Meet

Alexis "Larxene" Arlene

Residing in Los Angeles, Larxene is a model, streamer, cosplayer and content creator. She has curated an audience with her witty and authentic content surrounding anime, gaming and lifestyle. She is an avid enjoyer of manga, gaming, fashion, skincare and more. She hopes her content can inspire enthusiasts and newcomers alike to be themselves, try new things, and embrace their identity through the lens of pop culture and beauty.

Walter Banasiak

Walter Banasiak is a Chicago area filmmaker and content creator for Channel Awesome, Inc. Some of his recent film work includes City of Gold and the miniseries, The Infinity Trinity. His contributions to Channel Awesome consist of shows like Awesome Comic, Top 5, Fanscription and regular guest appearances on The Nostalgia Critic.

Kevin Bunch

Kevin Bunch is a video game historian and professional writer who specializes in early game consoles. He runs the YouTube channel Atari Archive, which contextualizes the Atari 2600 library in chronological order, as well as its companion website, Atariarchive.org.  

David Crane

David’s work on the Atari 2600 is legendary, with him developing games like Decathlon, Ghostbusters and Pitfall! He also developed A Boy And His Blob for the NES, among other awesome games!

Martin Goldberg

A former writer and programmer in the video game industry, Goldberg has had a lifelong fascination with all things electronic entertainment since first playing PONG and Tank as a child at his local arcades in the 70’s. As the former site director of IGN/GameSpy’s ‘ClassicGaming.Com’ and a current freelancer for Retro Gamer magazine, Goldberg has been writing about video games for 20 years. Along with Dan Loosen and Gabby Heil, Goldberg is also a co-founder of the Midwest Gaming Classic, one of the largest electronic entertainment expos in the United States open to the general public. In 2004, Goldberg also founded the Electronic Entertainment Museum (E2M), a non-profit archive whose mission is to help preserve the history and artifacts of the video game and home computer industries. In line with this goal, he’s also a member of the International Game Development Association’s (IGDA) Game Preservation SIG, a hub and community for those interested in digital game preservation and history.  Whew!

James Jarosz

James (Jim) Jarosz, studied film and animation at Columbia College in Chicago back in the mid-90s. He has worked on several indie films from acting to camera and sound to props and practical effects. Jim has been a featured extra in a few major motion pictures including Road to Perdition and Public Enemies. He has worked for Channel Awesome for the past five years in several capacities. More notably, as Doug Walker’s photoshop guy and cameraman for Nostalgia Critic, and as Quinn the cameraman on Demo Reel. The past year Jim has made props and costumes for the Nostalgia Critic and even a bit of animation. He is also a prop master and set designer for many of Channel Awesome’s upcoming new shows.

Eugene Jarvis

Eugene designed many landmark arcade video games including Defender, Robotron 2084, Narc, Smash TV, and the Cruis’n series. He also worked in pinball, helping to bring designs like Firepower, Pinbot, Space Shuttle, High Speed, and F-14 Tomcat to life. If that isn’t enough, he owns Raw Thrills and Play Mechanix, the premier modern arcade developer with hits such as the Walking Dead, Jurassic Park, Injustice Arcade, the Big Buck Hunter series, and more!

Brad Jones

For the past 13 years, Brad Jones has been the creator and star of the popular YouTube and Channel Awesome series The Cinema Snob, a satirical look at exploitation cinema throughout the decades. As well as portraying The Cinema Snob on a weekly basis, Brad also keeps very busy, having created the animated series Lloyd, the movie review show Midnight Screenings, and is also the writer of the feature films The Cinema Snob Movie and the religious parody film Jesus Bro.

Dankey Kang

Virginia,

Your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds.

All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Dankey Kang. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to our life its highest beauty and joy.

Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Dankey Kang! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no championship belts, no barrels to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Dankey Kang? You might as well not believe in Sanic! You might get your Papa to hire men to watch all the chimneys on MGC Eve to catch Dankey Kang, but even if they did not see Dankey Kang barreling down, what would that prove?

Nobody sees Dankey Kang, but that is no sign that there is no Dankey Kang The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see.

Did you ever see Sanic running on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that he is not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders that are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart Lonk’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, or even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernatural beauty and glory beyond.

Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else as real and abiding.

No Dankey Kang? Thank God he lives and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, maybe 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the hearts of children.

