[ok, i'm inserting this here to put cap on the flood of emails i am getting telling me about the appearance of some familiar characters in today's Exploitation Now comic. Lets see, so far in the past two hours i have downloaded 38 emails telling me about it. ^^;; Yes, I KNOW. ^^:;; You people forget, I *read* Exploitation Now on a regular basis. (I'm a Jordan fanboy, i admit it). Having said that, i'll say it again: Mr. Poe is a bad man. I really need to retaliate... i mean, do that guest comic one of these days... ^^;; - piro]

Sorry for the 'no punchline' comic again today. You should be aware by now that when i pull something like this, i'm hinting at other things, and sometimes covering them with a joke isn't appropriate. Also, sometimes, there is a kind of humor buried in a strip that may not be apparent at first.

And before you ask, her name is Megumi. Kimiko's co-worker at Ann Millers. Yes, she is also an aspiring seiyuu (voice actress). She made her first appearance in the 'adjustments' strip way back near the beginning. I get accused of keeping things like character names secret for long periods of time just to torture fans... yea, i admit it. :P Truth is, I'm taking a serious look at the character info and story info pages this week - a task that i have been avoiding for over a year. The site really needs better support information, and it's time i got off my lazy ass and did it. Don't hold your breath, it may take me a few days to finish.

A couple of other things of note. First off, I received an email from the Library of Congress last week informing us of the following:

The Library of Congress's mission is to make its resources availableand useful to the Congress and the American people and to sustain andpreserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for futuregenerations. If the Library of Congress is to continue to fostereducation and scholarship in this era of digital technology, it mustextend to the digital world its traditional functions of acquiring,cataloging, preserving and serving collection materials of historicalimportance. As digital information on the Internet has a short lifespan, we are pursuing a project to collect digital material relatingto the September 11, 2001 attack on the United States, its aftermathand the national and international response. Your site has beenselected for inclusion in this project as we assess the scholarlyvalue of born digital materials in creating digital collections. Formore information on the mission and activities of the Library ofCongress, see the Library of Congress web site at http://www.loc.gov.

Needless to say, we are rather dumbfounded and humbly honored by this. As soon as i have more information on this, i'll let you know. Who'd a thought?

On a similar note, I received an interesting request from serviceman in the US Navy the other day. He told me that while they still had access to e-mail, that they were unable to browse websites during the current conflict. He asked if it would be possible for me to email strips so that he and some of his shipmates (who are also MT fans, it seems) can keep up with the strip.

I told him i'd be more than happy to oblige. In fact, it started me thinking that there may be other servicemen and women who can't directly access Megatokyo who might enjoy being able to keep up with the strip. I would be more than happy to provide this service, or do whatever i need to do to provide it, to anyone serving in the military during this conflict.

There is a great tradition of comics entertaining soldiers in times of war. Entertainment is an important part helping people deal with stressful situations. We at Megatokyo would be honored to be able to provide some of this entertainment, even if it means doing things that are done specifically for them. If anyone reading this who has any ideas or thoughts on how strips like Megatokyo (and perhaps others as well) can be made available to our service men and women during this war, please let me know.

[note: i've received 15 emails already suggesting the idea of putting together a mailing list to mail strips to service folk - and that is one of the ideas that i have been thinking of implementing. I worry a little that the military might not appreciate me spamming the mailboxes of so many service personnel with graphic files 3 times a week (you have to consider these things) so i guess my hope was that someone who is familiar with or is in the military might have some ideas about how to make things available to service folk without resorting to mass mailing things. ^_^ thank you for the positive response so far tho :) - piro]

Oh, recently I was toying with people to see if they recognized Kimiko's hairstyle. Most people guessed 'Card Captor Sakura', but that isn't the correct answer. Only two people got it right, and they guessed it right away. The prize was the knowledge that they had the correct answer ^_^ Kimiko's hair style was inspired by Katsuragi Moe in Risky Safety (Omoshi Magical Theater). If you watch the later episodes, you'll see that Kimiko is also wearing the same sweater Moe wears. :) Risky Safety has influenced Megatokyo in other ways as well - 'Safety' the little angel apprentice, was a big inspiration in the creation of Seraphim's character. I love that show, not really sure why. Something about the character designs, i think. The girl characters are great, but i'd be happy to see that little boy character fall under a pavement grinder.

Time to go find my little Mistao and grab some lunch...

You can support Megatokyo by getting yourself some cool YakPak swag using the link below. Piro has been carrying a black Medium Flapdoozy since the comic started (because that's what i really use ^_^). Also, the YakPak people are cool folk: