Episode 443 - Coin-Op Carnival with Ryan Claytor Recorded 3-6-19

For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·34m 14s·analyzed·Mar 13, 2019

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Coin-Op Carnival publication launches at Texas Pinball Festival with two-year promotional tour planned.

Summary

Nick Baldridge and Ryan Claytor discuss the launch of Coin-Op Carnival, a four-issue limited series publication about electromechanical coin-operated amusement devices (pinball and non-video arcade games) from 1978 and prior. The heavily illustrated book, co-written and illustrated by Claytor over two years, will debut at Texas Pinball Festival (March 22-24, 2019) with a seminar featuring pinball historian Gordon Hasse. The creators plan a 16-stop promotional tour across the US, with a notable stop at Michigan State University's Abrams Planetarium featuring Wayne Nihan's games and custom 360-degree video presentations.

Key Claims

Coin-Op Carnival is a four-issue limited series about electromechanical coin-operated amusement devices from 1978 and prior
high confidence · Ryan Claytor, direct description of the publication concept
Ryan Claytor illustrated the entire Coin-Op Carnival publication solo
high confidence · Ryan Claytor and Nick Baldridge both confirm Claytor is the sole illustrator
The first issue includes game reviews, arcade review, pinball review, product review, and an EM tech segment on relays
high confidence · Nick Baldridge describing the publication's contents
Wayne Nihan was interviewed for the publication, and Claytor contacted him bi-weekly for two years to verify historical accuracy
high confidence · Ryan Claytor discussing his frequent calls with Wayne Nihan during the illustration process
The publication's debut seminar at Texas Pinball Festival (March 22, 8pm) will feature Gordon Hasse contextualizing the publication within pinball publication history
high confidence · Nick Baldridge announcing the seminar details
Michigan State University granted a production grant to fund the first printing of Coin-Op Carnival
high confidence · Nick Baldridge explaining the funding mechanism for issue #1
The multi-bingo machine features wire-for-wire replication of every single production bingo game
high confidence · Ryan Claytor describing Nick Baldridge's multi-bingo creation
The Michigan State University Planetarium presentation (April 14, 6pm) will feature four Wayne Nihan-designed Gottlieb games available on free play
high confidence · Ryan Claytor detailing the planetarium show lineup

Notable Quotes

“I am beyond proud of what you and I have put together here, especially after taking so long and working so hard to ensure historical accuracy during the illustration portion”
Ryan Claytor @ early — Reflects the two-year commitment and emphasis on historical accuracy as a core value of the publication
“I firmly believe that this publication would be a shell of what it is today without your involvement, Nick. I happily credit you as co-creator for this”
Ryan Claytor @ mid — Emphasizes collaborative partnership despite Claytor being the sole illustrator
“This publication I'm not sure if your listeners are aware or not, but I am a comics artist and a university professor, and I have illustrated this entire book that you and I have co-written together”
Ryan Claytor @ early — Establishes Claytor's professional background and his role as sole illustrator
“I don't know that many people in the world can understand what you have been creating the multi bingo over a two-plus year period”
Ryan Claytor @ mid — Highlights the extraordinary effort behind Nick Baldridge's multi-bingo machine creation
“The games are very complex, they're very difficult, I would say. It's hard to win and you need to be playing them. It's by putting the balls in the holes that you want to be in without tilting”
Nick Baldridge @ mid — Explains the complexity and gameplay mechanics of bingo pinball machines
“I would recommend you showing up early. It starts at 6 p.m. on a Sunday evening. It's April 14th. There's 140 seats in the planetarium and initially I was thinking that that will be plenty for people, but the more people I talk with, I am continually surprised”
Ryan Claytor @ late — Indicates unexpectedly high demand for the planetarium presentation
“We would rather deliver what we promise. We've had suggestions of, oh, hey, why don't you release this quarterly or why don't you release this on a more frequent basis? And the truth of the matter is we would love to”

Entities

Ryan ClaytorpersonNick BaldridgepersonCoin-Op CarnivalproductWayne NihanpersonGordon HassepersonSteve Youngperson Texas Pinball FestivaleventMichigan State UniversityorganizationAbrams Planetarium

