Worry vs. Donuts

This is probably gonna get ranty, so let’s get to it:

The Good: The programming schedule had very few major shifts over the weekend, and the fans were pretty hospitable. The city returned the favor, welcoming the extra boost of business that the con brought into town. 

The Bad: I still think there should be breaks between panels, but apparently I’m challenging tradition on that one, so we have to stick with the fire code challenging, line violating back-to-back structure that this convention seems to live by. Of more concern are…

The numbers: The poor economy has hit this con, and most vendors and artists confirmed that yes, they are making less money than in years past. Others remarked on the smaller size of the booths and the decidedly scaled-down promotional efforts of some of the bigger companies. Will the trend continue at other conventions? We shall see.

Wrap: When I first started attending cons (Anime Iowa 1997 was my first, for those keeping score), I was told of the dichotomy between “fan” cons and “corporate” cons. A “corporate” con, as I was told, was a convention where the needs of the sponsors were set before the fans because the convention relied on their sponsorship dollars. While it is certain that cons like Anime Expo, San Diego Comic Con, and Wondercon are corporate in this way, having attended these cons has reminded me that these events were still founded by fans and are, for the most part, staffed by them. In this day and age, fans are increasingly fickle with their hard earned cash, which makes the whole “100% fan supported” convention model difficult to implement on a large scale. Furthermore, having corporate sponsorship of a fan-originated event creates the kind of atmosphere that a show like this needs. You get the feeling that the sponsors are coming to the “fan’s turf,” so to speak.

Perhaps that’s why I enjoyed Wondercon. The balance between the fan-centric mood of a smaller con and the need for advertising dollars felt right. We need these kinds of conventions, especially since Reed Exhibitions and their “let’s just spend a ton of money to make sure every big name comes to our con, that way the fans can’t ignore us” business methodology has shown us just what a “corporate con” can entail (and how much it can suck). Despite the tough economic times, things never felt artificial, events ran late into the night, and the public was encouraged to attend late-night events at other locations that were reasonably priced (as opposed to the ludicrously overpriced “post-convention dinner” at New York Anime Festival). 

Although tough times seemed to affect morale in many places of the convention, the feeling at the end of the event was the same: mutual appreciation that was expressed by the attendees and exhibitors alike. As the PA system announced the closing of the event hall, applause could be heard from every table and corner of the Moscone Center. Although I was a little apprehensive about my first comic convention experience at first, in the end, I was more than happy to applaud the convention with everyone else.

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The good: The word from PIxar’s Up panel is good: fans sound pretty happy with what Pixar has planned for the summer. Hopefully this means we won’t be seeing something on the level of, say, Cars 2. Elsewhere, the convention stayed extremely busy on its second day as fans packed the exhibit hall floor and filled panel rooms to capacity. Despite this - and this is quite frankly the most impressive thing about this show - I never saw a line for food that stretched to insane lengths (which I have seen and experienced at every other major con I’ve been to… ever). Whoever made this happen deserves a handsome raise and a lifetime of free massages. Good ones.

The bad: The lines for some events, autograph signings, and the like were not only poorly marked, they often stretched into other areas and blocked tables in the small press comics area. Boo, hiss. 

Running tally of costumes: 4 remote control R2D2s, 1 very impressive Bumblebee Transformer (who drew a team of photographers wherever he wandered), 1 old-school cylon, 2 Katamari “cousins,” Watchmen everywhere, 1 Sailor Moon, and enough Storm Troopers to invade and occupy a small nation. 

Props: To all the friends I saw, all the cool people I chatted with, and to Lincy Chan, who gave me an interview for next week’s The Gallery. Damn, artists are swell people.

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The con season began for me Friday, as I found myself accompanying Lanny to what she is calling “my first comic convention” (as in the focus is mainly on comics, which I like, so huzzah!), Wondercon at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The convention is run by the people who run San Diego Comic Con, and you can tell - there’s a good mix of Hollywood studios promoting their latest fannish stuff, and it seems like every small and large press comic outfit has a booth in the exhibit hall.

