WRITE ON THE RIVER

BY HOLLY THORPE

By writers, for writers: Write on the River

“Write on the River is dedicated to nurturing and inspiring local writers, whether in fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. We support aims for traditional and indie publishing and local sharing of the written word.”

Hi! I’m Holly. And that’s the Write on the River (WOTR) mission statement. WOTR is a Wenatchee-based non-profit that serves writers throughout North Central Washington. Writers like me! And maybe writers like you, too.

This is the first of a monthly column in The Comet Magazine sharing stories and events from WOTR. This column will be written by board members like myself. We’re excited to share what we have going on with you. We bring speakers from all over the country to speak to our members. We also host open mics and networking events for locals. Maybe you’ve come to one of our Four Minutes of Fame open mic events. We have readers from every genre and walk of life share their work: fiction, nonfiction and memoirs; published authors, authors hoping to publish and hobbyists.

We host two writers’ contests every year. One for regional high school students and one for adult writers. We offer critiques and cash prizes for our winners. This year’s high school competition winners are currently listed on the website at writeontheriver.org.

We also offer workshops and webinars to WOTR members and the public. Subjects include everything from publishing and promotion tips, advice for dialogue, world building and character development, as well as memoir and poetry writing. These presentations let writers at all points along their writing journey connect and help each other work toward their goals.

I’m happy to report that our June workshop will be with me! This is a great opportunity to get a taste of what we do. My workshop is designed to be approachable, hands-on and fun.

June: Poetry for Everyone with Holly Thorpe

Saturday, June 25, 9-10:30 AM

Register at writeontheriver.org About the workshop...

This virtual workshop is a casual introduction to writing poetry for pleasure.

Poetry can be a great tool for telling stories, preserving history, expressing feelings or just scratching that creative itch with nothing but a pen and paper. This workshop is friendly, hands-on and designed for beginners but open to those at any skill level. Write and edit your own poetry and talk shop with good company.

About the presenter...

Holly Thorpe is a writer and poetry MFA candidate at Eastern Washington University. Holly currently serves as Vice President of the WOTR board. She is also a freelance journalist and has written for newspapers and magazines throughout the state, including the Wenatchee World, Foothills Magazine, the Wenatchee Valley Business World and The Comet Magazine. She shares her home with her partner, a dog, two cats, a handful of chickens and reptiles and too many houseplants. traditional routes)

Saturday, July 24, 10:00 am to noon Presented by Anthea Sharp, best-selling author of the award-winning Feyland series. Sharp now makes her home in the Pacific Northwest, where she writes, hangs out in virtual worlds and plays the fiddle with her Celtic band Fiddlehead. Stay tuned for our feature on Anthea and her workshop in the July issue of The Comet Magazine.

WOTR Virtual Happy Hour

WOTR hosts regular happy hour and networking events for members and those looking to learn more to mingle, talk shop and connect. The July happy hour date is to be determined, but stay tuned for more information in the next issue of The Comet Magazine and on writeontheriver.org.

To learn more about Write on the River, become a member, or register for events, visit writeontheriver.org. Membership is $35 per year, and offers free or discounted access to all WOTR events. Questions? Contact info@ writeontheriver.org. C

pretty lies: the box art of atari

Defender 1981. Early atari artists like Steve Hendrickson used heavy gesso textures to add quick and effective motion and detail. See Super Baseball for a similar technique.

BY RON EVANS

Few art forms have suffered from a lack of respect more than illustration in general, but video game illustration? We’re talking Rodney Dangerfield levels of respect lacking. At least that’s how it used to be. We (the video game players) even often took for granted that someone was designing and laying out these early cartridge, box and instruction manual images in a very uniquely limited process. Consumers saw radness, they bought the game - it was that simple. Of course in the early 1980s we had to brace ourselves for some serious disappointment when it came to seeing the actual game. The wildly colorful 3D space cities of the future on the cartridge became blocks of solid pastel color on our tv screen. Glowing rods in true perspective forming neon grids of robotic spider webbing became a giant Connect 4 board. You get the idea.

In many ways, these illustrators were informing us, the players, as to what our imagination should be seeing.

“Why, that’s no square. That’s an alien battleship, sir. Or maybe a renowned tennis player. Or maybe a boulder. We just can’t know.”

“That blocky, skinny circle thing? That’s the entrance to an alligator-infested swamp pit that will open up and eat your whole family.”

These artists were faced with a very interesting (and brand new) challenge concerning design and illustration. This wasn’t like illustrating a book where they could essentially create anything they want as long as it fit the description in the book, or the author’s cocaine-fueled visions. It wasn’t like a film where they knew what the characters and locations looked like. They kind of had to con us into thinking squares were not simply squares. They also had to keep gameplay, themes and characters in mind - but of course, these characters were about as defined as a six piece lego sculpture. I can only guess that at least a few creative directors/programmers gave these artists prompts like “it’s triangle shaped” - “make it go in a tunnel” - “it needs to have legs” or “it needs to look like my cocaine-fueled visions...and GO.”

If you close your eyes and imagine an “Atari look” (on the outside, anyway) that’s likely because the bulk of the first wave of Atari games were illustrated by only a handful of artists. And like any good illustrator, these artists also doubled as a marketing department to sell the world on the Atari 2600 Computer Gaming Console. Even that title was clunky in the beginning. Which is why we quickly condensed it to Atari.

Atari founder, Nolan Bushnell felt it was important for Atari to have a consistent look, especially in the early days. He has spoken many times about how important it was for the art to single-handedly announce that you were seeing something new from Atari. Working closely with Bushnell and programmers alike, these artists essentially created the first video game universe.