Dan Kitchen

Dan Kitchen – As passionate game player and veteran Activision Game Designer, Dan Kitchen is credited with producing over 240 commercially released games across 15 game platforms.  During his career Dan is renowned for designing such Atari 2600 classics as CRACKPOTS™, GHOSTBUSTERS™, TOMCAT: THE F-14 FIGHTER SIMULATOR™, CROSSBOW™ and KUNG-FU MASTER™.  Dan has recently released CASEY’S GOLD!™ for the Atari 2600 which has been received with rave reviews.

Garry Kitchen

Garry Kitchen is a video game designer, programmer, and executive best known for his work at Activision during the early years of the company’s history. He has developed games for the Atari 2600, Commodore 64, Nintendo Entertainment System, and Super Nintendo Entertainment System, as well as co-founded Absolute Entertainment with ex-Activision developers. His port of Donkey Kong for the Atari 2600 was a major hit for Coleco, selling over 4 million copies. His other 2600 work includes Keystone Kapers and Pressure Cooker for Activision and Space Jockey for U.S. Games. He also wrote Garry Kitchen’s GameMaker and The Designer’s Pencil for the Commodore 64.

Josh Kugler

A lifelong pinball enthusiast, Josh started out crafting custom machines for fun, but soon the industry took notice. He made the leap into pinball game development, joining American Pinball, where he wore many hats—including lead developer on Houdini, Oktoberfest, and Hot Wheels. Drawn by the innovative power and versatility of the Multimorphic platform, Josh moved to the company, where he took the lead on their highly acclaimed 2024 release, The Princess Bride. He’ll be at MGC showcasing The Princess Bride and giving attendees their first chance to play Multimorphic’s latest project, code-named Oxygen.

Ian McCranor

Ian is a former British karate champion and a commonwealth silver medalist with a background in boxing and kick boxing, Ian worked as a nightclub bouncer in some of the toughest clubs in the UK but became a US citizen in 2014 and made a living as a full time fitness coach and personal trainer at his own gym in Indianapolis, Indiana. Ian’s goal is to now bring Angus MacGregor back to life via trade shows and conventions and would love to have a new game made called Angus MacGregor V everyone

Ray Rosario

Malcolm Ray

Malcolm Ray is a SAG actor and voice actor repped by Stewart Talent. Graduating from Columbia College Chicago, Malcolm has shown proficiency in performance and production. Known for nearly a decade of commercial voice over, Malcolm became a YouTube personality on Channel Awesome for Nostalgia Critic, Fanscription and a variety of abridged series. Now known as that ‘devilish’ smooth voice acting savant, he can be heard in various indie projects as well. Including The Black Sands (Apedemak), Lackadaisy Cats (Nicodeme), Bulletville (K-05), and TOME Rpg (Demon King).

Heather Reusz

Heather is the resident Channel Awesome Twitch Queen and can be seen on camera throughout the week in addition to running tech behind the scenes for the live-streams. She first joined the cast of Channel Awesome in 2016 for the show Awesome Comics. Since then, she has also appeared in and written for Orbit Report, Top 5, and Nostalgia Critic. In addition to Channel Awesome, she has her own Twitch variety channel (twitch.tv/heatherreusz) focusing mainly on story-driven games. When not gaming, Heather enjoys watching movies, TV shows, and anime and drinking craft beer with her friends. Find her on Twitter (@heatherreusz) or Instagram (@hreusz).

David A. Rodriguez

David is 20-year veteran of the video game industry and is currently an Associate Narrative Director and writer at Blizzard Entertainment. He has published novels, graphic novels and is currently working on the critically acclaimed 𝑫𝒊𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒐 𝑰𝑽 franchise. A native of South Chicago, he graduated with a B.F.A. in Musical Theater from Rockford University and continues his quest to add musical numbers to all his projects. Over his career, he has worked on the Transformers: War for Cybertron franchise and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 and written comics like M.A.S.K, Rising Sun and Hasbro’s: First Strike. He has also been lucky enough to combine his love of comics and games while writing for epic franchises such as Skylanders and Destiny 2. Most recently, David served as Narrative Lead on the Vessel of Hatred expansion for Diablo IV.