The good: Capcom’s North American HQ is not far from here - a fact that is reflected by their huge booth in the center of the convention hall. On tap from them: demos of the recently released Street Fighter IV and the forthcoming Resident Evil 5. As one might expect, the Watchmen film is EVERYWHERE, Watchmen costumes are everywhere, and I’m going to stop right there because if you really care about Watchmen, there’s another hundred bloggers out there who are able to devote more time to covering it than I am.

Instead, I’d like to give my award for “coolest booth on the floor” to a smaller Hollywood outfit: Miramax, who have a few Skee Ball machines in the exhibit hall to promote their new film Adventureland. The film is director Greg Mottola’s first major film since Superbad (if you haven’t seen this film yet, go rent it now), so I’m really looking forward to it. It also helps that I’m a Skee Ball junkie. Finally, although it is a little small, the Artist’s Alley here is rather impressive, and features a good mix of artists that cater to every style you could possibly imagine. 

The bad: The presence of Hollywood does exactly what one assumes it would - it creates a “larger than life” feeling that can cause you to feel like a “big fish in a small pond” here. Because this con is so huge, it’s no surprise that the close-knit atmosphere you’ll find at some cons is lacking. However, the staff are friendly and helpful, and there’s a little something for everyone here. So as long as you’re searching for something you like, you’ll find it - the search might take you a while though.

Cool stuff today: Although Wondercon boasts a lineup of heavy hitters from So-cal, the con is careful to give plenty of love to local companies that are producing cool nerdy stuff. Case in point: the bay area is home to Pixar, and although Pixar’s relationship with Disney may conjure up visions of scary lawyers with cease-and-desist letters, Pixar has been granted the right to give convention attendees something very special: an advance screening of the first 45 minutes of their forthcoming summer film Up. I don’t know if I’ll make it to the screening (or survive the lines that aforementioned screening will entail), but I have to admit that I’m curious, especially since Wall-E was so fantastic. We’ll see what happens.

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(originally posted on ANN)

Special guest message: Around lunchtime, I found myself reading Shokotan Blog, the extremely popular blog of AX Guest of Honor Nakagawa “Shokotan” Shoko. Unfortunately, the blog’s top post at the time yielded a bit of bad news: Shokotan was unable to give any kind of opening greeting at the Opening Ceremonies this morning. This afternoon, we did an interview with her for an upcoming ANNTV segment (coming soon!). Since I felt bad that she wasn’t able to say her greetings this morning, I let her open the interview with them. Here’s a bit of what she had to say:

“I’m giza excited to be here in California among all these anime fans for Anime Expo! My first live show in the USA is Saturday, so please come watch the performance!”

As a side note, in case you’re wondering…

GIZA: “Giza” means “very.” Example sentence: “This is giza cheap!” Shokotan hopes that this word can become a slang term in the USA as well, so there you have it. Practice it, use it, tell your friends.

Times I was almost killed with a buster sword today: Only once! That, plus the generous width of all the hallways, may be the best fringe benefit of AX moving to the LA Convention Center. Sure, there are still people that insist on stopping to take pictures in the middle of doorways, but for the most part, the convention has struck a good balance between “empty” and “crowded.”

But what do the fans think? That’s the question I posed to a few groups of fans I met in the hallways. There seems to be a general consensus about one major thing: the space is a whole lot better. “There’s more stuff to do this year,” remarked one fan, while another mentioned how thankful he is that the dance, the arcade, the karaoke, and all the video rooms are in the same place instead of strewn through multiple hotels. However, while there’s ample appreciation for the LA Convention Center, LA itself isn’t that popular among the attendees. One Pokemon card player was quick to criticize the area: “My friends have been harassed by bums. In Anaheim, people could hang around outside and mingle. We’re stuck indoors here.” Other fans were a bit more forgiving; one girl cosplaying with her friends remarked on how the city seems safer than she expected it to be. 

