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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.
- gWebber
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