Between the ever-improving music scene and Maiden Alley, Paducah’s got music and film geeks covered, but the area’s also getting better for garden variety geeks. For those of us who read comic books, play games, and probably know a little too much about Buffy the Vampire Slayer for our own good, there’s a lot of cool stuff going on.

The big news for comic and game fans this month is that after over 20 years on Broadway, Crash Comics is moving. The new location at 1201 Kentucky Avenue is a lot bigger than the current store, so there will be a lot more room for back issues, toys, and games--they’ve already bought up a few toy collections and are looking into stocking Warhammer to fill some of the extra shelf space. There’s also going to be more room for in-store gaming, which will hopefully mean more tournaments and demos. Lorne and Brent have been working on the new place for a couple of weeks and plan to have everything ready by December 1st. Follow them on Twitter or Facebook for up-to-the minute news about the new place, and probably some moving sales at the old place--I’m sure they won’t want to have to move everything.

While Crash’s new gaming area will hopefully give geeks more opportunities to waste time, there are already quite a few options in the area including places to play video games, semi-regular Magic:The Gathering Tournaments, Quilt City OGRE game nights, the Superman Festival and Comic City Comic Con in Metropolis, the Zombie Walk, and even a Star Fleet chapter for the Trekkies. For Gamers, the Quilty City OGREs recently hosted the first Camp Oggie, where OGRE members from at least 4 states spend the weekend at Camp Roy C. Manchester hanging out, playing games, and shitting in a glorified hole in the ground. Gamers who don’t mind a bit of a drive should also check out Egypt Wars and Little Egypt Wars, two gaming conventions organized by Castle Perilous Games in Carbondale. There are also plenty of geek events a little further out, in Nashville and St. Louis. My favorite is Archon, a science fiction and gaming con in St. Louis, and not just because they’ve got free beer.

For anime fans, Paducah’s the home of OMGCon, which features costuming, video rooms, panels, special guests from the world of anime, and lots of other cool stuff. Since I’m not a huge fan of big eyes, small mouths, and tentacle rape, I almost skipped OMGCon, but since it’s right in town and I’m pretty much a whore when it comes to shilling product, I signed up to run some games, half-expecting either empty tables or a bunch of people who would rather be playing D&D. In the end, I was glad I did: the game room was packed all weekend, all three games of QAGS (my company’s game) were full and lots of fun, and I got the chance to watch a table full of seemingly mentally stable adults decorate My Little Ponies as part of the “Create Your Own Laser Pony Workshop” that the OGREs put together. The con keeps growing and improving, so make plans to check it out next year.

In addition to consumers of geek culture, the Paducah area has a growing number of people who are creating things for other geeks to enjoy. We’ve got comic creators (Lindsay and James Hornby, who Bella interviewed last month), horror novelist Molly Harper, some guys who make zombie movies, and of course small press role-playing juggernaut Hex Games, whose release schedule for next year includes revolutionary products like Roller Girls Vs. and Hobomancer: The Unbecoming (see? I’ll pimp stuff at the drop of a hat). Paducah is also the headquarters for the OGREs (Organization of Gamers and Role-Playing Enthusiasts), a national gaming non-profit that includes over 20 chapter in something like 11 states, and keeps growing steadily. The OGREs will be launching their new web site (designed by the webmaster for Bazooka and Paducah Promotions (See? common fucking whore)) before the end of the year. Right now the best-known Kentucky geeks--people like fantasy artist Larry Elmore and comic book author Robert Kirkman--are from the central part of the state, but Paducah seems to be gearing up to give the golden triangle a run for its money in the geek department.