Beyond the venue: Aside from venue-related comments, the registration process continued to be mentioned as a reason fans are happier with the convention this year. I have yet to meet anyone who says they waited in line for more than 10 minutes. 

Show some love: Every convention, I head into the Artist Alley in search of talented artists that will take my cash and give me nice looking art in return. Although there is a fantastic amount of talent in the North American fan community, it’s far more difficult to find someone to publish your work here than it is in Japan. So, for your viewing pleasure, here’s a look at some of the artists in this year’s alley:

One week after launching a new non-deviantArt site and original art gallery, Finni and partner-in-crime Zimmay have seen a good deal of traffic at their table to buy buttons and other cute stuff. Across the alley, Bryan Wong and Studio Constancy Roman have taken matters into their own hands: they’re on their third self-published volume, a collection of the comic Seasons of Constancy. Aside from working on fanart and other stuff for AX, Agnes Wiguna has some new color stills up from her short film Layang-Layang. If a softer colors and tones are your thing, you might want to check out the work of Lisa Tao. Finally, Vivian Lai has some shaded L stills for the Death Note fans.

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A look back at the Wednesday before Anime Expo 2008:

So far so good? Perhaps. After chatting with a handful of fans who hit the registration lines on Wednesday, I’ve heard comments that are both good and bad. The good: lines moved quickly and the convention didn’t close things down early as they have in previous years. The bad: the badge printing system had a few errors, a few duplicate badges were printed, and some badges had information missing. The real test for the system begins tomorrow, as both pre-registered fans and “at the door” fans rush to fill the…

Gigantic Event Hall: The LA Convention Center looks as if it could fit the entirety of the Long Beach Convention Center inside it three times over. This should help fix a lot of the space and line issues fans experienced last year, but I can’t help but feel that the amount of space may wind up feeling a little excessive. 

AMVs: One event I expect will be a whole lot better this year is the Anime Music Video contest. Last year’s errors, not the least of which was most of the show vanishing along with the laptop of the person in charge of things last year, left a lot of AMV fans feeling burned. This was one of the things that AX marketing guru Chase Wang specifically mentioned would run smoothly this year. Considering the growth and popularity of the contest (not to mention the vocal fanbase), I would be extremely shocked if it has the kind of problems it did last year. 

Artist Alley: Last year, Anime Expo caught a little flak for putting the Artist Alley in… well, an alley of traffic. Reflecting that, the convention has moved the alley into a separate room this year and is encouraging the artists to avoid sit down sketches and to keep traffic moving. Hopefully the wide open spaces of the convention center will help with space issues, but I still expect things to be crowded. After all, it took less than five minutes for Anime Expo to sell out the Alley this year. 

I’ll be back tomorrow with a report from Day 1!

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Times that I lost my stage prop (”the mallet”) during the con: Twice

Times it was returned to me by a kind fan: Twice

Chance that someone would have stolen it, had this been any other convention in the nation: 100%-ish

ケーキを作ろう～： While Anime Improv has been graced with many fine performances through its 7 years of existence, it’s hard to disagree that between the fantastic performance of a 7 year-old fan (who was encouraged to take the stage by her DAD!) as Chiyo-chan and the best Hard Gay impression I’ve ever seen a white guy do, this may have been the finest Anime Improv we’ve ever done. The quality of Improv is (of course) based on whoever gets up on stage, and the performers this year were pretty solid. There are moments when Improv can lag, but knowing that we’ll have shows like this is perhaps the best reason to keep doing it.

Sorry to all the people I didn’t get to hang out with more… hopefully at Detour we’ll meet again^-^.

So how was it?: The hotel is wonderful, the events were fun, the staff worked hard, and I think AI has once again proved to everyone that a good anime con CAN take place in the so-called “middle of nowhere.” Sure, I’ll never be setting up the ANN booth in the AI event hall, but hey - I think social cons like AI are needed to balance out the big cons. It’s a yin-yang thing really. Some people prefer one, some people prefer the other… and some people appreciate both for what they are.

