There it is, Plain as Daylight

I mentioned last week or so that Plastic Tree’s new album was due out while I was at NYAF, and now that I’m home I’ve finally got a chance to listen to it. This does not resemble a coherent review or anything, but I do have some quick reactions on the new tracks that I can share. These are pretty much stream-of-consciousness, which may give you a clear idea of why I do not usually allow myself to write that way. Also, keep in mind that these impressions are based on music only, as I haven’t read any translations yet. And so…

Notes on Utsusemi: Continue Reading »

I’m finally home from NYAF! I had a very nice time, both visiting with old friends and at the con. Everyone else has already reported on the manga industry news and so on, so I’ll just talk about my personal experiences.

Many thanks to dear friends, Laura, Gavin, & James for making time to catch up with me at early hours of the morning, and to my dearest EA, little (or not so little!) Moo, and Malcolm, for putting up with me all weekend. I was also lucky enough to meet a couple of people I’ve become acquainted with through this blog. Here is my report (in order of appearance):

Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane: Friendly, fun, professional. I was very happy to spend time with her at a number of panels over the weekend!

Ed Sizemore: Kind, generous, BEST SHOES EVER. I wish I’d had the opportunity to chat with him more!

Overall, I really enjoyed this con. It was smallish, and with the exception of Saturday, felt actually kind of intimate, which is maybe not profitable if you’re running a con, I don’t know, but certainly enjoyable as an attendee.

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Heading out shortly to the train station for travel to NYAF! I’ll be staying with a dear friend in Brooklyn, and have plans to inundate her and her daughter with anime while I am there, specifically Princess Tutu, Mushishi, and/or Kino’s Journey. I’m also trying to work on getting her daughter interested in manga (she doesn’t read a lot, but I thought maybe comics would help her enjoy it more). I guess we’ll see how it goes. I’m not exactly sure what to try to start her off with. She’s ten, but has spent a lot of her life hanging out with adults, so she’s definitely not typical ten. She’s the kind of girl who would (and did) dress up for Halloween as “Dorth Vader,” a cross between Dorothy (from The Wizard of Oz) and Darth Vader. If you have suggestions, bring ‘em on!

I’ll be at the con all three days, from opening to whenever I get too tired, so if you see me wandering around, please say hello! Just got my hair cut. Look approximately like this.

Just a quick note on xxxHolic chapter 166 before I go. Continue Reading »

I have a jumble of things on my mind today (what else is new?) and I’m going to attempt to organize it all somehow. Let’s see how I do.

First of all, Johanna Draper Carlson wrote this great article, How to Break Into Writing Comics which is pretty near and dear to my heart these days. I’m not exactly sure where I fit in to those options, and I’m thinking I need to figure that out. I mean, I know what I think I’m doing, but I’m not sure if I’m going about it in a useful way. Maybe, too, my gray areas are partly due to the OEL manga industry being (seemingly) a little different than the comics industry as a whole, in that from what I can surmise (and this is the “truth” I’m currently operating on), there is really no way in at all without doing the work of finding your own artist. So I’m doing that, while still holding out hopes that I might be able to get a publisher interested sometime after that point. It seems that this is how it needs to be done. I guess I’ll find out. In any case, I’m grateful to have read the article.

Switching now to fangirl mode, we finished watching Princess Tutu on Friday night, and it affected me so strongly, I haven’t really been able to talk about it yet. I love that. I’ll try to talk a little bit now, but it may take another week or so before I can be, you know, articulate.

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