PLEASE NOTE - IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING BOOK 2 PREORDERS IN THIS RANT, PLEASE READ IF YOU PRE-ORDERED BOOK 2

Before I get into today's rant material, I want to stop for a moment to remember the traumatic events that happened on this day two years ago. Many of us, including us here at Megatokyo, found our lives overwhelmed by sheer magnitude of the events happing on the TV screens before us. It took a long time for us to move on, to the point that the events didn't somehow dominate our thoughts and our lives. Last year, on the one year anniversary, both Seraphim and I found that we still had not fully delt with it all, and revisiting the events helped, I think, finally help us come to terms with such a horrific and overwhelming tragedy. Time heals all wounds, I believe the saying goes, but scars will remain, as well as the positive effects of a successful healing process. The anniversary and memory of the events of two years ago do not warrant us having to stop our lives, make websites go black, or require memorandum webcomics, but that doesn't mean that we don't think about them. For the people who's lives were more directly affected by the loss of loved ones - your wounds will take longer to heal, and our thoughts are with you today.

If you are one of the people who had preordered a copy of Megatokyo volume 2 you should have received an email from me this morning that verifies that you are on the list of preorder customers provided to me by IC Entertainment. The main purpose of the email is to verify your shipping address - if it has changed, please respond to the email with your current shipping address (one that will be valid in January 2004). If you pre-ordered and did not receive an email, it is probable that your email address has changed. If you do not receive your email by the end of the day, please email me at piro@megatokyo.com with [MT BOOK 2 PREORDER] in the subject line, and I will update the list with your new email address (and address, if that has changed too).

I apologize that it has taken this long to actually get the emails out. Trying to figure out how to deal with a list of people this big, and get all the information into a usable form so that I could email everyone effectively was more problematic than I had realized. Big kudos go out to Seraphim who spent several hours entering and verifying information so that we can take care of all the preorder customers. Hopefully we can get all the shipping information and preorder stuff verified so that when the books are done, there won't be any problems with you finally receiving them.

In other news, some of you may have noticed from Seraphim's rant that she and I snuck away last weekend and drove down to Maryland to go to SPX (Small Press Expo), and yes, we went without telling anyone :P.

I seem to have backed my way into the comics industry here in the states without really knowing a lot about it. Most of this has to do with the fact that I never really was a reader of American comics, and the only indie comics I ever followed were a few little titles back when I was in college. The Japanese comic scene is where most of my attention has been for the past ten years. Yet, I don't think it's the fact that the 'manga' style comics that we all like to read are as popular as they are simply because they are Japanese - they just represent the kinds of stories and a type of comic language that is really appealing. To me, there is no reason why a non Japanese artist/writer couldn't produce works that had the same appeal. I'm not really sure if I'm doing this ok or not, but that has sort of been my attitude.

So, in an effort to better understand what other English-language writers and artists are doing, I made the mistake of agreeing to take Seraphim with me to Underworld Comics and Games, a rather nice comic shop here in Ann Arbor. Ho boy, that was a mistake. ^^;;; She dove right in and started sampling comics left and right. Neither Seraphim or I still have much interest in the superhero genre, but what's surprising is how many other fine comics and stories there are out there, if you just take the time to look.

In the end, we not only did we get a pretty good sampling of the kind of comics out there besides just manga titles, but... she seems to have become a ardent fan of several titles -_-;; Some of these creators were going to be at SPX, and that's how we suddenly found ourselves driving eight hours to Maryland (our third trip down there this year) and wandering a convention as an (gasp) attendee, rather than a guest or exhibitor. It was kind of refreshing, being on the other side of the table again. :)

SPX is a showcase for alternative, independent and small press cartoonists and publishers. We spent a lot more money at this show than we've spent at any of the other anime cons this year, and I have a big stack of stuff that I've been looking at since we got back. In my next rant, I'd like to share some of the titles that I liked and thought were worth mentioning. It was also cool running into several other webcomic artists - Jonathan Rosenberg from Goats, Richard Stevens from Diesel Sweeties, Corey Marie Kitley from Life So Rad and some folks representing Eat Your Lipstick (Monica Gallagher, the gal who does it, wasn't at the table when we stopped by, but we grabbed a post card so we could check it out later). Anyways, I'll cover the other stuff I looked at and read in my next post.

One thing is for sure tho... if I have to drive to Maryland one more time this year, I'm gonna scream... unless of course I get one of those really nice little crumb cake things from Bau Au Pain or whatever it is at that one service area off the Ohio Turnpike... try the Urban Blend coffee, it was pretty good.