Doug Walker

Doug is best known for his character The Nostalgia Critic from ChannelAwesome.com, who reviews movies and TV shows connected to childhood. He’s also noted for having a long-standing “rivalry” with The Angry Video Game Nerd.  He’s appeared on PBS, Entrepreneur Magazine, New York Times, 20/20, Rifftrax, Honest Trailers, Cinema Sins, and was awarded Entrepreneur of the Year at the Mashable Awards as well as one of the Best Youtube Critics by WatchMojo.com.

Rob Walker

From Santa Christ to the Executor, Rob Walker always plays a big role in the creation of the show Nostalgia Critic. He co-writes each episode, plays several hilarious characters, and also co-hosts the blog series Sibling Rivalry with his brother Doug.  Always having a quick comeback (except when he doesn’t), he’s there to entertain.

Brian Allen

Brian is a professional artist who runs an illustration studio out of Pennsylvania. Brian has been re-imagining classic pinball artwork for the last several years by creating officially licensed Williams Translites, Side Art Blades, and art prints. Brian grew up in the Arcade and loves to revisit classic retro pinball and arcade games and pump new life into the characters. Brian has worked with companies such as Metallica, Activision, Marvel, Adult Swim, Hulk Hogan, Chick-fil-A, and many more. He is most recently known for his work designing Gritty, the new Philadelphia Flyers mascot that became an internet phenomenon.

Don and Liz Caldwell

Don and Liz have been ambassadors for MGC since the early days. Don has authored various pinball articles and is always ready to share his knowledge and Liz is a keen competitor. Together they are very active in the Milwaukee pinball scene and often host league nights.

Johnny Cass

Johnny comes from a radical background, growing up on pop culture from the 80s and 90s eras. TV shows like Family Matters, Full House, Step by Step, Grounded for Life and the era’s movies are what taught me what life is about. Video games were just as impactful on my life. They are literally what saved me during the roughest times of my life as a kid, teen, and adult. I have quite the collection that I will most likely never get rid of. In 2019 when I won that tournament at the MGC Official After Party, and became the champion of the night, that grew my confidence level so high that I felt I could do anything and funny enough, that following year I decided to start professional Wrestling school. It was a 4 month process and I won’t lie, there was a time or two I wanted to leave, but I stuck it out and stayed. And I’m glad I did. I’ve had success ever since then. And here I am now! Buckle up because when you see me in the ring, you’re going to be in for a heck of a ride! It’s always game on for me, and game over for my opponent! My signature move is called the nokami code breaker and my finisher move is called the blast processor. Both obviously named after gaming. After all, I am the P.W.G (Pro Wrestling Gamer).

Chase "After the Right Price" Clifford

Chase has been going to yard sales and flea markets in search of video games and collectibles for as long as he can remember. He buys and sells games and loves to make YouTube content about the journey of running an online business at Chase After The Right Price. He loves getting to know other collectors and resellers, so be sure to come meet Chase at Midwest Gaming Classic!

Archie Cunningham

Archie Cunningham is a comic book artist and creator, painter, and art teacher who brings dynamic story telling to the page or canvas. Archie will be creating a number of original pieces for the show!

Scott Danesi

Pinball designer, mechanical engineer, sound and music programmer and software engineer… Scott did it all on Total Nuclear Annihilation and is the designer behind Rick & Morty pinball! Scott built Total Nuclear Annihilation just to create a semi-simple custom machine. The result was so good, Spooky Pinball worked with Scott to start production of the machine in 2017!

David "LameDad" Daniel

The Saw is the Law with LameDad! David, has been critiquing video games on YouTube for years now and when he finds a bad game, he uses total destruction from his sawblade and other power tools to destroy it. David loves to discuss sports games, Resident Evil and The Terminator franchise. He helps cohost the Bonus Stage at the Midwest Gaming Classic.

David Fix

David has been involved in the pinball and gaming industry for over 20 years, working for companies such as ICE and most recently for American Pinball. David is also the vendor hall chairman for the Chicago Pinball Expo.

