Tuesday, August 7, 2018

FIRST Opttacon - 2018

The show floor - and me earning printing cash
from K-Blam.com - where you want to go for
high-quality POD comics floppies at only about
$1 more than 1980's prices.

What a great show! Held in a convention hall in a beautiful park in Sequim, Washington.
Even though I've been going to entertainment conventions for decades, I never really looked in on the gaming track. Gamers were always quietly concentrating in their own room, I was working my table in the Artists Alley, and Never The Twain. 
I had no idea what fun, happy people gamers were (and smaller bad swab groups like those that caused Gamergate didn't make me eager to know them. Another black mark against those schmucks).
The hall was packed!
What an eye-opening. The gamers were totally welcoming to Roberta Gregory and me, the only comics people at the show. Two of them eagerly listened to how to turn their game into a comic book while avoiding pitfalls and keeping the costs down. Of course I recommended Ka-Blam.com for printing!


I even played a game called Conspire - originally attracted to it because all the players were wearing homemade tinfoil hats. Did we ever have fun! We were the noisiest game in the room because it's a very simple roll-playing game. We started with "Who broke the coffee shop blender?" and ended up involving a stolen meth shipment and the FBI. We were laughing so hard!

(For those of you begging me for years to make a Desert Peach game - just plug the characters into Conspire. You will not be disappointed. I would love to hear from you, and see photos and videos of you playing the Desert Peach Conspire. I wonder if anyone would like me to run one at any of the shows?)
Horses who wanted carrots.
I learned that only the figure-makers in gaming seemed to be able to do horses well. NEXT year - if we're very lucky and all parties are pro-active - there MAY be an actual horse at a horse-drawing class. There are hints the horse will arrive carrying a cosplayer. We shall see!
Congratulations to Port Angeles's own AnimeKat and Jeff Tingelstad for organizing and filling up a bang-up first year gaming convention. 
As a comics person, I advise us all to get in on the action. Roberta made most of the sales, but I was there to connect our two nerd worlds. And I think I was quite successful. 
View across the fields.
So be on the lookout for next year, and all our nerdcons on the Olympic Peninsula, including the Forks Raincon and my own Clallam Bay Comicon.
Roberta and I stayed at a very cool AirBnB just west of Sequim. It's a horse-and-dog rescue farm! And all the animals are spoiled and happy. As usual, the rest of this report is a photo essay. Just to give you a taste!


Roberta on a stroll from the house.
 
Park grounds - viewing pavilion
 
Park pool

Park pool