A relatively small crowd patiently waits for the appearance of a perfectly coiffed Japanese pop legend. T.M. Revolution's fame in the U.S. is owed largely to a certain red-haired anime swordsman...
11:30am
Arrive at Javits Center and meander to the events hall. I'm too late to get into whatever movie is being featured in the IGN.COM theater (the main stage) so I float around and eventually settle into Del Rey's panel. The Del Rey team announces its new releases for this year and the coming year. Some highlights: Fairy Tail by the creator of One Piece; a collaboration mystery/fantasy suspense by Dean Koontz and Queenie Chan; and Me and the Devil Blues about a (historical) legendary blues singer who is said to have been so good that he must have made a pact with the devil.
1:00 pm
I peek into the "Comics Writers Talk about Writing" panel but it's a bunch of people I don't know and don't care about so I head over to the Show Room on the upper level. The Show Room (other cons call it The Dealers' Room"), for those of you who are unfamiliar with comic/manga conventions, is where all the loot is. The big distributors and comics suppliers (or "dealers") set up stations or booths to hawk their wares. Those expensive entrance fees get you discounts on most merchandise in the Show Room, plus "SWAG" - "free" stuff that is usually just promotional material that weighs you down (short for Stuff We Always Get). At one booth, they were promoting the new movie, CatBlue Dynamite, which I saw in December. It was a well-done but stoopid male-fantasy movie starring an over-sexy kitten-woman. An Asian woman in cosplay was there to take pictures with adolescent boys and middle-aged men. In another part of the Show Floor is the Artists' Alley, where artists or teams of artists pay $800 for a space the size of a half-bath to display their work. This is the best place to go and meet cool (or wierd, scary) people. More on this later.
4:00 pm
Float in and out of Scott McCloud's ZOT! panel and Today's Voices in Graphic NOvels panel. Scott McCloud is a small hero of mine. His book Making Comics was pivotal in my decision to go back to manga after a hiatus of 5 years. (It is a bit nerdy, although he does his best to make it understandable.)
The Graphic Novel panel was a bunch of wierdos again who were talking about how graphic novels are either memoirs or fantasy. That's a problematic distinction but an interesting idea nevertheless... It's problematic because there are at least 2 or 3 problems with their argument:
1. They never said that graphic novels don't include manga - and manga is certainly more than just memoir and fantasy.
2. I have definitely read graphic novels that don't fall into either. For example, Adrian Tomine is neither fantastic nor memoir. Also, I wouldn't place The Ticking in either category, although it would fit uncomfortably into fantasy, maybe.
3. I forget. sorry.
6:00pm
I wandered in and out of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. The English dub was pretty good although not convincing in super-emotional scenes. The part of the boy, Chiaki, was excellently cast. In any case, the animation was OK but not WOAH, and the plot was cliche but well-done nonetheless. I would see it again but I wouldn't pay for it.
9:00pm
T.M.Revolution!!! He started on time, his set lasted over an hour, he spoke to the audience in more-or-less understandable English, AND he came back for 3 encores! That is a fan-service machine if I ever saw one. Very professional - he has been in the business for decades, after all. And he's an icon.
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