Roper Fuentes

Director of Location Entertainment at Stern Pinball, transitioned from a 7-year tenure at Emporium Arcade Bar to join Stern, bringing a unique perspective on the revival of pinball culture through barcades. His involvement is credited with contributing significantly to the resurgence of the pinball industry

Jason Gares

Jason C. Gares is the Programming Director, Panel Director, and Videographer at the Midwest Gaming Classic. He is also the host of the Midwest Gaming Classic Podcast, which can be streamed on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcast platforms. You can find out more about Jason at his website JasonGares.com which showcases his original documentary films and series that can be viewed on many video streaming platforms worldwide! His most popular works include Beyond the Comic Panels, a great documentary discussing how to break into the comic book field with various comic book artists, Video Workbench, a classic how-to model kit hobby series, and Building Large Scale Sci-Fi & Fantasy Models, a 473-page eBook brimming with information about how to create award-winning plastic model kits and dioramas. Lastly, for his decade-long contributions to the Midwest Gaming Classic convention, Jason was awarded his very own trading card (#4094) by Walter Day’s Superstars of 2022 Video Game and Pinball Trading Card Collection. Stop by and say hello if you see Jason around the convention or in the panel room, he’d be glad you did.

Harold Johnson

Legendary game designer Harold Johnson will be at MGC. Harold started with TSR in 1978 as a copy editor on the original Dungeon Masters Guide! Since then, he has designed modules for popular role-playing games like Dragonlance and Indiana Jones, as well as working on countless D&D projects!

Jeremy Klinger

Jeremy Klinger is a bigger Super Mario fan than you. He’s been playing the games since he was in diapers and loves collecting, discussing, and screwing around with them every waking second. Jeremy runs a YouTube channel documenting it all and sharing his love of gaming and Nintendo with millions of people.

Adam Koralik

Adam Koralik is a content creator who has been producing videos for thirteen years on YouTube. Whether he’s unboxing a PS5, cleaning and restoring a Sega Saturn, or just giving an engaging history lesson on previous console generations; Adam’s videos are a must-watch for any gamer. He is a video game console expert known Keep Dreaming, Console Retrospectives, and PlayLoad. He features consoles from different generations of gaming and provides many videos detailing how to repair them. He even has whole videos with incredible access to one of a kind prototypes like the Sega Pluto and Nintendo PlayStation!

Jeff Lee

@!#?@! Perhaps best known as the creator of Q*Bert, Jeff Lee is an artist who created great work for many of Gottlieb’s video arcade games, as well as games on the Macintosh and Genesis.

Matt Lemoyne

Matt Lemoyne has been playing with Chicago Air Hockey since 2015. In 2019, he placed 10th at the United States Air Hockey Association (USAA) World Championship, earning designation as a master-level player for a top-ten finish. Outside of the game, he enjoys teaching, reading, biking, and wasting time on Reddit.

Tom Malinowski

Tom has been in the software industry for several decades. He did an artificial intelligence standalone game called “Bridge Challenger” in 1979. And in 1982 he did a Gottleib video game called “Argus”. After Gottlieb, Tom worked on the point of sale register for the petroleum industry. And now he has returned and teamed up with his old Gottlieb colleague, the one and only Jeff Lee creator of Q*Bert, and together they have created a character-based video game that they will show at MSG called “Trashbots”.

Dan Meyer

Dan Meyer is currently ranked 18th in the world in competitive air hockey. He loves sharing his excitement for this amazing sport. He can be found every Wednesday night hosting an air hockey tournament at Emporium in Chicago. When not playing air hockey, he spends his time throwing at the disc golf course, practicing kinbaku, and upping his Beat Saber skills.

Mia Hrabosky

Mia Hrabosky (she/her) is the sales admin and social media manager at Chicago Gaming Company. A Florida native, she can usually be found bundled under electric blankets as she fields questions about lead times, production schedules, and shipping logistics.

Charles D Moisant

Charles D. Moisant creates bold, unforgettable experiences that push the boundaries of imagination. From comics to tabletop games and RPGs, he specializes in building immersive worlds filled with action, humor, and chaos. He is currently working on projects like Auto Klash™: Flesh VS AI a tabletop game, KREMIN, an RPG where players step into the role of a hero traveling through the multiverse, and joining with Les L. Garner on the H.P. Lovecraft Tarot (Dr. Van Meter’s Forbidden Cthulic Tarot). Charles has also published comics, including the Pandemic Collection, a federally funded project created to help Native American children overcome their fear of COVID-19 nasal swab tests. This impactful comic has earned a place in the Field Museum’s permanent archives, underscoring its significant outreach. Rounding out his creative endeavors, Charles is developing a nonprofit dedicated to teaching financial literacy and empowering underserved communities with the tools to build a better future. From Realm Phases to dystopian highways, every project he undertakes is designed to spark adventure, creativity, and real change.

