We went to a con this weekend...

[maciek]

...and it was awesome!

We approached AnimeReactor with cautious optimism - it was being billed as a first year fan-organized convention, but the materials for it, both online and printed, just seemed a little bit too slick. Turned out, our apprehensions were unfounded: the reason the marketing for AnimeReactor looked so good is that many of the organizers have day jobs as artists and designers. The reason the guest list made our eyes bug out (yes, I actually got to meet and talk with Kia Asamiya fer cryin' out loud!) is that many of them are personal friends of the organizers.

Oooh, and as for the convention itself - there were panels on inking, shoujo character design, webcomics (this last one co-hosted by Dirk Tiede, author of Paradigm Shift and overall great guy), two cosplays (one fashion show style, the other for skits), and plenty of other stuff, some of which we didn't have time to get to.

The artist alley was very well put together - there were quite a few other webcomickers present as well as more traditional convention artists, and even though it technically wasn't in the main convention area, there was still a lot of traffic through it. We gave away most of the business cards we'd printed for the occasion.

What else? Lots of great costumes, a very well organized and stocked dealer room, and most important of all, many artists - both professional and amateur - all friendly and approachable, helpful and enthusiastic.

Yeah, we had a good time.

[Stacie]

pity I had to miss it.

Glad you guys had a great time.

[DirkTiede]

It was excellent meeting you guys! I hope to see more of DaR soon. You've got me hooked.

I still need to finish up that FLCL drawing yet, though. I'll try to get to it soon.

dirk

[DirkTiede]

...er, I mean DaT

dirk

[maciek]

It was a great pleasure to meet you too - and I'm so glad you like DnT (yeah, I know, logically it should be DaT, but we got used to saying it the other way for some reason). Anyway, I'll be spending the next several days (well, nights, technically) building up a buffer for Build Your Own Boyfriend, but after that I promise to plunge into the next chapter of Geodyssey goodness.

Oh, I'm in the middle of reading the print copy of Paradigm Shift - Equilibrium right now (our heroes have just entered the pool hall), so I had better get back to it - I reeeeally like it so far.

Cheers,

-Maciek

[maciek]

Just finished reading the print version of Paradigm Shift, Act 1
It totally kicks ass!

[Guest]

Glad you enjoyed it! Did you get a chance to go through (GITS/Finder-like) footnotes? =)

dirk

[Guest]

Yup, read the notes. Laughed myself silly when I got to the translated cantonese conversation.

I also read the section describing the history of PS. What I found especially interesting was the part about how (pardon my possibly inaccurate paraphrasing) you went through a phase where you did little more than play around with parts of the project (3D explorations, random sketches, etc) and that, if I understand correctly, you found this more draining than inspiring. Since I went through something similar on DnT, I'm wondering if just going through the motions of creative activity without actually having something completed to show for it in the end doesn't inevitably lead to this sort of (temporary) burnout.

Cheers,

-Maciek