So I know I used to talk a lot about Heroes of Cosplay a lot in this space, but haven't really spoken on the subject since the beginning of Season 1.5. This is because I moved a lot of that content over to Nerd & Tie's new Mega-Blog. I know not all of you read that though, so I thought I'd gather all of my coverage into one easy to dig through spot.
Fun and exciting.
So here we go - Trae's Heroes of Cosplay megapost of awesome!
Season 1:
Blog Entries - Podcasts -
Season 1.5:
Blog Entries - Podcasts -
So yeah. That's all of it so far.
- Traegorn
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So I mentioned this a little while back, but I'll be at InCONjunction this weekend at the Indianapolis Marriot East in Indianapolis, IN. It's a con I've never done before, so I'm excited about it.
My table location is "Creators' Alley 08." Now while I love knowing my table number ahead of time, they don't actually number the creator's tables on the official map of the exhibit hall. So, I guess I'll just say that I'm somewhere hereish:
It's not that huge a space, and it will be the table that has me behind it. If you still have trouble finding me knowing that, I don't know how else I can help you.
I'm super excited about this show, and I should be behind my table almost the entire time that the exhibit hall is open (I'm not doing any panels at this show). Stop on by if you're there, have a chat, and consider buying a book if you feel like it.
Hopefully it will be a pretty good time.
- Traegorn
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So today is June 25th, the official birthday for TRHOnline. That's right, 18 years ago today I uploaded "Eric's Homepage" (back when I used my first name - wow that was a long time ago) to Members.aol.com and started this bizarre online experiment.
The site had several homes before settling on TRHOnline.com in February of 2000, but it really was the same site.
For those of you who may not remember 1996 all that well, back then we didn't really have social networking sites at all. When people wanted to have a place online to share their dumb ideas and links, we fired up a basic text editor and built something from scratch.
Needless to say, it was pretty much just the nerds doing it back then. So we put really dumb stuff on there too. 
Most of the websites from those days have been long abandoned and no longer exist, but a few of us have stuck around. I moved off the random hosts, started the blogs, and rewrote the whole thing from scratch five or six times... but this site prevailed.
And now its 18 years old.
How weird is it that there are now people who can legally vote younger than my personal website? I mean, just thinking about the age of the internet and how instinctively I still think of this medium as "new," it just kind of blows my mind.
Just three more years until I can buy my website a drink then...
- Traegorn
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So I talked a bit about this last week, but starting THIS week the new Nerd & Tie goes live. For those who didn't listen to the newest episode of the podcast, Nerd & Tie is expanding beyond a fortnightly podcast into a general geek culture website of awesomeness. We're going to be regularly updating with news, reviews and other content.
Because I'm going to be posting Geek and Nerd stuff over there, you'll probably see less of it in my personal blog. Like, when I complain about Heroes of Cosplay, that's probably going to be the place I do it from now on. I'll still have plenty of stuff to write about here (because where else am I going to plug my personal projects and complain about life in general), but that particular part of what I do is moving to Nerd & Tie.
And I think it's for the better.
Anyway, check out my first "article" or something. It involves Nathan Fillion and Guardians of the Galaxy... so it should be an interesting read.
- Traegorn
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 So many of you know I do a fortnightly podcast called Nerd & Tie, but there are some changes coming to it over the next couple of weeks that I'm pretty excited about.
First off, the podcast itself is staying the same. Same hosts, same format, same update schedule. There are no changes to the actual show. On this weekend's episode though we'll be making a pretty cool announcement about the site which I think you guys will love.
But I won't say it until then.
There ARE a couple of things I can talk about now though. First off, you may have noticed the URL for the podcast has changed to www.NerdandTie.com. We've been planning on that move for a while, and we finally took it. We've also added new routes to follow the site on Social media. Besides our Facebook page, we've also added a twitter account for Nerd & Tie as well as a Tumblr blog. You should follow both of those for the latest in Nerd & Tie stuff!
Because it's awesome!
And definitely tune into this weekend's episode on Sunday night to find out the rest.
- Traegorn
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Those of you who just follow me for my webcomics or my podcasts might not realize that I actually write, perform and record music as well. Since 2007 I've averaged about one album a year, mostly under the name "Lt. Snorkel." Why Lt. Snorkel? Honestly, it was kind of pulled out of a hat. I didn't really put too much thought into it. Some of the music I've written I'm proud of... other stuff not so much. But it's all up there, the good and the bad, for the world to see.
Anywho, I've been working on an album that will be released later this year, so I thought I'd share some of the early work on it like I have before.
Because I like doing that.
So without further ado, I present to you rough versions of two of the tracks that will appear on the forthcoming LP "The Moment After" later this year:
Meteor is (right now) an instrumental piece, while Heaven is a bit closer to my "normal" style. I haven't written a lot of non-instrumental stuff in the last few years (my 2013 release was the Crosarth soundtrack and before that was an EP of covers), so some of this project has been a challenge to get back into the swing of it.
