Category Archives: Conventions and Concerts

July 30, 2011

Otakon 2011 Day 1: Okay, Sorta Wotakon

By omo

Brought to you by a nice, classic Saolilith DJ set. The middle segment was a page out of Nico kumikyoku circa 2008. Listen and Love.exe are a couple good touches.

I mean, let’s be honest: DJ con guests are rarely given the respect they are worth, but that may be because they are often not seen nor heard in the first place. I thought 2010 was a good year because we got all those denpa DJs touring cons like Acen and AX. This year, not so much; just your local variety beat thumpers giving something for teens and college kids to prance to in the dark. It’s tempting to say that the authentic slice of Akiba-otaku (technically she’s not from Tokyo so whatever they do in kansai I suppose) beat Saolilith gave us tonight is wasted on the American youths, but it’s also a brave attempt at cross-cultural education through hard beats and heartful wig-banging. How does she DJ with those long strands in the way?

There’s not much else to wota to at Otakon this year. I think Yura’s brought over a vocalist, but she’s the classic sort. Not that stops everyone. I just couldn’t make it to their panel.

Shinkai is as affable and friendly as he seems in his live footages if you’ve been watching those DVD/BD omake. He’s a little shy on stage tho, very geek-like. His English is also passable (that puts him in the top 5 percentile of Otakon Japanese guests). Looking forward to picking his brains!

The rest is pretty much SOP for my 13th Otakon. Day 0 was especially chill since I got all my reg and things over with fast. Prereg this year is record-breaking on Thursday, so they say. What 20000+ con can do pre-con prereg with a 10-minute line? There is no such a thing (short of mailing badges).

Ok, actually press is a little in disarray this year. It’s like only my 2nd year as press at the con but this is pretty bad. I hope they can get themselves together.

The industry news is interesting; I wasn’t at any of those panel but who needs that when you have Twitter? (Still, that hopefully will be rectified tomorrow). I caught the Q&A part of the Madoka screening and learned a few things: basically everything good visually from Madoka is thanks to Inu Curry. That and some Shinbo’s professionalism over the DVD/BD release that resulted in the brush-ups we have been seeing. And it does look like the Tohoku disaster has nothing to do with the content of the last two episodes; and not much else besides the delay that the ensuing disruption the disaster has caused. Thanks IwakamiP!

Oh, there was one more wota note: The “behind the scene of Mikunopolis” panel was quite the informative summary of all of the Vocaloid events that took place at AX. It included even the Fox news aftermath–all of it. Along with coverage on the panels, and my favorite PV from Mirai no Niero this year (at least of the ones I can see).

Leave a comment | posted in Conventions and Concerts, English Language Modern Visual Fandom

July 27, 2011

Otakon 2011 Day Minus 1: Not Wotakon

By omo

I remember when I first started giving less of a damn about cons. It wasn’t even that long ago. Cons are a lot of fun, but it ceased to be all nerd-prom-like (which is a pretty interesting social phenomenon) for me years ago. And even so it wasn’t so much like a nerd prom but a game of chance: will I run into any really weird internet people at my “offkai” type things or not!

Thankfully, odds are overwhelmingly favoring “not a weirdo.” Maybe it’s just the kind of places I frequent online.

Otakon holds that special first-con-cherry status for me in that way. I remembering exploring it during my earlier days and running into RL acquaintances there. It continues to happen every now and then over the past however many years at Otakon. Its status as “the con” to go to for East side folks remains. And usually I see it as an adventure, an exploration sort of thing. Even if over the years Otakon has gotten to be very familiar to me, it never got old.

But ever since that life-transforming trip to japan, I think I’ve been hit hard by that wota nonsense. I’m not sure if I’ll ever recover (or if I could, or if want to). By “wota nonsense” I mean the whole tribe of people who pushes up the anisong/idol industry side of things: Blowing money on glowsticks; waiting in line for these guests; chasing their info on the net.  I’ve always been partial to that side of the industry, but seeing how it is today as opposed to how it was when I first started all of this, things have changed a lot. And for the better. It’s a lot of fun in that nerd prom kind of way, but actually much more… normal. It’s just fanboys and fangirls going after their idols.