I have issues with certain things, but I’ll bring them up elsewhere^-^. It was fun, people had fun… and that’s the point, right?

Addendum: someone posted a video of the MAS Productions Opening Ceremonies Skit here. Enjoy!

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Another con, another… Life in Japan panel. Still, the questions were good and the people at the panel seemed happy with it. Many, MANY thanks to TK and Heidi for helping with the panel! You both rock.

WTF quote of the day: “Ha ha! I froze your cheesecake!” To which I replied, “Yeah, and I defrosted it.” Someone on staff did not have their wheaties. Why that encouraged them to hatch a plot to freeze a cheesecake is beyond me, but it didn’t augment the madness of

CAKE: For the uninitiated, there’s a backstory here. Josh (aka Dube, who runs programming at AI now) was commenting that I could probably do a panel about “anything” if I wanted to. Jo encouraged the idea through a few random conversations we had at Detour over pirate rum (yeah, there was booze involved…), and the result was a panel in the AnimeIowa 2007 Program book:

Cake 4:30 Saturday. Description: Cake!

So how many people show up when that’s the only info you give them? A LOT. The room was standing room only. Geez. The end result: a good time. The concept I came up with was to have people role play a certain task based on an anime or anime-related stereotype in the hopes that people on stage would find it funny. If they laughed the most, they would get cake… in the face. Explaining more would require a lot more space, so I’ll just say this: it was fun, and Chex Mix Japan should hire TK to do PR materials.

And yes, I DID get what was coming to me: a face full of cake. Will I do it again? Maybe… the logistics for this one were hell due to the prep time required and so forth. However, I do have a nasty habit of doing wacky stuff repeatedly, so this one might get repeated.

Because Cake isn’t important: It’s not. Hanging out with friends is. Getting to hang out with the MAS Crew, Beth, Wes, and everyone else made this con what it always has been for me: a blast.

RECS!: Of course, can’t forget these:
I’m not really sure how to describe the work of the following two close friends of mine (other than awesome/pretty/impressive and other nice adjectives) so I’m going to tell you where I’m keeping their fantastic art. The same art that you should go view immediately.

RubyD: Dian’s work can be found on my wall, on the wall of every cubicle I’ve used in the past two years, and around the apartment.
Holly: Because of Holly, my phone is invincible. Her sculptures and art are on my shelf and my wall.

And the other folks:

Studio Anti Thesis: Once in charge of the workshops at AI, S.A. is still generating fantastic art from their new home base of Madison. Which, as we all know, is a swell place.
Studio Vicemage: Writers of the comic RedZone, which is in print and can also be found at the link here.

Also, another shot out to MangaCandy, who I ran into at Otakon, for coming out to Iowa to sell me more things^-^

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Number of presentations I did today: Six

Kind of a bummer that: No one showed up to the “Parent’s Guide to Cons” panel, especially since someone had previously requested it. Oh well, it gave me some extra time to unwind before doing the J-music panel.

Chicken Pizza: One of the duties I was asked to perform this year was to “host” the “Evening with the Guests” panel (as much as an event of that sort can be hosted). One of the questions I asked was for the guests to say a line that they wish their character could say, and replace any swear words with a food name provided by a member of the audience. A young boy in the audience selected “Chicken Pizza” - sure, it was cute at the time - but as a result, half the convention was using “Chicken Pizza” as a swear word for the rest of the weekend. If this becomes the next “Chair”, I’m going to scream.

MAS is Love: Friendship is having friends that are willing to save your dumb ass when your opening ceremonies skit falls through. Honestly, the end result turned out more beautiful than what we originally planned. YOU PEOPLE RULE.

Most Unusual Panel of the Day: Who Wants to Marry an Evil Empress? was good fun. Josh was really paranoid that I couldn’t just stand in the background and remain mostly silent, but I think it went really well. The Empress, Jeff, and Josh’s tragic death in the first 5 minutes of the panel time were just a few of the highlights. Yeah, we do all sorts of wacky stuff in Iowa.