I like how its turning out so far though.
- Traegorn
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So the Syfy original reality series Heroes of Cosplay returned last week for what is being referred to as Season 1.5. Now, as those of you who read my blog or listen to Nerd & Tie know, I wasn't particularly happy with how the show's first six episodes represented my beloved con scene last year -- so needless to say I wasn't looking forward to this "second/not second" season.
But we've had two episodes for me to chew on, so I thought I'd give you my thoughts.
To mild relief, I'm happy to say that the first two episodes of "Season 1.5" are significantly better than the first two episodes of the first season. Gone is the explicitly stated focus on "cash prizes" (although they still exist on the show), as is much of the interpersonal drama. While some conversations are still highly staged (like the scene with Crabcat and Chloe at the comic book shop), they're just the standard "set up" conversations that are staged on all stripes of reality shows.
Exposition is hard to capture naturally.
Also, far more of the show is focused on the crafting of costumes than the first season, and the show relies more on this angle for its drama than interpersonal squabbles. And, frankly, there's been a lot less Yaya Han in these episodes.
But while I no longer feel insulted watching the show, I still have some major issues with it.
Yaya Han still features prominently, and while she is a talented cosplayer, she still has the onscreen persona of a block of wood. They've minimized her appearances on the show, but she continues to be exceptionally unnatural and wooden on screen. Some of us have nicknamed her "Sentient Lumber" -- as we believe she is a person deserving of dignity and respect, but we also believe she is composed of wood. She'll likely never leave the show though, as she's centrally involved.
Likewise the show continues to feature non-serious cosplay events on a show supposedly dedicated to serious cosplayers. I mean, it's fine to only so a show about a certain subsection of Cosplay, but then why would you feature a convention like Stan Lee's Comikaze which doesn't have prejudging? The second episode featured Ottawa Pop Expo, which I'm fairly sure DOES have prejudging.
...but even there we never see it. I wouldn't know it had happened if I hadn't looked it up on their website.
This may have more to do with how the production company behind Heroes of Cosplay takes over cons though, and serious cosplay events may not want their dominating presence. From what I've been told, during New Orleans Comic Con (which will feature in a yet unaired episode this season) some contestants were forced to stay there for up to six hours while the show shot.
That's right, six hours. I don't know about you, but if I had paid to go to a con for fun, that might ruin it for me.
To go back to something that I actually liked though, what frustrates me is the small time frames these cosplayers give themselves. Often on this show they have people only taking a week to work on a cosplay. Now I know a lot of talented cosplayers, and often they work on projects for months before they get debuted. It's kind of misleading to make people think they should be able to pull off highly complicated work in a week.
All in all? This "new season" has been a marked improvement over last year's, and I no longer think the show is doing a direct disservice by being on the air. But I still (firmly) believe convention organizers are doing a disservice to themselves and their attendees by letting Heroes of Cosplay in the door.
- Traegorn
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So in my never ending quest to do more conventions closer to home, I've added another to my calendar -- InConJunction in Indianapolis. I know it's only just over a month away (being held July 4-6 at the Indianapolis Marriott East), but they didn't send out confirmations until earlier this week... so I had to hold off mentioning it.
 InConJunction is a science fiction convention, and that means going outside my normal comfort zone for selling (not for attending mind you - I've attended plenty of Scifi cons). Normally I've targeted Anime cons because, well, Wisconsin is just chock full of them (which admittedly might be partially my own fault), but I think that reaching out to a different crowd might be fun.
Never hurts to try, right?
In a completely unrelated note - the last time I did a convention in Indianapolis (the INDYpendent Show back in March) I was interviewed by the Crit Confirm podcast's creator spotlight. Well yesterday they finally posted the installment, and you can listen to it here.
I mean sure, since you're reading this blog you probably already know most of the stuff I talk about in it already, but you should give it a listen anyway.
Because of reasons.
...that sounded more convincing in my head.
- Traegorn
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So this weekend Crysta and I decided to get around to watching Pramface on Hulu plus. It's a show that we'd been planning on checking out for a while, and since all three seasons are online (and we just finished our Chuck rewatch) it seemed about time to bite the bullet.
And so we started watching.
And then we kept watching.
And then we accidentally brainspiked* Pramface.
This weekend, from beginning to end, with only a couple of breaks, we binged through the entire show. It probably helps that UK television has short seasons, but still -- it wasn't a planned brainspike.
And the show was actually really good. I mean, I guess that's why it happened in the first place, but still -- there are lots of shows I like that I have no problem putting down. So yeah, accidental brainspike.
Dude.
...and the theme song is stuck in my head...
* - Brainspike: To watch a show in its entirety in one sitting.
- Traegorn
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InConJunction is a science fiction convention, and that means going outside my normal comfort zone for selling (not for attending mind you - I've attended plenty of Scifi cons). Normally I've targeted Anime cons because, well, Wisconsin is just chock full of them (which admittedly might be partially my own fault), but I think that reaching out to a different crowd might be fun.
