The Hand Eye Society Arcade will be at The Scott Pilgrim Vol. 6 Midnight Release Party! Monday July 19th, 8pm-1am.  Markham Street right next to Honest Eds.

The Beguiling Comic shop is holding a huge street sized party for the launch of the final volume of Scott Pilgrim. Author Bryan Lee O’Malley will be signing at the Beguiling (601 Markham) but there’s SP related stuff happening up and down the street. More details on the Beguiling webpage.

The HES Arcade will be at Butler’s Pantry, 591 Markham from 8pm-Midnight and we’ll have a number of local indie games setup for people to play (sadly the mighty Torontron will not be in attendance this time). The arcade will include games by:

][ Games, Big Pants, Forest Games, GetSetGames, Golden Gear,  Spooky Squid Games and Spyeart

If you’re not familiar with Scott Pilgrim it’s a Comic set in Toronto that stars Scott Pilgrim a 23 year old slacker in an indie band called Sex-Bob-omb. It has crazy kung-fu fights, vegans with psychic powers and a world built on videogame logic.  You can read some previews on the official website.

Now that the comic is finishing up it’s about to be turned into a movie and a videogame!

SP vs. HES Fun Facts: The official Scott Pilgrim website was designed by HES member Nadine Lessio who also designed the Torontron logo.  The fourth volume of  Scott Pilgrim has pixel art on the back by HES member Miguel Sternberg (Spooky Squid Games).

Are you a HES member with a game you think would be a good fit for a future HES Arcade? Shoot me an email at neko@silencegreys.com with “HES Arcade get!” in the title and tell me about your game (or better yet send a link to it). No promises that it’ll be in the next Arcade but we do want to get a range of quality local games shown now that it looks like we’re doing these more regularly throughout the year. Generally speaking  polished games that are pick up and play will be given preference.

WHAT’S A TCAF?!
TCAF is a massive comic festival (around 10,000 people attended last year) that takes place over two floors of the Toronto Reference Library.  It is not a typical comic event, it pulls a more diverse audience, emphasizes small press and independent creators (not super hero stuff!), and doesn’t have vendors or any big press attending (that means no Marvel or DC).  Also ADMISSION IS TOTALLY FREE!

The folks behind the fantastic Life Meter video game inspired comic anthologies will be there (and many of the contributors will be too!). Hopefully they’ll bring a truckload of ‘em, they tend to sell out fast.

There are also some notable game/comics crossovers including:

Jamie McKelvie artist for indie life sim Kudos2

Scott c. art director and concept artist for Double Fine (Psychonauts, Brutal Legend)

The Hand Eye Societies own Benjamin Rivers (Drunken Rampage, Snow) and Jim Munroe (Everybody Dies, Roofed) will be selling their comics as well.

*UPDATE* Frequent TOjam participant and character designer for ‘Guerrilla Gardening: Seeds of Revolution‘ Eric Kim will also have comics at the show.

You may also wish to catch this panel on the intersection of indie comics and indie games:

The Spirit of Indie: Where Comics Meet Video Games
Saturday, May 8th, 2:00 – 2:45pm, The Pilot
There’s more to the game industry than blockbuster, multi-system titles just as there’s more to comics than Batman. This panel seeks to explore the ways in which independent comic artists and game developers have influenced each other and spurred each other on to explore the possibilities of their medium. Cartoonists/game contributors and creators Scott Campbell, Jamie McKelvie, Jim Munroe, and Miguel Sternberg will be interviewed by games journalist Matthew Kumar.

TCAF
May 8th and 9th 2010
@ Toronto Reference Library
789 Yonge St., Toronto, Canada

Admission to TCAF is Free.

More Info on the Toronto Comic Arts Festival including a truly massive list of guests at:
http://www.torontocomics.com/

If you’re a Hand Eye Society member or indie game maker doing something at TCAF feel free to post about it in the comments and I’ll add it to the list!

On the 31st of March, the CSC404: Video Game Design class from the University of Toronto will be having their Video Game Playtesting Day. It’s a chance to come out and see what U of T’s game design students have been up to.

They promise: “Spirit foxes. Colour mazes. Samurai ghosts. Epic Battles. Underwater adventure. Ninjas.  Food, drink and good times provided”

Bahen Centre room 5250
40 St. George Street
University of Toronto

5pm-7:30pm
Wednesday March 31st

For more info contact Steve Engels:
416-946-5454
sengels(at)cs(dot)utoronto(dot)ca

“The Games of AGI round 4″
At 7:30 we’ll introduce the Artsy Games Incubator round 4 games* which
will then be playable for the rest of the night! Come enjoy games
featuring: squidy things, raccoons, Luddite potatoes, criminally
awkward breakfast conversation, stylish mountain climbing, and
applying for arts grants!

Started by Hand Eye Society member Jim Munroe the Artsy Games
Incubator is a multi-week workshop where artists, writers and other
creative types learn how to make their own games. You can read about
the AGI and play games from previous rounds on the AGI Blog.

*Time permitting round 4 AGI organizer Miguel Sternberg may also give
a short demonstration of his current work in progress Guerrilla
Gardening: Seeds of Revolution.