Signals

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product_launch: Coin-Op Carnival #1 officially launching at Texas Pinball Festival on March 22, 2019, with $15 cover price and ancillary merchandise (t-shirt, lapel pins)
high · Nick Baldridge and Ryan Claytor confirm launch date, pricing, and product availability at TPF
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event_signal: Coin-Op Carnival seminar at Texas Pinball Festival featuring Gordon Hasse on March 22 at 8pm; multi-bingo display in booth all weekend
high · Both hosts detail seminar format and booth activities
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content_signal: 16-stop promotional tour planned for Coin-Op Carnival across US (Michigan, Texas, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, and other regions); solo and coordinated stops
high · Ryan Claytor and Nick Baldridge announce tour strategy and regional coverage
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design_innovation: 360-degree video presentation of Wayne Nihan with synchronized planetarium imagery and high-resolution prop photography for Michigan State University event (April 14)
high · Ryan Claytor details the technical production of the planetarium presentation with custom video and imagery synchronization
?
design_innovation: Multi-bingo machine achieves wire-for-wire replication of 140+ electromechanical bingo games using P3 Rock board with authentic EM-era sound and tactile experience
high · Ryan Claytor praises Nick Baldridge's meticulous transcription of schematics and attention to authentic EM feel and sound

Transcript

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0:00

What's that sound? It's 4 Amusement Only, the EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast. Welcome back to 4 Amusement Only. This is Nick Baldridge. I have a special announcement this episode and with me is Ryan Claytor, good friend and comics artist. Hello. I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on the show. Absolutely. Good to be back on. I couldn't have this show without you because we're going to be discussing our latest co-venture, CoinoppCarnival. Yes. As you know, Nick, we have spent over two years working on this publication venture called CoinoppCarnival. So CoinoppCarnival is going to be a four issue limited series book about electromechanical coin operated amusement devices, that's pinball and non video arcade games, basically from 1978 and prior. This publication I'm not sure if your listeners are aware or not, but I am a comics artist and a university professor, and I have illustrated this entire book that you and I have co-written together. I am beyond proud of what you and I have put together here, especially after taking so Try to prostate tääOne I'm a fan of the game fairly frequently in order to ensure historical accuracy during the illustration portion of the interview as well as filling in any gaps in information that might be necessary. You mentioned that Ryan can attest to that. Well, I can because over the course of illustrating this interview for almost two years, I was in pretty frequent contact with Wayne. I would call him up usually about every other week and ask him pretty detailed historical questions about what I was illustrating because I wanted this to be historically accurate. This is a quality that you and I share that we want to preserve this history. I think we work really well together. If that was not an interest of mine, this would not be nearly as fun a project for me when you repeatedly talk to me about how things should be versus what I have drawn. So yeah, I can't say enough good things about Wayne. Not only is he incredibly sharp and cognizant even as a centenarian, but he also is just really funny and a really personable, friendly, humorous guy. So it's really been a pleasure getting to know him over the course of this project that we did. Aside from that, there are game reviews. There is a arcade review. and a pinball review and a product review and also an EM tech segment. The game reviews, Ryan takes one, I take one. Ryan does the product review and then I've done the technical segment. This issue, the technical segment is on relays as you might be aware if you've listened to this show for a while are kind of the building blocks of EM and accessible technical description awaits in this issue and future issues will continue HEYูR 말을 sole yelling anthem, and I'm so excited to be sharing this with you. I don't know if I can single out a portion. I mean, the cover design itself took weeks to produce. There's a number of full-blown comics in here from, you know, the introduction between you and I and even sort of a connective piece for the Wayne interview. I'm really proud of that. There's parts of the tech segment that I honestly never thought I would be able to do. I would be able to draw that have really, really pushed the boundaries of me as a cartoonist. I've mentioned a few times that I have difficulty drawing interlocking items and that is essentially all that I drew in this text segment. So, you know, I took copious photographs and made multiple iterations and drew on multiple, multiple, multiple layers to create some of these drawings. and in an attempt to make something that a person like I as a relatively new person to the hobby and to working in electromechanical games and fixing them could understand because there's no secret between you and I, I'm definitely the newb of us when it comes to fixing the games. I