COMICS CULTURE SHRAPNEL from CBEM 330

Conventioneering: Otakon 2001

So a week ago I hopped on a bus to Maryland, to attend the largest anime convention on the East Coast. Ten-thousand was their early estimate, and easily believable when I first walked up to the massive convention center, outside of which a line formed stretching around the block. Many of these people were in costume, and many more were wearing T-shirts from previous Otakons. So many, in fact, that I got sick of seeing them.

Once I was registered and inside the massive complex that looked more like a biogenetics lab, I took the opportunity to look around. It was nice to know that there was plenty of room. I never saw a single panel overflow, the auditoriums always managed to be just the right size, and the dealer's room was spacious. That last part was quite lovely - I always hate not being able to move forward or get near a table because there's so many people in the way.

But though I now had all this room to move around, I can't say I really saw anything I wanted to buy. First off: almost no doujinshi. Living in New York means that I can pretty much get anything I want in terms of manga or toys, and I always order my anime cheap off the Internet. So generally, when I go to a convention, I want to spend my money on something I can only get at the convention. Usually I try to grab doujinshi, since these are imported from Japan, and each one is part of a limited printing, hard to find, unique. At the con I only saw two small boxes of such at two different tables, one which overcharged and another which had only hentai (perverted stuff). I was at first repulsed, though now regret not buying that pornographic Pikachu-Misty lovefest.

I bought the official Otakon T-shirt (available only at the con) and the Serial Experiments Lain soundtrack (which I couldn't get online). This was on the first day, and I never bought anything in there again, no matter how much I was tempted.

On the first day I did a lot -- attended two panels, went to the music video contest screening, even saw the Mystery Anime Theater 3000 sketch. That was probably the highlight of the entire con -- they poked fun at Samurai Showdown, which is probably one of the worst anime ever made. In fact, it's the only thing to ever be booed out of my old high school's anime club. So having Tom Servo and Crow make wise-ass comments was a relief (and yes, the con had permission to use the likenesses).

The two panels I attended were not entirely different -- because both featured Piro and Largo of Megatokyo fame. The first was the "Web Manga" panel, the second being the exclusive one for MT. I can't really say anything new was revealed at either one, since Piro was self-deprecating as usual -- "I'm just glad someone appreciates our work." Give it a few years and he will be trying to disembowel himself on stage, just like in that fan contest strip from a few weeks back. Joining the pair at the manga panel were several other moderately well-known artists, including the makers of Mac Hall (creator of the aforementioned "seppuku" strip), Bad Boys of Computer Science, RPG World, and Genesis Chronicles (which according to the creator, has only consisted of 8 pages in the past six years or so). There were other creators in the audience as well, such as the guy who did NeoBaka.

They all talked about the effort they put into creating their specific comics, usually taking a good portion of their evenings. There was talk of Photoshop as the greatest gift to webcomics. Piro uses an incredibly complicated process to prepare his strips for release, which explains why it takes so long at points. The other reason being that he hates his art and is never really sure if it's good enough for the audience.

At both panels we of course heard once more that the Megatokyo guys don't make any money off it and don't plan to. They crash the servers a lot. They hate l33t speak. That last one was a relief, even though it's all their fault for it being popular again. Their erstwhile sidekick Dom would relay the questions, which was useful considering how big and crowded the room was. And yes, he had a vibrating sheep with him.

I didn't go to many more panels, because all the really good or fun ones were at the same time as other good or fun events. Though I considered choosing what to go to a no-brainer, looking at the schedule now makes me realize what I missed. The Studio Ironcat panel. "Getting Published" (featuring Colleen Doran). Drawing with Adam (Warren) and Bob (DeJesus). A friend of mine was covering the industry panels for Anime News Network, I suppose I could grill him later. But despite missing things that would be of interest to this column, I had lots of fun.

It's big and crowded, and hard to find rooms or people. I had one friend who I saw for all of two seconds in three days. And there are video rooms I never visited, or even got close to. At these points smaller cons like Shoujocon have the advantage. Being smaller also means that they can sneak more things under the radar, like obscure fansubs in the video rooms. Larger cons rely on corporate sponsorship and therefore have to play nice. But the larger cons have more events, more guests, and larger rooms. It's nice to have room to breathe, and to have more stuff to do. Though I will complain that everything I wanted to do got done on Friday, leaving me idle for the next two days. I suppose next year I'll cosplay, or sell doujinshi, or whatever.

I think I'm becoming a con junkie, and it's not too bad of a life. A friend of mine managed to parlay it into name-recognition for himself. Someday he might actually have a real job. For now, all I want is to get together with people and have a good time. A con is a great place to do it.

[Once again, a more detailed and personal convention report can be located starting at http://www.livejournal.com/users/lampbane/day/2001/08/13 and continuing on for the next few days. You might be amused, but then again it could also scare you.]