[850] a powerful healer

console

< Piro >

"other stuff"

Thursday - April 27, 2006

Ok, enough about the book. It's scheduled to be out June 22nd, and because of the obliteration of Megatokyo's regularity last month, it is on schedule. On to other stuff.

First on the list is our second convention of 2006, Anime Central. The show is May 5-7 at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare & the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois (right outside of Chicago). One of the best things about Acen is how they have set up the Artist's Alley right next to the Dealers Hall - they flow together, and make it easy for people to peruse the artist's tables while wandering about the Dealers Hall. We'll be in the Dealers Hall side of things with our MegaGear booth, and we even have some new shirt designs to check out. The main Megatokyo panel is scheduled for Saturday from 3:00pm to 4:30pm in Main Programming. Should be as fun and haphazard as always.

Acen is kind of my 'home' convention (it's the closest one and the one i've been to every year since Megatokyo started) so i'm definately looking forward to coming back yet again this year, and i'd like to thank the Acen folks for having me.

Two weeks after that, Seraphim and I will be at Book Expo America in Washington DC. Book Expo is the largest book publishing trade show in the US with over 2000 exhibitors and publishers. You will find me at the DC Comics / CMX booth on Friday at 3pm. We're also going to be around Saturday, so you might find us at the booth off and on both Friday and Saturday. Unfortunately, BookExpo America is for the book publishing trade only and is not a public event. You need to be able to provide business card or company invoice to get in. :( No worries, if you live in that area Sarah and I will be in Baltimore for Otakon 2006, so we'll see you then. (more info on that when we get closer to the show).

Also, for those of you on the West coast, i just confirmed yesterday that we will have a booth at San Diego Comic Con, so we'll definitely see you there.

Other trips? We might go to Germany this year. More on that later :)

I really feel like i've been living under a rock for the past two months. It feels akward going back and catching up on sites and information sources after two months that you usually visit regularly... you really get a sense of disconnect. Lots of good stuff going on, and it will take some time to get my brain back up to speed on things. That is, if a friend of mine doesn't suck me into WoW. I'm resisting, don't worry. If i don't, the future of the comic may be lost forever. :P

Most of my purchases lately have been of the itunes variety (i'm beginning to hate itunes - i try to limit myself to just one CD a month, but with the book stuff i ended up getting 3 disks worth >_< - damn them and their growing collections of Ambient and Industrial discs) but i did get an email from Hobby Link Japan that this finally came in and had shipped. :) One of these days, i REALLY need to do some MT figures like these...

I wanted to do a quick infolink and mention of support for long time RPG publisher Palladium Books. Palladium a well respected company based here in Michgan that has been serving the RPG for over 20 years. You may have read of their recent troubles, and its just a terrible thing to see. So, if you've ever enjoyed a Palladium game, consider giving these guys some support, it'd be a real shame to see them go. :)

Ok, back to work on stuffs. Going to try REAL hard to do a better job on fridays comic and maybe even (gasp) get it done on time. Getting real tired of being behind on it all the time.

[previous rant] - [rant archive] - [next rant]

< Dom >

"The Twain Meet"

Thursday - April 20, 2006

[Dom] - 12:00:00 - [link here]

How you know you're not living right: two of your nieces come up to you at a wedding. One asks "Hey, weren't you on Jeopardy like Uncle John was?"

The other asks "Uncle Chicken, are you going to the HYDE concert in Anaheim? Oh my GOD, he's so cute!"

My life is weird, and will stay weird until the day I die--and I'm willing to bet that there'll be some strange circumstances around my death, too. I don't know, maybe it'll be linked to organized crime, or people will never find my body, starting rumors that I'm secretly buried under third base at ~~Pac Bell~~ ~~SBC~~ ~~AT&T~~ Pac Bell Park, or in the foundation of some new UC Berkeley facility. Maybe I'll die under the massive pile of anime crap I've been accumulating since I was sixteen.

But anyway, it won't come close to the surreality of my family relations these days.

See, my family has always known me as "Ga," the quiet, nerdy one in the family (well, okay, one of the quiet, nerdy ones). Their recent discovery of the side of me known as "Dom" is a shock to them. In a recent trip to Tahoe, I overheard a conversation where they discussed stories they'd heard about me outside of the family circle, like how my cousin said that when I was at my job interview, I was a completely different person than she was used to.

Or, to put it in another cousin's words, "There's the Ga we know, and then there's Dom, who signs tits."

Now, before I go any further, I'd like to clarify one thing. I don't sign tits. I signed one, ever, and it ain't happenin' again. So that statement really should be "and then there's Dom, who signed a tit once and found the experience rather distasteful."

But anyway, the point remains--I've kept the MT side of my life and the family side of my life almost entirely separate, with the biggest anomaly being one dark, dark incident at Anime Expo which involved a cousin, his friend's copy of the MegaTokyo book, and a complete lack of eye contact.

Now they know, and not only do they know, my cousin's wedding on Saturday (note that I've referenced four entirely different cousins in this rant--I have 18, so if there is any cousin overlap, I'll tell you) was marked with a conversation with a fifth cousin about the recent eBay auctions, in which Fred's sketches went for a sizable amount. That produced the following conversation:

"Dude, sell out. *pause, grab an in-law* Hey, Burns, tell Ga what to do. If people are willing to spend that much money on pencil sketches, how about you give them an original? It's not ripping them off if they're willing to pay that much for it!"

"My advice to you is: sell out. Trust me, work doesn't get any more fun as you get older."

There was a lot of swearing in that conversation that I've omitted, but there was a lot of alcohol involved that I've omitted too, so I guess it's fairly even.

So, in conclusion, my family is awesome, even though they occasionally make me realize the folly of my existence by asking me to translate their J-rock magazines for them (yeah, this has happened too, to the same niece that was mentioned at the beginning). But I still don't think anyone would be willing to buy an SGD strip. I mean, Fred already overpays for them--meaning that he pays for them at all.