feel a whole lot more confident now than I did, you know, when I started, but I think that's another part where you and I make a really great team. pigalleanchoung interrogpㅋㅋㅋ. and they see how heavily illustrated it is and we've been talking about how I am the only one illustrating this thing, which is true. They'll probably think, oh well this is more a Ryan Claytor publication that it is a Nick publication. I firmly believe that this publication would be a shell of what it is today without your involvement, Nick. I happily credit you, as co-creator for this, and look forward to producing more issues with you too. Yeah, I'm happy to be that co-creator and happy to be working with you. I'm thrilled about this and getting it in people's hands. And to that end, we're both headed to the Texas Pinball Festival March 22nd through 24th. On the 22nd, which is a Friday, Ryan and I have a seminar on the creation of coin op carnival. And at that seminar, which is that Friday, March 22nd at 8pm. Gordon Hasse noted pinball historian would be part of our seminar. I would advise everybody who is scheduled to Texas Pinball Festival to come and check it out. Yeah, I just feel so honored and fortunate to have Gordon Hassee there to contextualize where this publication fits into the Larger lexicon of pinball publications. What's come before us essentially and where ours fits into this. Gordon produced one of the very First pinball publications, co-produced it with Steve Young, who your listeners probably know from the Pinball Resource and their publication was the Pinball Collectors Quarterly. That was a big influence on both of us as well. You know, we both you and I have the entire run of that and look to it quite frequently as a source of inspiration and I would hope that we carry on their legacy. And so it's really meaningful to me to have one of the co-creators of the PinballCollector Quarterly present at the debut of our publication. Absolutely. After the seminar, we'll be on hand all weekend selling the books. The book's cover price is $15. We will also have some other merchandise as well. There's a t-shirt, which is also illustrated by Ryan. You might notice a theme here. There nothing illustrated by Nick any of these things And the other thing that we have are lapel pins They essentially Monochromatic metal pins So these are not enamel pins These are not colored pins It sort of an antique gold finish and They are based off the coin op carnival shield logo that I designed and in sort of a relief fashion I think they look Immaculate I mean they they are exactly what I wanted them to be there They definitely an So, that's some of the, that's a kind of ancillary item. They're not going to be for everybody straight away, but I figure, you know, we'll have these for, you know, the very committed readers ultimately it's, you know, this is a passion project and I'm, I want one. in my mind, are just one of those fun items. They're representative of the whole venture. Yeah, I mean, when you when you mentioned the fact that there are difficult times in creating this, I never think about those as in relation to you. Like, it's more about trying to meet a deadline of TPF or coordinating production of something like the book, the pins or what have you. and the book has been exactly what I wanted to be which is very engaged and providing feedback because I I don't always get that when I'm producing my own books you know so it's nice to have another set of eyes on this another person who is as engaged as I am which is difficult to find and and have that constant feedback I have a little bit of feedback. You and I, we combed through this issue multiple times over, leading up to the printing of it and I just feel like we have this thing so tightened up, it is so ready to go and I cannot wait to share it with people. Yeah. I feel the same. Hopefully, everybody enjoys it. They enjoy four or five copies. They make great gifts. They do. This issue I'm very proud of as And as you can probably hear, and so is Brian, and we're very much looking forward to sharing it with everybody at Texas Pinball Festival 2019, March 22nd through 24th in Frisco, Texas. While you're there, I will be trucking down the multi-bingo for everybody's enjoyment, for everybody's amusement, only. And that will be in our booth, the Koynop Carnival booth. It should be a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to meeting new friends, new listeners. Chancellors, seeing everybody try the multibingo, hit that five in the line. I mean, that's really what everybody needs to do. You and I have done a couple of podcasts in recent days and one of them was with This Flippin' Podcast and we shot with Taylor Rees and the three of us remained on the line after the recording stopped. and other things that we were talking about was the multi-bingo. First, the fact that you're crazy enough to bring this thing multiple states away, you know, a 20-hour drive to Texas and share this with people. But secondly, and most importantly, I think is the labor that Nick has put into the multi-bingo and the unparalleled creation that this is. I don't know that many people in the world can understand awesome instant in the noon with unique as you've been creating the multi bingo over a two-plus year period you know i would typically get like daily updates on what you were doing and i'm genuinely Interested and how this thing is coming along and you know now i mean you can see the fruits of your labor it's essentially complete and

