Allen Varney Games

So I had lunch today with an old colleague I had not seen in a long while - Allen Varney. Allen was in town to officiate at a wedding, so we did crepes at Pike Place Market (Crepe la France makes great crepes), did the tour of the office, compared notes about how Seattle had changed in the 13-some years since he had last lived here, and generally caught up with the rest of our respected universes. We are both older now than in the days when Marvel Super Heroes stalked the earth, so I won't throw any modern-day pictures at you.

I will throw pictures of twenty years back, however, that I've had sitting in a drawer and just rediscovered a few days before Allen sent me the email telling me he was in going to be there. I believe in fate, karma, and serendipity. Here they are:



and



Seated: Allen Varney.
Left to Right: Earl Cooley, Jeff Grubb (sans beard), Warren Spector, Caroline Spector, Jeff George, Bob Quinlan.

The occasion was ArmadilloCon in Austin (I THINK it was '85, but all records have been burned), where we founded Allen Varney Games, our mythical game company that we dragooned Allen to be president of. (I was in charge of the Book Division, and even had business cards (Jeff George and Bob Quinlan were behind that part of it)). It was a massive in-joke, which of course quickly got out of hand and culminating with real distributors wanting to know about this Allen Varney Games, a bit of reality which sort of poured cold water on the whole deal.

But talking with Allen, I'm thinking about the what-if universe where we all quit our day jobs and suddenly created the creative behemoth of AVG, which would rule gaming for two decades before finally buying out Disney.

Kidding, Allen -it's just a passing thought. But still...

More later,