Because you can’t “pirate” real human beings, cons have become this nexus of hope and despair for fans of real-life Japanese entertainers. For years this was something monopolized largely by J-rock types and people getting into visual-style music. But just like how anison is bigger and things like VK is getting smaller, will we see the same trend ripple across the pond? I don’t know. All I know (and somewhat lament) is how over the years I’ve been increasingly focused on those guests, over guests who might actually be behind the moe-moe 2D lovers of my days beyond the cloudy memories of a time wasted on anime-related fandom.

Well, I always chased guests basically. Not that is a problem, and as long as the guest is responsible for something interesting, I remain interested.

  • Makoto Shinkai is going to be pretty cool. World-class animator and director, he probably typifies a new breed of animator. One better suited for this century than the last. On the other hand, he seems just more straight-faced and isn’t as, shall we say, entertaining. But that’s fine. Definitely curious as to his experience at doing animation in the past few years. He is still a neophyte compared to most. The screening of Shinkai’s new film is icing on the proverbial cake.
  • I’m slightly amused by Ishiguro’s idol project Angel ScandyS! Amusing in that “how did Otakon become status for trash idol projects”? I guess it does get Japanese-domestic coverage as a proper event, but if I was Otakon I’d be pretty wary about things like this–spending con money on proper guests people actually care about? Then again maybe 15 people out of the 20k-30k present might care about them, so who am I to judge? The three seiyuu he is bringing over is, well, unknowns. I guess we’ll see.
  • Iwakami didn’t start doing anime stuff until 1997, but since then he’s been doing a lot of cool stuff. With Aniplex of America dipping into the US industry in more direct ways, Iwakami has been making the trip more often. Googlers will discover his interview at the Rakkyo screening in California earlier this year. Probably a good person to ask questions for Fate Zero, yeah?
  • Masao Maruyama is also back. I hope he is still doing well. If the rumor mills are of anything there’s a lot of interesting stuff he will be sharing with us come this weekend.
  • But what’s up with Ozaki? I don’t have a grasp with this besides a very focused take on Tiger & Bunny. Hopefully they have some good news (Blu-ray)?
  • Speaking of interesting stuff, generally speaking Uematsu is pretty interesting. I hope that is magnet enough to draw away people I have to fight for in the various lines!
  • Bob Shirohata is another interesting guest that I won’t have time to see. Diamond Daydreams is an interesting thing!
  • “Interesting” however would be not apt to describe the CEO of ASCII Media Works, Toshihiro Fukuoka. I mean, it’s either “boring” or “OMG he is the CEO of the moe-est publisher of them all, the origin of all these interesting IP!” And I’m like, orz. Maybe he knows a thing or two about licensing light novels for the US.
  • Cosplay-DJ from Osaka lands in Baltimore probably some time tomorrow, but DJ Saolilith will be doing a set for Friday night’s rave. This could be interesting. She’s most notably a Gainax-related personality, and she’s done some vocaloid-related work, both in terms of mixing and utattemita [vocal cover]. Say hi to her on twitter! I hope she’s bringing over some goods for sale.
  • Speaking of cuter-looking girls, there’s also Kylee. She would be at the right age to be at Otakon as an attendee, LOL. Not expecting much from her, but she probably has some live presence at least.
  • CHEMISTRY should be old hat, and good value. I probably shouldn’t miss this!
  • I probably shouldn’t miss the K-ON concert too. Christina Vee is actually pretty okay at it. And I want to see if they play the tunes like their Japanese counterparts, LOL.
  • What is Hiro Yura doing again at Otakon? Will he have new, more discriminating pictures to show us this time? What happened to that CD I paid for last year? Dude!

Anyway. Here are some other items of note:

  • Friend is running this panel for hanky-panky for the ladies. I’m wary of it but I might show up just for support. The alternative is Mangagamer’s panel, but since it’s just Kouryuu… No offense but I need a little more excitement at 12:30AM on Otakon day 2.
  • The panel that I help ran at AX will also appear at Otakon, but with now with Super Rats and Colette (of Tomopop’s ex-EIC) instead of Andy and I. No jokes this time! And I think they will go over different things. We’ll see. I think the RevereThieves is throwing a best-manga-you’ve-never-seen panel at the same time, and such is just how things roll.
  • Charity: Please pick up those Little Hands doujinshi at Hen da Ne! Otakon has a beef’d up auction this year too, it all goes to charity–dealer’s hall on Sunday 11 AM. On top of the Aniplex Madoka poster. Man, that’s pretty awesome. Oh, and Uematsu’s autograph is also for charitable purposes.
  • ComixWave has a booth.
  • Bandai has booth autographs this year too, including Shinkai. It makes the dealer room a higher priority place to schedule into my list of to-do’s.

