of ours? So, so much. And it's shots like these that make it so. There's more where this came from, so dive in and share your own.......

When Titans Clash! by earinc This reminder to go check escape with the new Incredible Hulk movie is brought to you by the Seattlest Flickr Pool - kindly ignore that there's a mixing of comic universes going on here.......

Local illustrator/writer/cartoonist Jeremy Eaton has an epic blog post about how the Hulk almost got him laid. Apparently back in the dark ages before the internet, people had to turn to the fan mail columns of comic books for their social networking needs. The story is funny as hell. Go read it. The skepticism in the comments over the authenticity of the "Wendy Wilson" who wrote to him is also great, especially this hilarious......

We've been Ellen Forney fans since we read "I Was Seven in '75" -- back when it ran in The Rocket. Her latest project is Lust, a collection of the "Lustlab Ad of the Week" cartoons she does for The Stranger, published this month by Fantagraphics. We interviewed Forney about the cartoon at Georgetown's All City Coffee, just down the block from the Fantagraphics store where there will be a book launch party tomorrow night.......

It's been said that Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot was a play in which all that was left to the characters was hope; if that's the case, then Endgame is what you get when you lose even that. In one long act, the play features a cast of four characters in increasing states of immobility and decrepitude, the last dismal dregs of humanity gasping their final breaths, telling incoherent stories and hoping for a bitter......

Adrian Tomine started making comics in his teens when he created Optic Nerve. In it, he tells stories about people who tend to be searching for answers to questions they seem to think everyone else already knows. After a few years putting out Optic Nerve on his own, it was picked up by publisher Drawn and Quarterly. Tomine is coming to Seattle to promote his first full-length graphic novel Shortcomings. Seattlest used it as......

There's an article bemoaning our pending loss of Daly's Drive-In in Eastlake in the Post Intelligencer today (with accompanying blog item--probably both inspired by a slightly previous blog item from the Stranger) headlined "Popular drive-in on way out." The thing is, Daly's isn't popular. It should be, and it was, but it isn't. Red Mill Burgers, say, the Phinney location, is popular. There's always a line out the door and it takes forever to......

That's the final installation of Monkey's Hate You which was recently axed from the Stranger. Here's the artist's call to arms: My crappy cartoon just got the boot from THE STRANGER. Probably because it sucked. Here is the final one. I am calling on all Seattle-based fans to riot!! I expect all three of them to *represent*!! xojimmy Should Seattlest pick it up? You may not know this, but Seattlest once had a regular......

Seattlest confidant/subliterate henchman "Pete the Polak" told us a long stupid story this weekend about how a friend of a friend of his once knew Duff and this credible source claimed that it was he and not Axl who wrote the lyrics for the timeless classic "Paradise City" and that said song was based on Seattle. We immediately called horse shit on this obvious lie, but upon activating a computer we could find no evidence......

Local comic journalist (that's a journalist working in the medium of comics, not a journalist covering comics) Peter Bagge made the cover of Reason magazine this month. Bagge is on staff at the magazine and routinely does hilarious/horrifying cartoons about life in Seattle through Libertarian eyes (and if there's a ground zero for material for a Libertarian cartoonist it could very well be Seattle). The cover image is, of course, a self portrait. The Washington......

The planets alligned Saturday for a confluence of free stuff: Free admission to the grand opening of the new revamped Seattle Art Museum and, just as importantly, the annual Free Comic Book Day at participating comic book stores. Pinch Seattlest's cumulative butt cheeks and tell us we're not dreamin'! All the action at SAM takes place on floors three and four with an overwhelming mix of integrated everything. We overheard somebody in the crowd......

Tomorrow is Cinco De Mayo, so you already know that any vaguely Mexican destination is going to be filled with jackasses drinking margaritas and acting like idiots over what isn't really Mexican independence day. We're fine with the drunkenness, we're fine with the jackassery, but really, there are much better ways to spend your day and night than in some overly adorned restaurant. Here are three of them, and since we know you're going to......

Last week at Seattlest trivia, fourth-place team The Fookin' As requested Marvel Comics as a theme for a round this week. So if you're coming to the Old Pequliar, bring a comic book geek friend -- or at least skim the Marvel Comics page on Wikipedia. Also last week, the Fookin' As requested that we consider expanding teams to a maximum of 6 players, rather than 5. Comments were split. So we're going to......

We remember the winner: Equal Time for Chocolate Buddha. They won $110. Second place: Another one of NAMBLA's wildly inappropriate names. They won $40. Third place's name had something to do with the Mariners' season, and they won $10. Fourth place was The Fookin' As. They chose Marvel comics as a round topic for next week -- something we've always been tempted to do, what with growing up on John Byrne's Fantastic Four and......

