GAW: Challenge #1: Jonathan Coulton

My friends Paul and Storm and I often joke that "Everything comes back to Coulton". This holds true even for this challenge.

With that in mind, I have decided to kick off the Geek A Week Challenge with a musician who has become my friend and collaborator over the years and also serves as the inspiration for this whole challenge, Jonathan Coulton.

There is no understating the fact that my friendship with Jonathan has opened a lot of doors for me. Certainly, without him, I would not have gotten to meet and become friends with Paul and Storm (who I'm sure at some point will be tapped to be a challenge) from which other geek friendships have emerged. But to a larger extent, Jonathan has been a huge reason my art has been able to be seen by so many. His Thing A Week was one of the most creatively fulfilling projects I have had the fortune to work on to date, allowing me to try many different styles, designs and techniques. Not only that, but his project was also very instrumental in helping me find my own creative voice. So I felt it was only fitting to add Jonathan as the first geek trading card.

Also, from a logistical standpoint for this project, Jonathan is a very easy "get" for me. Much easier than say a Steve Jobs or a Bill Gates (who I have no idea how to get in touch with and don't know if I'll be able to make contact with, let alone look at them during this challenge.) For me, Jonathan is a text message or e-mail away. And while I am figuring out the logistics of this challenge, I see this as a good training ground for future contact with other geeks. Not to take anything away from his influence, but I feel I can afford to make some mistakes talking to Jonathan as I'm working out the kinks than if I were in front of someone more intimidating.

As luck would have it, Jonathan is on tour with They Might Be Giants (yet another group on my short list of "GTG" or "Geeks To Get") so contacting him, will be sort of tough, since he will be shuffling from venue to venue. I'm hoping to catch him early this week, chat him up and to discuss all his attributes and ideas for his trading card. Right now, I'm caught between doing baseball type "stats" on the back of the card or Pokeman type "powers". I've also broken out my 1977 Topps Star Wars trading cards and looked at the backs of those. For those who remember them (or still have them tucked away in a closet), they have little factlets on the back. I suppose I am looking for some feedback from readers of this blog to help decide what should be on the back. I'm open to ideas, so fire away!

That's it. The Challenge, as they say, is officially "AWWWWWN." Stay tuned for updates during the week. I'll probably also be doing mini-updates via Twitter so if you aren't following me there, do that now.

Onward.