Some random junk:

  • I know Digitalboy is going to sing it up. Just a matter of catching him. If you want to catch both of us, Sunday bright and early is the best bet. I’ll probably lug around my copy of Tanto Cuore so there’s something to do between songs.
  • There’s that dinner on Thursday that I always go to. Anyone want to hang out afterwards do let me know, maybe we’ll get something going again.

I’m probably missing out on stuff, like, say, the new FMA flick. Or things that I outright forget or don’t know. As usual, you can’t get everything; fill me in!

Anyone got good questions for Shinkai? What do you want to know from him?

Leave a comment | posted in Conventions and Concerts, English Language Modern Visual Fandom

July 8, 2011

Pinpointing Miku’s Success: Part 3

By omo

The third point that I alluded to a long time ago is pretty simple: Miku has leveled-up to become a character franchise.

A better term, perhaps, is payload. It’s like a bomb (to truck on with the Mongol horde analogy) that exploded in Japan, fueled by its decentralized nature on top of a willing and pliable culture of doujin production crossed with YOU-generation-tube producers and viewers. Has this fire burned hot enough to jump a very large pond called the Pacific? I don’t know. I’m guessing yes, because we had that Mikuopolis thing after all.

But in fewer words, Miku is like a delivery system. Its payload vary, but if we can pull this off, well, the world is hers for sure, or possibly so:

Witness the elder, Kitty. She took a seat at the Mikufest booth at Anime Expo 2011. As she should be.

Before we talk about virtual idols, we need to talk about character franchises, because that’s what virtual idols are. Japan is particularly known for its variety of cute characters that form the business methods to drive corporate bottom lines. How does Miku fit in? I think that image explains it all right there: It’s a delivery system. What goes in it is up to you. In the case of Anime Expo’s Mikuopolis, it’s Toyota PR’s pocket change. But Hello Kitty has no issues doing a collab, since the two go together like peanut butter and jelly.

Put it in another way, why would we launch missiles and rockets with nothing in it? No; we do so to delivery the payload. Miku is the deliverywoman, the carrier, the platform, the API. The results are whatever we put in it. If it’s a PR campaign from Toyota, we’ll get…bacon-wrapped hot dogs? If it’s supercell, it’s some music that springboards the group/ryo into a major contract. Really, it’s whatever you want. Just as random vocaloid producers can make something out of Miku, so can a large corporation and their pet characters. That Miku allows for individuals and organizations of all sorts of sizes to be worn under the same blue wig is a big point that I’ve been trying to describe in all my previous posts.

In their present day iteration, Miku and her friends are a bunch of strange Japanese things, coming from an American perspective, and I think it is good to ask questions about vocaloid’s adaptive powers outside of Japan. It’s one of the curious thing about Miku in the first place as Japanese people were boggled by the same synthetic idol back in ’07 and ’08, and for years Westerners struggled to figure out Miku’s formula (if it exists) in the age of new media. Looking back, that’s what John was going for; Lelangir’s post is a good complement.

But let’s look in contrast. Hello Kitty needs her own managers and producers to make Hello Kitty media–games, anime, audio CDs, whatever. She kicked butts internationally and took names because her cuteness is universal. This is why I thought John missed the point: Miku can care less about any of that. Which is pretty cool, right? Toyota’s marketing campaign might incidentally expose people to what/who Miku is, but it’s still about Toyota’s cars at the end. It doesn’t necessarily add or delete anything “special” about Miku’s appeal, any more than a truck load of pornographic doujinshi would makes Miku a nymphomaniac. That kind of means-to-ends-ness is necessary if Miku is to take off the ground in America, beyond merely an imported curio. She’s only a messenger, after all. It would be interesting to say that Miku’s popularity in America is because she is cute, but that is no different than saying Miku’s songs are popular in Japan because they are popular. It sidesteps the point that Miku is what we like about Miku, and naturally we selectively fill and reinforce those contribution into the Miku “canon” with what majority of us like.

I think, in the end, it’s this kind of fractured-togetherness, the many-faces-of-Miku (as described by Kylaran) which makes up the roaring crowd at Miku’s concert. On the day that we cheered for a platform of expression with waving glowsticks, we were also really cheering at a reflection of our desires.

