Portland is rife with comics writers and artists. Close your eyes and stick out your hand at Holocene and you’ll probably accidentally hit one of them, or at least someone who knows someone.
Get thee to a nerdery!
Portland is without a doubt one of the best places on earth to be a comics fan. Besides the multitude of comics publishers and creators in town, the Portland metro area is home to several great shops.
The best in geek television
Geeks tend to get way too excited about pretty much everything, including TV shows. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a sci-fi fanatic or obsessed with inappropriate cartoons, there’s something out there to feed your geeky obsessions.
Film buffs!
Where to see movies: It’s easy to be a film lover in Portland. There are so many alternatives to chain theaters that there’s no reason to go see brand new movies at high prices.
Memoirs of a teenage cinephile
How does anyone first discover that they’re a film lover? It has to be tied to childhood just like everything else, right? I remember watching John Huston’s Annie when I was little, especially the part when Daddy Warbucks takes her to the movie theater for the first time at Radio City Music Hall, no less.
Roll for initiative
Nothing brings people together and tears them apart like a good tabletop game. Friendships are tested, obscenities exchanged and occasionally a d20 gets chucked at someone’s eye. And with all sorts of fantastic game and hobby shops around Portland (Guardian Games, Cloud Cap Games, Other Worlds Games, Unplugged Games, et cetera), it’s easy to jump right into the good time that is the tabletop gaming community.
Gaming evolved
I never thought that I would call myself a gamer. It’s just that the word “gamer” has so many connotations. During my high school years, enduring countless hours of others’ conversations about World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XI gave me the impression that gamers were nothing more than pimply males who sat in front of their computers for days at a time while all but forgetting what the outside world looked like. Boy, was I wrong.
What to do when your particular geeky interest is hijacked by pop culture
I know what you’re doing. You picked up this geek guide out of sheer horror, reeling at the latest encroachment on your world by capitalism and obnoxious “journalists” making
absurd generalizations about the shit you like. First it was The Big Bang Theory, now this!
Now the jocks are stealing your math, too!
Everyone has that friend who takes fantasy football or fantasy baseball a little too seriously, poring over reams of data to select the perfect lineup for achieving vicarious glory. This is probably the same friend who spent summer vacations indoors as a kid, rifling through baseball cards and sifting through statistics rather than getting outside and experiencing the sport firsthand.
Nerds-4-lyfe
Meet Professor Katy Barber, associate professor of history. Vanguard: What is a geek to you? Katy Barber: Not me! (Laughs.) Someone who is intensely passionate about something that is not…
Wordsmiths uber alles
Word nerds stand at the apex of the geek hierarchy. Most species of the obsessive and socially maladjusted retreat from the world, but the linguistic acrobats transform it.