Seth "Tiger Chainsaw" Newman

TigerChainsaw is host of the Bonus Stage at the Midwest Gaming Classic. He’s a lover of physical video game collections, and loves to produce retrospectives, interviews, and countdowns on YouTube. His channel features interviews with many big names in the gaming industry from David Jaffe, to Manami Matsumae.

Brian Niebuhr

Brian Niebuhr has been playing with Chicago Air Hockey since 2017, and is currently ranked #47 in the world.  In 2023, he defeated former world champion Mark Robbins to claim #31 in the world.  He’s taught high school physics in Chicago Public Schools for 17 years, and enjoys music, video games, amateur lawn care, and being with his family.

Greg Peters

Greg Peters is an internationally renowned animation artist who has won 4 daytime Emmys! Peters has worked at many of the greatest animation studios including Hanna Barbara, Amblin, Warner Bros, Sony, Disney, and Nickelodeon! Specializing in character design, some of Peter’s work includes Pinky and the Brain, Animaniacs, Rugrats, Dilbert, Family Dog, Timon & Pumbaa, and Mickey’s House of Mouse! He also worked as an animator for Sega video games in the 1990s. Today, Peters is part of Wacool Animation School.

Erika Phillipp

A nerd-girl with a fashion modeling background, Erika “Verika” Phillipp found a way to combine two of the things she loves by becoming a published model in the board gaming industry. She enjoys promoting the value of gaming through the products she has appeared in. In a predominantly male hobby, she aims to break down the perceptions of typical female gaming stereotypes by showing females can be smart, strong, funny, and anything else they want to be for themselves. She hopes her example leads to females becoming increasingly interested in gaming!

Allan Reizman

Allan Reizman is a pioneering developer of solid state microelectronics and software used in modern pinball and video games. As the R&D lab supervisor at Bally from 1977-1984, Allan participated in the development of much of the technology still used today. Kiss, Xenon, and Mr. & Mrs. Pacman, are just a few examples of the many games and technology prototypes developed with tech from ‘Big Al’s’ Bally lab. Still an active contributor to the classic pinball restoration community, Allan looks forward to meeting other fans and collectors.

Doug Rice

Doug worked with FIRST COMICS on an original comics title, DYNAMO JOE, a giant-robot series which he created and penciled. Then freelanced on STARBLAZERS (for Comico), PLASTIC MAN and MANHUNTER (for DC Comics), TOXIC AVENGER and WHAT THE–?! (for Marvel), ROGER RABBIT (for Disney Comics), TALES OF THE TMNT (for Mirage Comics), and STUPID (for Image Comics), among others.  Doug did storyboarding and background layouts for “Steven Spielberg presents The Animaniacs” which, in turn, led to him being handed an Emmy certificate and ‘letter-of-congratulations’ from the head of WB animation a little over two years after he started.

Nick Seidler

Nick Seidler has been a writer and editor of role-playing games for over 20 years.  He has written for Solarian Games (TSR Games), Bedrock Games, and Zepo Publishing.  He wrote the book “Red, White and Who: The Story of Doctor Who in America” and has been running an on-going Doctor Who RPG campaign for 40-Years!  Visit him and have a chat about how you are celebrating your fandom and what games you love!

Jim Thornton

Jim is a Process Engineer currently working at Chicago Gaming. He has spent his entire 35-year career in Pinball working for multiple companies including Data East/Sega/Stern, Jersey Jack Pinball & American Pinball. Wearing many hats at CGC, Jim utilizes his passion for pinball into many designs for the company where he also takes care of the service for all games produced.  

Joe "BizSnes" Vella

Meet BizSnes a boy trapped inside of a video game console! How did he get there you’ll just have to ask him! You’ll really have to talk to Joe to find out what’s actually going on here. But we don’t have a picture of Joe, so… good luck!

Brian Walters

Brian Walters is a half-Japanese actor and the host of BATSU! Originally from Yokohama, Brian got his start on the Japanese equivalent of the Mickey Mouse Club, “Tensai Terebi-Kun”. Over the last 10 years, he’s been hosting America’s live batsu-game show BATSU! in NYC and has been seen in numerous commercials, movies, and TV shows. (Blue Bloods, HBO’s Lisey’s Story) Follow him @MrBrianWalters