12:31

the reason i want to mention all this is so that your listeners can understand and maybe a little bit more of the time and effort that you have put into this. I think Nick may have mentioned on the podcast before, but I'm sure he's not looking to toot his own horn, that he has wire for wire replicated every single production game and more, I think some non-production games too, right? Nick and I are very close. Our families vacation together. and I have been at dining RoomTables late at night where Nick has his development computer open and a mile-long schematic next to it and he is transcribing this schematic into a digital format that can be read by the multibingo. So he did this daily and you know it's finished now. You know on top of that the level of polish in the actual machine itself, he's taken graphics from existing machines, he's taken even though this is driven and by the P3 Rock board, a modern circuit board set, he has included units and elements from electromechanical games that are there strictly to replicate the authentic sound that they would make in the machine. So the attention to detail here is above, above and beyond. It is on another level. There's not adequate words to describe it. So I hope that when people walk up to this thing at Texas that I'm sure they won't understand that but hopefully that can be felt like the fact that this still feels like an electromechanical game it sounds like an electromechanical game it is a physical pinball experience there are balls rolling around the playfield yes the back glass is dynamic and it can change based on which one of the 140 some odd games you're playing and the this is a real world analog electromechanical feeling experience and that did not come easily. That is true, that is all true. Thanks Ryan. The games are very complex, they're very difficult, I would say. It's hard to win and you need to be playing them. There are some people who come up to a bingo pinball machine and say, there's no flippers, you just plunge a ball and that's it, but you have to be connected to that. The game is a game of two people. You have to be connected with the game in order to win. You have to grab the cabinet and move it. That is how you win. It's by putting the balls in the holes that you want to be in without tilting. So it's quite the experience. And I'll be on hand to explain the game's rules. Each game, of course, has their own rule set and they are exceedingly complex, some of them. So don't let that scare you away. It's just part of the fun. And when you You think that these things are electromechanical games. It might change your opinion of how simple you might think electromechanical games are. It certainly did for me. It's something I've just never looked back from. They're just incredible. Yeah, I mean, if you open up the backbox of one of these things, it's like three pinball machines jammed into a backbox. It's unbelievable. And some of them have motor driven affairs and bicycle chains moving magic Screen across the numbers, it's mad science at its best. The reason I went off on this diatribe to begin with is because I don't think that enough people are talking about what you have made Nick. So I try to put that out into the public consciousness as often as I possibly can. And also to say that I'm really proud to have your creation in our booth, even though it's not directly related to coin op carnival, and that's kind of what we're marketing there. I think that multi bingo is and the a real draw or at least it should be I can't disagree you know I love for it to get just a ton of play so aside from that after Texas Ryan and I will be embarking on a promotional tour for coin off carnival this is I think the first of its kind it's probably the first of its kind to happen for a pinball publication at least I don't know of any other publication that has gone on a promotional tour for pinball specifically Ryan did you have any particular stops that you wanted to talk about Again I really excited to be launching this with you And this tour is something that would be difficult for either you or I to do alone I mean we both have families we both have jobs and our time is limited But between the two of us we can cover a lot more ground than we would individually So, Texas, of course, is a stop that I'm really excited about. I mean, we're releasing the book there and that will be the first time that the public gets to set their eyes on it. And we're going to start to get some feedback about this thing, which has been over two years in the making. So I want to know what people think. But outside of that, probably the second tour stop that we're doing has my attention really dedicated to it. And that is a solo stop for me. It's in my state of Michigan and I teach at Michigan State University which is where the second tour stop is going to be held. That tour stop is going to be at the Abrams Planetarium on campus and the planetarium might sound like an odd place to hold a book signing except for the fact that you know we've mentioned the fact that we've become close with Wayne over the course of doing this Wayne Nyan's interview for the publication and one of the things I did was I took a road trip down to see Wayne and when I did that I took a 360 degree camera with me and I filmed a couple of short interviews with Wayne. One was about a 10 minute segment in his garage talking about his last remaining pinball machine, the Spirit of 76, which he has a tremendous story about. So he goes over that and the gameplay. And then the second short interview with Wayne is another 10 minutes or so where we set this 360 Stream Talk Standard Shaysため Stream Talk Standard Shaysama Stream Talk Standard at the planetarium walls from your seats trying to see what he's talking about, I took high resolution photographs of every single piece that he's talking about on his wall. And through the help of the planetarium tech, John French, thank you very much John for all your help with this, we have programmed this so that these pieces of memorabilia zoom into planetarium size images so that you can see what's going on here, you can see what Wayne is talking about. In addition to that, I've superimposed video gameplay of Wayne playing the pinball machine, additional subtitles that I had to manually create. And in addition to all that, I'll be talking about the publication to begin with before the videos that I show. And then afterward, of course, there'll be a book signing. But this is going to be a stop where I have coordinated a number of Wayne Nyhan's games to be present and on free play after the presentation and during the book signing. So we will have Gottlieb's 1956 scoreboard, which is a four-player dedicated three-ball game. That's part of my collection. There will be a Gottlieb Paul Bunyan that is also part of my collection. That's from 1968 and it's the last pinball machine that Wayne designed. We're also going to have a Gottlieb around the world. I have a buddy in town here who has that title that I am very covetous of and I managed to convince him to bring it out to the Planetarium show. Chr Songook Francis Thubweiver, CH richtive me matわか agreed to regularize Network步 so

