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With billboards like this at the train station who cares if the train ever comes.

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House of Anime Girls

Just a few figures

PMBQ - Tea Club

Punk Bunny

Punk Bunny

Tao Toys & Model Mzre Yuen

Mzre Yuen

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So, unlike my trip to WonderCon, today (Friday) it is raining, lightly anyway here in San Francisco as I head to Anime Overdose.

It was at my first stop, (Wells Fargo), that I (for some dumb reason) decided to take the Cable Car as it goes up California to Van Ness, right where I want to be.

Now, I gotta tell you, the Cable Cars have got to be the slowest, most uncomfortable and decrepit means of transportation on the planet other than donkey. Sometimes I wonder why the city keeps them, I mean, I understand that the Cable Cars are a big tourist attraction and all, but still, you just gotta wonder. And then there's the billboards at the train and bus stations, I get told all the time my art isn't "Politically Correct" enough and might offend someone and yet posters like this are every other street corner. Why am I the bad guy?

So anyway, I get to the Golden Gate Holiday Inn and my first impression is there's going to be some fun photo opportunities as it's only 11:20 (event starts at 12:00) or so and there's plenty of people in anime costumes running about.

If there's one thing I like about Anime Fans it's that they really get into the whole CosPlay (costume play) thing, there's no half way, they either do it all or not at all. And what's not to like about lots of girls running about in cute anime costumes? There's more purple, blue and green hair and wild costumes as I head to the Preregistration tables to get my day started.

You can learn a lot about an event by how smoothly Registration goes and it isn't long before it's clear the people in charge are not the most organized kids on the block. It's now 12:15 and the line hasn't moved an inch. Just as people start to really wonder what's going on, one of the people in charge announce that the delay is because somebody forgot to bring the Cash Box so they can't make change . . . totally brilliant.

So now after about another five minutes or so they figure out that the ticket price being twenty bucks and there's a good chance a lot of people will have exact change. So now we have a line of people with exact change so the line is still hardly moving, why? You would think "Exact Change" would speed things along, but noooooo.

Seems few people have or have filled out a Registration Form and everyone is filling out the form as they hand over their twenty bucks. After a few long painful minutes of this some genius gets the idea to hand out the Registration Forms to the people in the "Exact Change" line to speed things up, but of course he forgets to give people pens to fill the form out with . . . a mind is a terrible thing to waste.

12:40 and I'm just getting inside and I was in the first few dozen people. OK, enough griping, this is a pretty new event and I guess management is just starting to get the swing of way things work. I've done plenty of events and it's pretty easy to forget stuff and it seems to always be the stuff you really shouldn't forget, like cash, camera, reason for being there . . .

So here's a basic layout, there's a Lounge area, a Movie room and a Dealers room, plus a bunch of things like Panels, Karaoke Cosplay contest and so on. Most of the good stuff that I'll miss as I only have the one day to be here. The Lounge area is pretty nice, bright lighting, lots of tables and chairs, pretty comfy. The Movie room has a good size screen, pretty good sound and plenty of chairs . . . the Dealers room however seems kinda' dark and the lighting is very spotty in some areas. But you know, given that it's a Friday, it's raining and the room is badly lit and not all that big, none of it seems to dampen the spirits of the fans and the vendors have packed every inch of the room with all things Anime.

The girls working the tables at House of Anime have the latest DVD by the one of the current hot Japanese bands playing and they are dancing away merrily with their multi colored hair tossing about as they
as they go through their coordinated dance moves. They're pretty good, they should do it more often to get attention to the booth and boost sales. I personally bought a few pins and a little 4" Chun Li figure for my collections from the lovely girl with green and black hair.

As I cruise the room I spot David Wong (Brick by Brick Design) whom I've see at other conventions selling his drawings so I stop by and see what's new. Seems David had a scheduling conflict in his calendar and didn't go to WonderCon this year (explains why I didn't see him there) going instead to a different show. Even with the day starting out slow, he's already got orders to fill, so I just chat briefly and check out his portfolios before moving on.

I don't go far before coming across PMBQ and her comic book series Tea Club which I had just read something about over at Sequential Tart (she also did the Anime Overdose program cover). After a quick chat about her comic, I buy a copy (autographed of course), I really like the way she draws her characters, they have a very "cute" appeal without going overboard on the sugar.

After reading Tea Club, I can definitely say I would buy more issues even though I think it leans slightly more towards female readers. The stories aren't what you'd call dramatic sagas like War & Peace, but they aren't really supposed to be, they are however very cute and amusing short stories making for a nicely rounded comic book and characters. Mind you I have only read one issue, so there maybe longer and more involved stories in later issues.

I was highly amused by the panel of Mr.Bear (he is in fact a bear) crying his eyes out while begging Kris (one of the girl characters) "No Kris, you'll never get a husband if you shave your head" when she mentions getting a hair cut to be more "Aerodynamic" for running . . . to me it's just a really funny image. Anyway, check out Tea Club if you get the chance, it's good stuff.

Then I came across the DeviantArt.com table, Deviant Art is quite as risqué' as the name might suggest, DeviantArt.com is a site with a broad range of works from artist around the world that can be bought as prints, T-shirts and other merchandise, hmmm, I may have to join that myself. Anyway the range of the art styles and the things that it comes on is huge, they have people doing everything from theme skins to cell phone art, interface and web design to coffee mugs and all the way down to refrigerator magnets. Pretty neat really and when you start getting into the forums with all the art people wrestling with life as an artist and PhotoShop nightmares . . . well you could spend days reading their site.

My next fun little visit was with the girls at the PunkBunny table, a mom and her two girls that make Anime and other types of costumes (and prom dresses too). Seems one of them was up till 3:00 am working on her costume so none of them got much sleep. The lack of sleep making them a little punch drunk and their generally fun personalities made them a joy to chat with. Fun little stories sewing stories about daughters getting stuck with pins and such. I have two seamstresses in my family so I know a well made dress when I see it (something that as a man I shouldn't admit to) so while their website lacks a little in proper design, the costumes are just great.

One of my final stops of the day was at the Tao Toys booth, who had some really nice figures of Chun Li and Cammy (from CapCom's Street Fighter Video Game) that I'd like to have in my collection, but can't afford to buy. But on the up side I met aspiring model Mzre Yuen, whom I wish I could also afford . . . for some modeling that is, she'd make a great character for some of my artwork.

Currently she's going to be featured on the cover and centerfold of Defunkt coming out sometime in May/June. Given how pretty and friendly she is I'd say she's got a good shot at modeling. I'll be trying to get her for a Pretty Poison Girl Feature for sure, so I'll keep you posted on that.

So that was my day Anime Overdose, hope to do it again next year and maybe hit a few more Anime conventions this year to see what else I can find.

- g.Webber