Indiecade East 2016 Takes Games In New Directions

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Parent Category: Expos and Conventions

Category: Previews

Published on Thursday, 28 April 2016 20:48

Written by Renzo Adler

Now in its fourth year, Indiecade East (April 29 - May 1, 2016) returns to the Museum of the Moving Image (36-01 35th Ave, New York, NY), to celebrate and explore the possibilities of video games. Newcomer devs and industry names alike will be attending this festival. The keynote, VR Games: What Works, What Doesn’t, and Why, conducted by Richard Marks of Sony Interactive Entertainment, explores the great potential virtual reality headsets have for video games, but also how developers will have to go back to the drawing board for many aspects of game making.

Panels and workshops tackle a wide range of subject matter from analysis of how characters die in games, how to program games using Unity, how games can be more inclusive and how the New York Public Library is looking to promote “gaming literacy” and how schools and libraries can utilize games to create a new type of learning environment.

Indiecade is not just where people come to discuss games though, it is also where you can see games that embrace and defy traditions and excite audiences. Disc Jockey Jockey has players juggling music and DJ’s making sure one fades out into the other at the correct time in order avoid dead air (payolla bribes not included). Crank Tank makes teams of two cooperate to move their tanks with specially designed controllers that are, you guessed it, giant cranks. MASK is a project that aims to take the sleek utilitarian design of phone based VR headsets, and convert them into wearable art installations that explore the nature of identity and interaction. The vector graphics of Asteroids and Tempest return in Vec9, the first new vector based arcade game to be released in 30 years, which puts players in control of a Soviet jet with controls and components from actual military hardware(!). But this is only a small sampling of the genre defying and embracing games available to try out at the show.

Indiecade is a great event that looks back at where games have come from, ahead to the future, and completely off the beaten track to find new ideas.

To learn more, go to: http://www.indiecade.com/east2016

Indiecade East
April 29 - May 1, 2016

Museum of the Moving Image
36-01 35th Ave.
New York, NY 11106

MoCCA Festival 2016: Indie Comics & Animation

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Parent Category: Expos and Conventions

Category: Previews

Published on Saturday, 12 March 2016 16:51

Written by Renzo Adler

(art by Noelle Stevenson)

MoCCA Fest, one of the best conventions for indie comics, returns to New York City this year, now at it’s new venue, the Ink48 Hotel (653 11th Ave, New York, NY), on April 2 - 3, and it’s bringing indie comics fresh faces and old pros with it.

Along with the usual cavalcade of independent artists and publishers, this year’s special guests include:

• Cece Bell
  Her colorful, fun and quirky drawings can be found in her best-selling books Rabbit & Robot: The Sleepover, Crankee Doodle, Bug Patrol, Itty Bitty, Bee-Wigged, and the Sock Monkey series. In 2015, Bell received the Newberry Medal Honor for her graphic novel El Deafo, a story based on her own experiences growing up deaf.

• R.O. Blechman
  His many books include the groudbreaking 1953 graphic novel The Juggler of Our Lady and the forthcoming Amadeo & Maladeo: A Musical Duet. He has received multiple recognitions including a Lifetime Achievement Award from The National Cartoonists Society in 2011, was inducted into the Society of Illustrators’ Hall of Fame in 2012. His work has been shown at The Norman Rockwell Museum, The School of Visual Arts, and MoMA.

• Phoebe Gloeckner
  Phoebe Gloeckner began cartooning after moving to San Francisco in the 1970s, and was greatly influenced by the underground comix movement led by artists including Robert Crumb, Aline Kominksy, Bill Griffith, Diane Noomin, and Terry Zwigoff. Her early work appeared in anthologies including Wimmen’s Comix, Weirdo, and Twisted Sisters. Both her 1998 collection A Child’s Life and Other Stories and the 2002 novel The Diary of a Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Pictures received notable recognition as well as controversy for its honest portrayal of teenage sexuality with themes of drug use and childhood traumas. The book has been adapted into a theatrical production and a critically acclaimed feature film of the same name. She is the recipient of the 2000 Inkpot Award, received the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008, and is currently the Faculty Fellow at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities.

• Sonny Liew
  Sonny Liew is a comics artist, painter, and illustrator whose work includes the New York Times best seller The Shadow Hero (with Gene Yang), Doctor Fate (with Paul Levitz), Malinky Robot and titles for Marvel Comics, DC Vertigo, and Image Comics. He has been nominated for multiple Eisner Awards for his collaborations on The Shadow Hero, Wonderland, and Liquid City, a multivolume comics anthology featuring creators from Southeast Asia.

• Rebecca Sugar
  Animator, composer and director started making comics like Pug Davis and Don’t Cry For Me I’m Already Dead, before heading to Cartoon Network to write and storyboard Adventure TIme. Now Sugar helms the show Steven Universe, and became the first woman to independently create a series for that network.
  
  

MoCCA Fest also includes a series of panels and Q&As from the guests of honor and exploring topics like the dangers of being a satirical cartoonist, feminist alt-comic anthology Wimmen’s Comix, and making comics for a younger audience. Leading up to the festival is The Society of Illustrator’s Comic and Cartoon Week with events at the Society of Illustrators (128 E 63rd St, New York, NY) and throughout NYC.

See our coverage of MoCCA Fest 2015 here:

To learn more, go to: http://www.societyillustrators.org/

MoCCA Festival 2016
April 2 - 3, 2016

Ink48 Hotel
653 11th Ave.
New York, NY 10036

Media Summit New York Looks at Virtual Reality as the Future of Entertainment

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Parent Category: Expos and Conventions

Category: Previews

Published on Monday, 29 February 2016 11:29

Written by Brad Balfour

Meeting at the Bohemian National Hall (73rd Street btw. 2nd and 1st Ave), the 2016 Media Summit New York will  examine the role that virtual reality and augmented reality will play in the entertainment industry. Over the years, The Media Summit, run by Digital Hollywood's Victor Harwood, has tracked the way digital technology has altered the course of media and charted the way both business models and comsumer consumption of media has radically changed.

With HTC’s Vive, the Oculus Rift, and the Microsoft HoloLens gearing up for their releases, speculators are wondering whether we will see a radical shift in the way we will be consuming entertainment or if this will be the 21st century equivalent of Betamax.

NextVR co-founder DJ Roller, will be giving the keynote speech, offering a five-year projection for how VR and AR will affect the entertainment industry and investors.

Aaron Luber, Head of Partnerships at Google Cardboard will be discussing the New York Times’ recent efforts to use virtual reality as a media tool and how the Google Cardboard device will put it in the hands of the masses while expanding imaginations.

Other panels will look at the funding VR and AR projects. And considering that both the Oculus (priced at $600) and the Vive (priced at $800) are pretty high ticket items for general consumers, this will be a pretty weighty subject both for makers of the technology and those creating content specific to it.

Other panels include how the marketing of AR and VR is expanding and changing; there will be workshops for developing for these new devices, and how other forms of entertainment like music, sports, and TV will be affected by these new tools.

To learn more, go to: http://www.digitalhollywood.com/MediaSummit2016.html

Media Summit New York
March 2 - 3, 2016

Bohemian National Hall
73rd Street btw. 2nd and 1st Ave
New NY