Cliff Spohn was one of the first artists hired by Atari and his earliest box art contributions were for the games Combat and Surround. Sweeping, dramatic battles of land, air and sea in a loose yet highly realistic technique told pretty, pretty lies to us about what to expect in the game of Combat. Surround, however, featured a brilliantly composed illustration of blocks and puzzle pieces emanating in perspective from two highly focused (and highly trapped in the 70s) individuals working on some sort of space console. A clever way

to drive home the ‘pixels and blocks’ gameplay while pairing it with fantasy and scifi.

With the bar set by Spohn, it was an easier task to steer the subsequent artists in the right direction. Steve Hendrickson’s work for the classic Haunted House cart would be right at home at Videl Video (aw, remember Videl?) next to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre VHS. And his Warlords box art would pair nicely with Excalibur.

It was no mistake that these illustrations took on film poster styles. It was something that Bushnell had intended. He also wanted these games to have the thought and attention that record covers usually got. Which is likely why Space Invaders looks exactly like a Boston album cover. SEE IMAGE BELOW.

The Atari art department was under the leadership of George Opperman, who designed the enduring logo for the company. Opperman claimed the logo to be representative of the letter A for Atari and Mount Fuji. Bushnell calls bullshit on that and said it was just one of many doodles Opperman tossed out and once it was accepted, the artist reverse engineered the stories. This seems to compute once you see some of the other logo rough drafts. SEE IMAGE ON NEXT PAGE.

Even the most overlooked artforms at some point seem to get their day in the sun and these long ignored Atari creatives have finally been basking in theirs lately - largely due to the 80s nostalgia-mania that Stranger Things seems to have sparked. Also pushing these artists into the light of day is Tim Lapetino’s The Art Of Atari: From Pixels To Paintbrush (2016) coffee table book featuring art, interviews, sketchbooks and rough draft illustrations which has sold well and the market for any surviving original works from the Atari days has launched like a Missile Command projectile. Although, originals are scarce. When Atari saw a downward trend in sales (thank you E.T. - see the great documentary Atari: Game Over for more on that) they were forced to move out of their famously hip Silicon Valley offices in the mid-80s. Rather than pack up and move the many original paintings and drawings stored on the premises, the powers that be simply tossed them in the trash. I call bullshit. At least it’s colorful.

Boston’s 2nd LP “Dont’ Look Back” (CBS Records) and Atari’s “Space Invaders.” Who inspired who? Both came out in 1978 and we couldn’t find exact dates, or even anyone pointing this out before. Conspiracy!

Some of George Opperman’s first sketches for Atari’s logo. From the book “The Art Of Atari” by Tim Lapetino.

Super Baseball 1988 Star Raiders 1979 Yars’ Revenge 1982

Haunted House 1982 Backgammon 1979 Super Breakout 1978

by nick carlo

Today I wanted to talk about something that scares a lot of people, in fact, many people are not even aware that it scares them. It’s something that we constantly avoid, often without even being aware that we are avoiding it. This is a fear that is so deep seated, it’s hard even to notice how and when we are affected by it. It comes in many forms and appears as one phantom here, and another apparition there. I am of course talking about loneliness.

Now there are, of course, many manifestations of this monster. Simply, being not near any physical humans is one of its masks, though certainly not the most gruesome. Often we can defeat this avatar with some willpower or even ignore it all together. However, one can just as easily be emotionally alone, in a world where no feeling seems understood, reciprocated, or otherwise felt. Likewise, one can be mentally alone, where it seems as though no thoughts, theories, or world views are shared.

Now, just think how easy it is to satiate this fear these days, to give it a piece of meat so it crawls back under the bed, and leaves us alone, for now. The internet is only a few thumb swipes away, and in as many seconds the phantom of mental isolation is assuaged. One can find others of similar mind almost immediately. A phone and some apps can get us to the party or the bar and that nagging sense of anxiety, that we hardly realized, that drove us to pick up the phone is gone as soon as we didn’t even notice it.

And yet, I wonder, is this a victory? Is being near another, is being understood, is sympathy always necessary? Are we entitled to these? Now, certainly, no one can deny the positive effects of a hug, honest listening, and empathy, but if, one day, the well seems dry, what will we do?

One should consider the effects that loneliness can have. For some it may be overwhelming for a time. Nights of isolation, fraught with anxiety and fear, sitting there, without this basic human need of community. However, it is Fear that is the real enemy here.

Perhaps, then, loneliness is not just a monster who wants to eat us after all, maybe he’s trying to teach us something. What then does he want to teach us? In a word, your worth. Your inherent worth, independent of any attachments or crutches you may have. At the center, under it all, is Life, your unique existence that no one else has, and while yes, lonely, is a beautiful thing. Loneliness trains us to build our world view in our own unique and beautiful way, without the constant stream of voices telling us how and what to believe. We learn to have some faith in our intuition and homespun perspective. Then moments of sympathy become little blessings, as opposed to a requirement for us.

The fact is that growth inherently creates a distance in the self from those who do not. And this can be lonely. However, this growth is certainly worth the apparent isolation. Consider monastic traditions from all over the world; they know that no one else can achieve another’s liberation; it is a path that is walked alone. And at the end, we see, loneliness itself is an illusion. Thus, while Loneliness is necessary, and in some senses inherent to the human experience, it need not be feared. He wants us to stand on our own two feet behind ourselves, to not require or demand validation from others. In this way we face down the monster, and he bows.

And for those of you who are fans of The Lord of the Rings, I’ll leave you with one last thought: “You are a ringbearer, Frodo. To bear a ring of power is to be alone.” C