Leave a comment | posted in Conventions and Concerts, Franchises, Modern Visual Culture

July 6, 2011

Anime Expo 2011: Wrap

By omo

I’m going to try to channel my inner Aki Toyosaki, or at least for a little bit:

I’m really grateful for all the friends and acquaintences that I saw, talked to, shook hands and otherwise enjoyed Anime Expo with. It was a very exciting yet very emotionally fulfilling time. We didn’t need alcohol (although it helps) or try to whip ourselves into a frenzy to enjoy the every passing second that lapses between us. We connected through both the sweat and hard work of the AX staff, the guests, and even people like Vic and Danny Choo all had a hand to make AX 2011 one of the most enjoyable con I’ve been to. Thank you, all of you. Even if you’re just a twitter username or, like the one girl who asked for my MFC username at the panel, like, who are you people? Thank you, even so.

Even so, indeed, if AX 2011 is a somber reminder for me for the situation in Japan as a result of the 3/11 disaster. To give you some background, when I read about 3/11 outside of a fundraising or nuclear policy debate context, within the internet-based anime/manga/game fandom, it’s largely in the scope of the state of the industry. Like, so-and-so project is delayed or cancelled. Or so-and-so con is delaying some J-guest thing. It gets pretty irritating to see something you’re looking forward to being pushed back, but that’s a certifiably “shikata nai” kind of a situation. On the flip side, it feels a lot more refreshing to see how we can still make a difference–people like myself, at least, who have the financial ability to make a meager donation or charitable purchase (I mean, $100 art prints are OK for the most part). And AX provides an opportunity to do that with a nice speech from Taka, right at the start. There’s also the charity auction, and the little things, like hands, that dotted the LA Convention Center. Like Kurosaki Maon’s charity wrist bands. Or GOFA’s proceeds and Izumi Matsumoto’s hard work.

I mean, sometimes those things can be overwhelming, but when isolated in the context of an American anime convention, suddenly it is a well-grounded thing. It’s nice to have some of that in the midst of a meme-shouting dealer’s room. I’m glad that Otakon is throwing a charity auction this year as well. It’s good to give back; especially during a time when the excuse is so strong, that actions, and not just words, are the appropriate response.

With that out of the way, let’s get to business:

Anaru!

Ranpha!

Kirarin!

Busujima-senpai!

Hello Haro!

AX this year is markedly improved in some fronts, but also there was a bit of regression. While the autograph situation has drastically improved, it makes you wonder if it was more because it wasn’t at all advertised by the con (there was nothing listing anything resembling an autograph schedule) rather than superior management from last year. Granted, the line management is way better this year, as well as the Monday FFA autograph session, but 2011 is markedly less of a draw than 2010. I can’t really complain besides the lack of information. Of course, at the same time it creates the opportunity in which resulted me getting that many sketches from just one group of guests. I’m a beneficiary fully in that sense, but the con shouldn’t do things this way.

Meet the Guests reception this year is also problematic. I know for sure they did not sell out, and there were not a whole lot of attendees there, partly due to the timing (Sunday night) and cost ($75). It’s really expensive compared to last year, but I think people know what it’s worth. Too bad it was held on Sunday night and a lot of the guests had already left. The food was okay, as it was a dinner slot. The venue is at Club Nokia, which is pretty cool but not the best place to chat. It’s pretty swank, but I don’t think we needed that much privacy. Hotel ballrooms are just fine. I suppose I could say “hey, I’ve been to the VIP lounge of Club Nokia” LOL.

The problem personally I had with Meet the Guests reception is the whole panel thing that I was partly responsible for. It didn’t entirely conflict, but it was a tight squeeze (resulting in some drastic taxi runs). Oh, right, so I would never have dreamed to run a panel at AX. AX! AX is a super busy con, and even as just a third wheel to help a couple bros to go on with their figures project I had to shed a lot of other stuff that I wanted to do. And thanks to this experience it taught me a few things:

1. Don’t do it unless you are happy to prioritize it over other con things. Which means you will probably never see me run a fan panel at Otakon or AX, or at least one of my own.

2. AX fan panels… man. Who picks this stuff?

As for the panel itself, I’m glad some people actually did come up to us afterwards and said they enjoyed it, and that excludes the people I already know! LOL. It is, again, a learning experience and I actually had fun. It also gave me an opportunity to see how things are like and learn a few things about figures. If you want to know what we talked about, I guess you can wait until someone puts up the slides or what not.

