I have long disparaged my hometown for its lack of a comic book convention. Indianapolis is a great Midwestern city with lots of advantages but it doesn’t offer one of the increasingly popular comics festival.

Indy is 12th largest city in the country. It’s also one of the leading convention destinations for various industries and associations. Just the moniker “The Crossroads of America” would lead you to believe we can handle a comic-con. Smaller cities like Charlotte, NC and Columbus, Ohio have celebrated events devoted to comics—but not us. Instead we have semi-regular shows at a budget motel which are more like glorified garage sales than an actual con.

I had written off any hope of Indy ever hosting an event when the announcement came on Thursday. Lo and behold, Indianapolis is getting a comics convention.

On March 14-16, 2014, there will be an official Comic Con-style event at Indianapolis’ Convention Center. It’s from Action3, the same promoters that put on events in Tampa, Orlando, and Nashville.
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If you’re in the Indianapolis area and you love games as much as the Horrible Night crew and I do, you should plan on attending a screening of Indie Game: The Movie at the Indianapolis Museum of Art on Wednesday, May 23rd at 7pm. I’ve been hearing nothing but awesome things about this documentary lately, and I can’t wait to see it.

The film started as a Kickstarter project and went on to win awards at Sundance and SXSW. It chronicles the making of three indie games; Super Meat Boy, Braid, and Fez. Here’s the official description:

With the 21st-century comes a new breed of artist: the indie game designer. Refusing to toil for major developers, these innovators independently conceive, design, and program their distinctly personal games with the hope of connection and success. Indie Game: The Movie (2012, dirs. Lisanne Pajot & James Swirsky, Canada, 96 mins.) portrays four developers, three games, and one ultimate goal: to make the video game a supreme form of expression.

The characters: after years of work, designer Edmund McMillen and programmer Tommy Refenes work toward the release of their first major game for Xbox, Super Meat Boy. At a big video game expo, developer Phil Fish unveils his highly anticipated game, FEZ. And designer Jonathan Blow considers a new game after creating one of the highest-rated games of all time, Braid. Indie Game: The Movie won Best Editing Award at 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

Special thanks to our sponsors at the Canadian Consulate. Consul General Roy Norton is scheduled to attend this exclusive screening! Learn more: http://www.connect2canada.com/

I’ve only played one of those three games but I love the whole indie game culture that’s popped up in the last few years, and this film seems to be a great portrayal of the passion that goes into creating games like these.

If you’d like to come, you can RSVP on Facebook, order tickets online, read Horrible Night’s announcement post, and check out the trailer after the jump.
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Good news, rich folk. The short lived Indianapolis Superhero Museum will be auctioning off all it’s memorabilia this week on January 22nd. The museum, which was closed before I ever even found out about it, was mainly filled with Superman and Batman collectibles. Some of the rarer items up for auction include costumes from the 50’s show The Adventures of Superman, a costume actually worn by Christopher Reeve, and even one from Lois and Clark.

This was supposedly the second largest Superman collection in the world. My guess is that the Super Museum in Metropolis, Illinois holds top honors.

You can read more about the auction at Antique Helper and view a ton of photos of at Auction Zip. I’ll gladly be accepting donations of any goods purchased if you get horrible buyers remorse after realizing you just bought a set of tights worn by Dean Cain.