21:27

is MysticMarvel from Gottlieb is going to make an appearance there. There's another collector from Grand Rapids who has been gracious enough to commit his newly acquired MysticMarvel to this Planetarium presentation and there might be even another game or two. We'll see how it goes. I don't have solid commitments on those, so there's going to be at least four Wayne Nines games at the show available on free play. I'm glad to see preview of this presentation as Ryan was programming it and Ryan got a taste of programming. Yeah, it was very impressive. This is before I had been down to see Wayne with Ryan. We went to his 100th birthday party. I got to have a little sneak peek and it was cool. I'm hopeful that everybody within driving distance will be able to make that presentation. Definitely check out the FreePlay games for sure. Those are four great Yeah, I agree. I hope that everybody within driving Distance can come also and I would recommend you showing up early. It starts at 6 p.m. on a Sunday evening. It's April 14th. There's 140 seats in the planetarium and initially I was thinking that that will be plenty for people, but the more people I talk with about this presentation, I am continually surprised at how many of them instantly say, I will be there. I am going to come. And even people from There's folks who have committed to driving two, three hours to get here that night. So I would recommend showing up early because it will be a first come first serve affair. I don't know if we will fill 140 seats, but I would really hate for somebody to drive a long way and then not be able to see it. So please show up early if you are doing that. Very good. As Ryan mentioned, this is a solo stop for him, but there are going to be some coordinated stops where we're both together. And and there will be somewhere I'm flying solo as well. So of the 16, there's going to be a spread of what you might get. So be sure to check the tour schedule. And Ryan, where can they find that tour schedule? Ryan Cunningham Have we talked about our website yet? Ryan Cunningham We haven't. Ryan Cunningham My goodness, coinopcarnival.com. How do we bury this lead? How many minutes are we in? Ryan Cunningham Yeah, let's put it all the way at the back. Ryan Cunningham Yeah. Coinopcarnival.com has a bunch of stuff related to this publication, as you might suspect. One of the pages Knapp Arcade, Kaneda's Pinball Podcast, WPPR�� and Chicago Illinois and Wisconsin and Michigan andIndiana. We have stops in the South andTexas. So we've really tried to hit all over the United States. So I sincerely hope that people can come out and take a look at this publication that we have been laboring on so lovingly for so long. Definitely. We're very excited to share this with people and hopefully you'll be interested enough to check it out. If you have any questions on the publication, we'll be in our booth all weekend at Texas Pinball Festival and at any of the tour stops obviously will be accessible. And if by chance you are unable to make it to the tourstops, we are also doing our best to be as accessible as humanly possible online. Not only do we have a dedicated website, but we also have a Facebook group for CoinopCarnival. We've created a Pinside thread. We have a Twitter account. So we are in many places and accessible at all of those. Ryan, I did want to say it's been a pleasure working on this with you. I've always had just a phenomenal experience working with Ryan on commercial projects and getting to collaborate with them on something like this has been just a dream. I mean it been really easy which has been fantastic So Ryan thank you Your skill is incredible I mean it something that I absolutely do not have So it been breathtaking to see the daily updates from you with your illustration work and then your flatting work and your coloration work and your inking work I mean it all it just beyond me completely So I can write some words on a page but I can I can make them look perfect today on 2018 You've been exactly what I want you to be, which is extraordinarily engaged and having many suggestions of your own on how to improve this and just involved up until the very end, up until I pressed the send button to the printer to make this happen. I mean, we were iterating on this thing up until the end, multiple times over, multiple times a day. So I couldn't ask for a better collaborator in you. So thanks, Nick. Well, it's a good thing we like each other because we have more planned.