Being AX, the room was half full by the time the panel begin (and we had a fairly decent size room, in Live Programming 3). The attrition is only maybe 15%? That’s way better than what I expected. We had some time management problem given the setup time involved and how the previous panel went OT by 20 minutes and we also hit some technical difficulties.

Times like this, you really can appreciate how Otakon loves its con. But of course, that con has its share of problems, too.

I rather think of problems as challenges. Challenges include things like managing time, and food trucks can fit neatly into part of that problem-solving equation by making getting good eats easy. It has, for many of us at AX. In detail, all the food trucks rolled out in force but 3 or 4 of the trucks manage to park by the bus parking lot at the LACC. Those were much closer to all the entrances and pathways, as opposed to the parking lot across the street. The farther lot hosted many more trucks, none that I was able to visit.

On the other hand, I think each time I hit the trucks I was just getting food to go, except day 1, when the entire group was chomping down. I guess we just made the wrong call.

Looking forward, I think the food truck craze will hit Baltimore, albeit in a very small way. I’m a little excited! I mean half the time I went to get a half-smoked I can’t even buy it, so I think there will be demand. Will there be matching supply? Only time will tell.

Oh, there was this Last Exile thing. I really, really wanted to go see it, but I didn’t want to plunk down the hour for waiting for it to start. Way too many AX events were not on time this year. It is quite annoying, really. At least I know it was well-attended: I walked all the way over there and turned around after seeing the line (I suppose I could’ve exploited my press-ness). I think the producers are really invested in this. I hear it turned out well so we shall see come this Autumn!

For consolation, I just got some autographs. I have to hand it to Funimation’s people for doing the promo items the right way. I actually like some of their stuff, compared to just about every other US-side promo goods. The Silver Wing promo print they were giving away is quite cool.

After the con, I was chatting with someone on IRC who went to Japan Expo (in Paris) over the weekend. He pointed out how lucky we are compared to our Japanese counterparts when it comes to autographs and sketches. I couldn’t agree more. Which is why for a large part of AX, I was surrounded by Japanese otaku.

We were all just waiting in line for some event related to the celebrity-type we were following. I missed out on actually two panels: Kalafina and Maon’s. The former I’ve got plenty of coverage already; the latter…I just don’t know what to say?

I do know that with Maon, she’s made some new fans. I think it’s easy to tell that the girl has what it takes, and knowing what DearStage was, she’s got a little more than just having what it takes. I suppose at this point it’s up to the agency to take her under its wings and do their thing. But when Momotato compares her with Makkun, I have to at least sit up and take notes.

Anecdote: one of my hotel roommate had a front row view, right near the center of the stage, for Kurosaki’s concert (really too short honestly). Right after the show, he started to sneeze like crazy. He (and a bunch of people, YT not included) went out to eat and he came back nauseated as if he’s caught a cold. Which, coincidentally, was the excuse Maon gave the day before when AX cancelled one of her two autograph sessions. Naturally, put two and two together, you’ve already got Con AIDS, now there’s this Kurosaki plague right? I think we had a cuter name for this. Maon plague? I don’t know.

I know I’ve shaken a many pair of hands this past weekend.

Maon had two concerts, one at the preview of HOTD dub on day 1 and the proper show at Club Nokia on day 3. They were both almost equal in length, but the second one was a little better in terms of set list, featuring a brand new song from Hellsing. Others will probably cover this better.

As for Kalafina, I really don’t have much to say. They’re better than they’ve ever been. Club Nokia works to their charms and ways by forcing people to stand up; it’s a packed house no less. That is always going to be an issue with their music. I read this report from Kajiura’s Fiction II live on my way home from AX; it’s pretty spot on as I see the same thing with the three girls as observed. (And by the way, that is the show they were the night before they took off and landed in LA, which is about 12 noon on 7/30; a little time warp.)

It’s not the first time I saw cosplaying industry types doing their panels, but probably the first time to see it almost in character.

I hit up a couple industry things just because I could on day 1. It turns out this AX was an announcement-heavy con and a lot of cool stuff happened. The one industry trivia game show panel that piqued my interest before the con got pre-empted by impromptu autographing as well, so I’m not sure what to say about that. Anyone’s got a report on it?

Well, at least bayoab doesn’t. He does have basically all the other ones I’m interested in and is missing. I’m going to spare you the industry stuff. The only thing that got me all excited was Asobi ni Ikuyo coming on Blu-ray. It just tells you that the licensing game still brings us something for everybody.