Art Recs: Tomorrow, when I actually have time to go.

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Reflecting has become, for better or for worse, a necessary component of my pre-AnimeIowa routine. After all, this is the convention that is indirectly responsible for giving me the job I have, introducing me to so many of my friends, and… you get the idea. This is the 11th AnimeIowa, and the oldest anime convention in the midwest is no longer the ONLY anime con in the midwest (or the biggest, for that matter). Still, the con is finally moving into the hotel that was actually designed by Iowa City/Coralville developers with THEM in mind.

Oh yeah, the hotel: It’s amazing. Sure, it’s not the kind of five-diamond experience of, say, the Hyatt at Otakon, but it’s less than a year old, the service is fantastic and everything is gorgeous. Every room has a plasma screen TV with hookups for pretty much everything you could think of that are built into the desk. This place is going to be great^-^.

Number of panels/presentations/whatnot I am doing this year: Thirteen. Yes, thirteen. Should be fun!

The Muffin Room: Spent most of the day hanging out in the hotel, shopping around town, and hanging out in the Concierge lounge at the hotel (a.k.a. “the muffin room”, to quote Greg Ayers). The Concierge Lounge attendant, Jeremy, is a gaming geek. Hopefully he’ll take a break and join the madness that will be taking place in his hotel this weekend…

We’re not as bad as: Maxim, apparently. According to a few hotel staff, the magazine of evil (see this post) held some kind of party at the hotel. The result: someone bodyslammed a marble divider and broke it off the wall in the men’s bathroom, and someone else rolled up a giant carpet and tried to take it out of the hotel. The carpet bandit failed because he didn’t take some basic math into account (carpet = wider than the door) and didn’t realize that he could have carried it through in many other ways. Any time I hear anyone complain about people at anime cons, I intend to share this story with them.

On that note: If only there was a way I could convince the Westin Long Beach to host a Maxim party. God, that would be hysterical.

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De-construction: Was it just me, or did 99% of the people who were at Otakon simply vanish between 2 and 4 PM? I’ve never, ever seen a convention center empty that quickly.

Join the cult: One of the things that really distinguishes the Otakon crowd are the random gatherings of people doing little more than gathering for… the sake of gathering. Over the weekend, I witnessed two conga dances, three line dances, a few sessions of “let’s bounce a beach ball around the lobby, guys” and numerous expressions of song, dance, and so on. Some of these were less welcome.
Example: the guy walking around with the Blue Army flag needs a nap. A long nap that we force him to take if necessary. We know you’re a member of the frigging army, we can see so on your flag. You don’t need to scream at everyone.
However, many were just groupings of fans having fun together. Some people are annoyed by that, but conventions are for convene-ing, so I appreciated it for what it was.

After Dark: Spent the dead dog hours hanging out with Justin, Jon, David and Tom walking the pier and attempting to play pool. Good way to relax post-con^-^.

Number of mistakes made with our meal at ESPNZone: 18. I wouldn’t be shocked if they had just tossed Dick Vitale in the back room to cook for us. “That’s some nasty eats, baby!”

Number of hours of sleep I wanted: 7

Actually got: 5 hours. This augmented how certain beverages affected me later.

Overall: I liked this convention. I like hanging around and acting geeky with the fans. Moreover, I had a blast with the other ANN staff people. I’ve never been so happy with a job in my life. Can’t wait until NYAF^-^.

Last batch: Last batch of recs! The first two artists appeared in the video:
Solemn Wishes - Appears in the video as the girl with the wings. I actually purchased the sketch that she was drawing when we filmed.
Hac-studios - PACMAAAAAAAAAAAN.
Akuhen - Pretty cute Devil May Cry character designs. The whole cute vs. macabre theme ages well.
Grace Ming Yun - Simply fantastic shading work on the black and white artwork. Less of a manga style, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t fantastic.
Hieng Tang - ONIGIRI BUTTON.

Next up: The one, the only AnimeIowa! Less than two weeks away. OOG.

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