27:04

So we haven't killed each other yet. And we have three more issues planned in the series. Each issue is going to release roughly-ish every two years or so. That should give us enough time to allow the project to have the creative freedom that we need to get it done the right way, as we did with this. Already in releasing information about the publication, we've been getting a little pushback or questioning maybe on why the timeline is sort of spread out for a serialized publication, you know, once every couple years or so. You know, we're not even committing to two years, but two years-ish, I think, is reasonable to expect. You know, why that long between issues? And I am going to be the first to say that it's because of me because I am the only one illustrating this publication and I am not the fastest artist and I also have a great number of obligations that come before CoinopCarnival. CoinopCarnival is a passion project that I am ridiculously passionate about but with that said, family always comes first. It's also not my sole means of income. In fact, I don't even know if it's going to be a means of income. We'll see. So I mentioned the fact that I am Henning W sculptures bible Interризional Trough on Takes puts, Ent cruscers Mines dragged by KnappLewis, 확인 deverrode, ruu 165-Ali Live Pynalty scoop neànhen, beenkski-clippie, ne tout neoneo n Silence kikilegi proof, ne paedasi unn culti ni pasani, a 박 heiß anfuaqsäere FBI pet inventor a- cuada largarai misn ecological n funcionišu b Rough Cas GymFEesse अगअ कर��्येकलाsung hurricanes, conventions act तTRाundos, अगान हआराज्शा, Aputhe's Studio Forum T shell시죠 bağनायेकेरे कर Wikipedia ton daa I've been working exponentially over the years and seen growth not only in terms of attendance but also in terms of participants, both scholars and creators and keynote speakers and moving to different venues to accommodate all of that and coordinating payment for everyone and as you can imagine that is a huge huge task to undertake and one that occupies my time throughout the year and I'm not sure if your listeners know this but I am also a podcaster. I produce the Michigan State University Comic Art and GraphicNovel Podcast that releases monthly throughout the academicYear. The main portion of that podcast is an in-depth creator interview, which requires a good deal of research on my part prior to conducting those interviews. I refuse to go in cold talking to people, so I read copiously their body of work and develop informed questions for that. So that's also a big time commitment for me too, which I need to keep up on because it's something I'm So, I've been drawing CoinoppCarnival1 every single day for the past two years, and it has taken me two plus years to create this first issue that's coming out. So this two year estimation is something that I'm trying to be honest with myself about and trying to be honest with our potential readers about so that we're not over promising and under delivering. We would rather deliver what we promise. We've had suggestions of, oh, hey, why don't you release this quarterly or why don't you release this on a more frequent basis? And the truth of the matter is we would love to. In fact, that was can drink. At volunte apl tiles with pianoce Isn't that the trick original thoughts for a publication deadline were going to have to change and they have changed into what we've announced. As I think Nick said before, we would like to take that same flexible approach to creating subsequent issues that we did the first, allowing each issue to be what it needs to be. I think if we had set a hard and fast page count of 24 that this publication wouldn't be what we want it to be, Nick. John Papadiuk, Black Water, person's name or role at Stern Pinball To do preorders into future issues. Essentially what happened for this first issue is I applied for a production grant to create the first printing of coin off carnival. Number one, Michigan State University has a production grant that can be applied for, and to my surprise and happiness we received this production grant. So essentially we got the first run printed on somebody else's dime, so we have all these issues in the can for free, which means we can take every and the pinball we earn from Koynop Carnival 1 and put it into an account that will be used to print Koynop Carnival 2 and then subsequently into 3 and issue 4 to end the series. So we're pretty confident that we will never ask for money upfront before a product is ready. And that's why we're coordinating our web store release for March 22nd so that there's not even a couple weeks worth of preorder. Turbo blink l trusting, Liquid