At AX, anyone can be a panelist, so it seems. Three year-olds? Not a problem. Funny figure otaku? Awesome. Spanish guitar? Even better.

It’s a good time. And that’s a wrap for now. There’s a lot more to say about AX, and I’m probably forgetting to mention something. I’ll try to update or write about them when I remember.

[oh right: edits]

I should drop a couple notes for Nirgilis and Miku too; if I’m going to discriminate I might as well do so with reason and rhyme. Nirgilis is your typical Japanese electronica group. The lead singer Acchu is pretty amusing; she knows how to hang loose. Yuki and Kuri are more typical and reserved. I think Acchu drank a little too much at the Meet the Guest, at least according to some who went. You know their music, hopefully; they have been around for a while. I mean I remember talking about them with some really old friend who has now disappeared into middle management back a long time ago.

The Sex on the Beach track was hilarious, the way they set it up. I can’t easily google up a setlist, but look at this video. It’s so random.

Mikuopolis is well-covered. I can’t really do anything besides to say, yeah, English tracks, yeah, there were, but sometimes it’s hard to pick it up. And yeah, we see what people mean about how it gets dim. My seat was on the right-most side, about half way up on the first level. They closed off the seats to the very right and very left section of the Nokia theater, so my seat was pretty much all the way by the right most side. I think that’s probably a good place to cut it off because if the hologram stood on the left side of the projection area, it gets very dim. On the other hand, we didn’t experience the whole “projector in your face” problem.

And man, never knew holograms can be so hot! And unlike real people, the whole panchira thing was not so disturbing, lol. Long live 2D, I suppose. I’m not sure if it is a pro or a con that it feels like Miku and friends were performing inside a fish tank. Check out the link above for more Miku stuff, like the set list. The live stream made things easy.

Maon’s two set lists can be found here. I didn’t know they’re up to volume 9 on the Hellsing OAV. Nine? Seriously?

Kalafina’s post-concert blog post explains it all. Probably a good read regardless. Only thing to add is that Hikari no Senritsu was the encore.

Leave a comment | posted in Conventions and Concerts

July 4, 2011

Anime Expo 2011: Day 2 and Day 3

By omo

This year’s motto: overcome regret with large amount of spending.

But at the end I was still fighting the constraints of time. Got to meet up with a long-time-no-see friend, which totally made this trip worthwhile. Which is cool, because this trip was already totally worth the while by end of day 2.

If there was one awesome thing about Day 2, it was noticing Masayoshi Tanaka and his willingness to sketch for us. The result was a lot of Anaru, a crying-face Menma with a Taiga on the side. Director Araki also got me a Busujima (I have to, after all, to save some face) and a Ranpha. It was an amazing opportunity.

Lucky vocaloid fans probably had just as much love from the horde of producers and artists signing things. I hear a plane got cancelled so a lot of the Miku troopers from Japan arrived at AX late. There was still a big turnout at the usual vocaloid events (like Nihongo de OK and the fan panels).

And then there was the ahegao double peace meme. (NSFW image link to give you an idea what that means.) You’re such a troll Bamboo, lol. Tho Dengeki Strikers is HYPE!

The days went by like a flurry. Maon Kurosaki got sick and canned an autograph session. She still end up doing a concert at the same day. I think Alexd caught her bug–a bunch of them were a row or two by the stage.

I ran between her concert, the meet the guest event (a really expensive proposition with lousy execution but proper venue and foods), and the panel I helped to run within the span of two hours. It was tough, but it made the day just go that much faster. Alter Fate Alter is definitely an attractive little thing, although my favorite was probably Mizuho’s acrylic case! LOL.

Scored a pair of Little Hands. Hey everyone reading this post: remember Japan is still recovering from the biggest earthquake it has experienced in a long while. The nuclear situation is still uncertain and those rural towns are still fully devastated. Do your part in charity this con season!

If there is any regret (and there probably always will be), is how I keep on missing out on some good post-con dinners with the guys! I didn’t hit the food trucks on day 3… Instead, Jack n’ Joes.

And my panel? It went well. There’s tons of room for improvement but I think we’re going to be fine. I met a ton of more new folks. Thank you for coming and saying hi.

And now, onward to the final leg of the journey.

Leave a comment | posted in Conventions and Concerts, English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Modern Visual Culture