A Brief overview. Penny Arcade Expo is a gathering of the many fans of the webcomic Penny Arcade. Created by Jerry Holkins a.k.a. Tycho, and Mike Krahulik a.k.a. Gabe, the writing and drawing half of Penny Arcade respectively, the comic has grown to have one of the largest, if not the largest internet community in the world. The original, PAX Prime, takes place in Seattle, and the first PAX East happened for the first time this previous weekend in Boston. This show in Boston had 60,000 people in attendance, and broke the previous record of 58,000 of the latest PAX Prime (or so I heard from some random guy.) The inaugural PAX East sold out of passes before the show even began, and next year they will be moving to a larger convention center as to be able to hold more people.
Glossing the boring details, Beckett (@beckettnoyes) and I arrived at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston around 9, 9:15 AM, and got ourselves some nice blue wristbands guaranteeing us admission to the Saturday Night Concert. Not long after lining up in the Queue Room, the room where they put all the outrageously long lines so as not to block space where people needed to actually move, we were moved upstairs to the 3rd floor, where we were crammed into line like a can of sardines for the Bill Amend Panel.
For those of you outside the loop, Bill Amend is the creator of Foxtrot which I used to read all the time in the newspaper as a youngling. After the panel started, he greeted all of us, and told us how immensely grateful he was to be welcomed to PAX, referring back to nerd superstar Wil Wheaton's opening speech the day before where he greeted everyone by saying "Welcome home." During the panel he mainly showed us a selection of his strips featuring video game jokes, and educated us on how hard it is to deal with newspaper syndication as sometimes he'll want to use a vulgar word such as "sucks" which apparently they're very against. Also he told us how sometimes he'll have good ideas for a comic but he won't be able to use it because it would only appeal to the small percentage of his readers because it's video game related. A pretty solid panel, but we peaced out a little ways into the Q & A portion cause we were pretty eager to check out the show floor.
The place was PACKED. Featuring fan favorite booths such as Microsoft, Behemoth, Ubisoft, Nvidia, Nintendo and plenty of other booths of varying importance to nerdkind. Beckett and I browsed, photographed, and got as much swag (free stuff) as we could in a brief period, before we headed downstairs to get some sweet merch (official PAX stuff) before we headed back into the Queue Room to wait for the Make a Strip panel.
Every PAX, be it PAX Prime or PAX East, Jerry lays down a script and Mike draws the comic for the following Monday live all while taking Questions from the Audience. This was the first time Beckett or I had seen the duo in person, live, and the few hours we spent being entertained by them were some of the best of the convention. They took whatever questions, stories, or donations the audience had graciously and with a smile. They had funny quips at each other and at the audience, and it was an experience that just left me feeling like "no wonder these guys have amassed such a huge following." Example: One twenty-something got up on the mike and said the following, albeit with more quips from Jerry and Mike and stumbling to get out what he wanted to say: "Hey, a friend of mine graduated school, is working in technology but feels really lost and wants to try and do something internet based, but is having a really hard time getting things off the ground. Any advice for me- I mean my friend?"
Jerry responded, "After this is over, come over to this curtain on the side of the stage, and I'll talk with you at length."
I love those guys.
After the panel concluded, we got some lunch at the Prudential Center Food Court (Flamers FTW) and returned to the show floor. We jumped around some more, got some more swag, played a few demos, and next thing we knew it was 6 and the floor was closing. We dropped our bags off at the car, and wasted what was left of the next hour lounging and watching people dominate on Rock Band in the aptly named Rock Band Lounge. When 7PM rolled around, we returned to the Queue Room for the 3rd and final time to wait for the night's concert.
Waiting in line, or rather, sitting in line we were gifted with some free donuts from a fellow PAX-goer, as well as some pipe cleaners to pass the next hour with from the PAX Staff, the Enforcers, a fan volunteer security group who helps run the show. Shortly after however, the two large screens that were set up on the sides of the line started being filled with typed messages of how huge nerds we were for making pipe-cleaner crowns (I made a lizard, much cooler.) It soon proceeded to lead us in a series of text-to-vote games, which were certainly time killers, before handing our drawn attention over to the Frag Dolls, a group of women gamers sponsored by Ubisoft. We were then instructed, nay, mandated or whatever its female equivalent is, to follow the visual cues of a dancing MC Hammer outline on the huge screen, in order to break some sort of Line Dancing record. Though humiliating, the shame was lessened by the fact that almost everyone was doing it, and those who weren't were either morbidly obese or too busy playing card games that I've never heard of before.
Shortly after, at the apex of our line waiting experience, after everyone was on their feet ready to roll, our captors played "Still Alive" by Jonathan Coulton, better known as the theme song to Portal, and everybody, everybody, sang it. This phenomenon cemented the fact that I was among fellow nerds. I can remember this moment of clarity and a single remark left my lips, "I love my life."
As the song ended, we paraded out towards the Main Theater to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. Proudly, everyone sang until the time whence they entered the Theater, eager for the night to continue, by enjoying the semi-final round of the Omeganauts Tournament, and listening to the musical stylings of the Video Game Orchestra, Paul and Storm, and Jonathan Coulton himself.
To Be Continued...
But if you can not wait, feel free to peruse my pictures of the festivities via either Facebook or Picasa; read my tweets of the night's events; or watch the video blogs (vlogs) I made with Beckett of our day over at my brand-spankin' new Youtube site.
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