--The Seattle Mystery Bookshop gets sucked into a publisher's con game. [Seattle Mystery Bookshop] --BibliOdyssey stumbles across a trove of Space Needle and Century 21 sketches. [BibliOdyssey] --A's 1B Dan Johnson is out for three months. [SFGate.com] --Yeah, maybe teachers should be paid as much as athletes. [Seattle P-I] --Ellen Forney talks comics. [Inkstuds] --Should Starbucks compensate a barista who had stuff stolen from her car while she was at work? [Starbucks Gossip] Farmland......

Tons of classic Spiegelesque wit bombs dropped last night at the Benaroya Hall lecture/slide show/performance. Our favorite was the curt dismissal of Roy Lichtenstein's work at the very start: "He did for comics what Andy Warhol did for soup." Oh, Spiegelman, you dog... You get him! There were some unintentionally funny moments, like when befuddled old geezer Spiegelman segued from talking about Will Eisner's The Spirit to Jack Cole's Plastic Man, he kept pointing......

THEATER: 12 Minutes Max is experimental theater at On the Boards with each artist given 12 minutes or less to do their thing. The Stranger got us excited for the artists the Vis-a-Vis Society in this show, but according to the OtB website they're out sick tonight. It looks like there are still plenty of upstanding acts in good health, however. 7pm // On The Boards // $7 available in the lobby one hour......

MUSIC: In a case of perfect billing, Math and Physics Club are taking a break from puppy petting and hand-holding to sing some songs for the kids as part of Town Hall's Saturday morning concert series. 11am & 1:30pm // Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Avenue (at Seneca Street) // Free for kids 12 and under, $5 for adults - adults must be accompanied by a child COMICS: Gabrielle Bell, Kevin Huizenga, and Anders Nilsen......

Admission: We don't know shit about graphic novels (we were more baseball cards than comic books in our day) We read Maus in the mid 90's and the Watchmen for a college class, and that's it. But as we were down in Georgetown for a work function, we thought we'd check out the new store. The lovely and charming Rhea (pictured at right) picked something out for us based on the bibliography just mentioned and......

ART: OKOK's move to Ballard has been good for them. The new space puts more focus on the art, separating it a bit from the (still great) retail. Free Parking, a new group drawing exhibit, opens today with works from ten artists. 6-10pm // OKOK Gallery, 5107 Ballard Ave NW // FREE COMICS: Do anything well for 25 years and you acquire almost mythic status, regardless of area. Love and Rockets has been doing......

COMICS: Local cartoonist salon Friends of the Nib, founded by Jim Woodring, will create a work of narrative sequential art right before your eyes. You may purchase a copy of said art at the end of the evening. 6-9pm, drop in anytime // Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery, 1201 S Vale St. in Georgetown // TRIVIA: If you think Seattlest James asks tough questions, take a gander at sample categories at the World Affairs Council's Transnational......

One of our 43 Favorite Things about Wallingford is closing up shop over the next few days. Music & toy store, art gallery, and occasional show space Electric Heavyland is closing for good on January 1st. Rather than the standard "rising rents" storyline that you're used to, the Electric Heavyland folks are closing the shop so they can focus on their record label, enterruption. Since they're closing to focus on music, it would seem that......

Its Christmas Eve and the pickens are slim. Here are some random things around town tonight that look potentially do-able: MUSIC: Punk, Pabst and Porn with DJs 23rd Hour and Nils Forever. This is mostly because we love the Juju, their deals are usually no cover and this doesnt look too holidays-ish. 9 p.m. // Bad Juju // Free MUSIC: The Suffering Fuckheads Xmas Eve Party. No clue if this is worth recommending or......

DONATE: For as much as gamers earn their nerdy reputations (and thus our ridicule), Child's Play gives them a chance to both share their geek pride and help the world around them through donations to help kids in hospitals. You want to help too, right? Anytime // Child's Play // However much you can COMICS: Seattlest favorites Ellen Forney and Peter Bagge provide a double-dose of awesome with Comics Rock!, featuring Forney's "I Love......

ART: Our main man Rick Klu has some more of this trademark coaster art - picture pscyhedellic hot rod art and underground comics, ala Skip Williamson, Rick Griffin, Robt Williams, that kind of thing - on the walls at Cafe Racer up in the Roosevelt area. Open till 6pm on Sundays // Cafe Racer, 5828 Roosevelt Way NE // Free SNOW: Of the nearest ski options, Stevens Pass is the best. The spaces are......

12:23am What am I doing here? Standing in the cold, with all these people? I swore I'd never do this. Swore I'd never join the crazies, waiting all night for some sale that can't possibly be worth it. But here I am. 12:35am I guess I'll read now. I brought a couple books with me. A novel and my McSweeney's Comics anthology. I bet I'll finish the novel tonight. What else have I got to......

Don’t say we didn’t warn you, but we did. Unfortunately some of you failed to heed said warning about yesterday's Harvey Pekar reading and now we will have to spend hours de-friending all of your sorry asses on myspace. We know this because one of our agents went to this event undercover last night and filed the following surveillance report: [Series editor Anne Moore], and a cartoonist that I don't know, came off like idiots.......