Friday - August 2, 2002
[Piro] - 11:42:02 - [link here]
The official press release is here. you can skip the rant and just read the press release here if you like :)
You'd think a week where i barely was able to finish one comic (its still not done - it's a good one, its just not finished yet) that i'd be relaxed, recovered from the Otakon trip, refreshed and relatively stress-free.
ha. this is me we're talking about here.
I started working on a Otakon 2002 wrap-up, but it's still not done (dom's quick wrap-up is amazingly succinct (yes he did get slapped once) and it covers some salient points. First off, panel 1 was a disaster. Panel 2 was much better. fans seemed to enjoy both, which is all that *really* counts. I'm still overwhelmed with gratitude for all the friends, associates, and Otakon crew who spent so much of their time at the con helping me out. I'm not really sure how to thank all of you. I'll try in my Otakon wrap-up.
To, the sheer number of fans who spent a lot of THIER con waiting in line for MT events - not having any comics done this week is NO way to repay you all for your patience and, well, stamina for waiting for stuff. I really tried to do my best to get to everyone - to those of you who i was unable to meet or talk to, i'm very sorry. Nothing sucks worse than standing in line for an hour and not then not being able to either get in or meet the person you are waiting to see. I think the DeadPass idea worked pretty good, i'll have to make sure we do that again next time too (either that or we have a room that really is big enough).
That and i really have to work on the 'uhm' thing between thoughts. Sorry 'bout that. ^^;;;
Oh, and the art auction. To the fellow who cast the winning bid of $1,750... you're nuts, dude. :P I still can't fathom any drawing of mine being worth that much, i figured that it'd bring in a few hundred dollars (mainly because of the server fund thing) I swear i am suffering a bit of a guilt trip over this. ^^;; Honestly tho, i have to say, I personally liked the piece, i felt it was a good drawing, and, well, dude, you looked really happy to have it, and that's what matters. Thank you very much, your excessive generocity has lead directly to the following announcement.
On tuesday i ordered a new server. I don't have the exact specs on hand, but it has 2 gigs of DDR Ram, dual 1600 AMD processors, a nice shiny case, and it should at least be able to handle Megatokyo and it's forums for... a few months of growth at least. ^^;;; With any luck Megatokyo will be moved over to the new box by next weekend.
I have several other announcements too. Some are the culmination of months and months of work in the background - dead piro days don't just happen because i am tired, they usually have to do with me being overwhelmed with other projects in the background.
First announcement has to do with the Megatokyo store. As i announced during the 2nd panel at Otakon, Megatokyo has partnered with Think Geek to open a new store sometime in the next few weeks. I'm very excited to be working with them, because they are a great online retailer that offers high quality stuff with attitude. :) They are great people, they make good stuff, and i am very happy with the new shirt designs (i have introduced new shirts and refreshed old favorites) and yes, most of them are either on black shirts, or other, specific colors. More information on the new store when we are ready to launch.
Oh, and how much time did all that require to set in motion? A lot more than you folks might realize ^_^
Announcement number two is also a big one. The 2nd biggest request i get has always been for black t-shirts. Got that covered. The number 1 request i get is 'is megatokyo available in print'.
The answer to this is now "come this december, yes". Don't say i never listen to fan requests. :)
Yesterday i reached an agreement with Studio Ironcat, publishers of the Vampire Princess Miyu, Yui and Dahlia series, to publish the first and subsequent collection volumes of Megatokyo. The official press release is here. Press releases always sound so damn silly, it's almost like they exist in this land of marketing and hype lingo where you have to say all sorts of really glowing things (my friend patchmonkey, who is my de-facto marketing guy wouldn't let me write it :P) but the truth is, i'm very excited about this because the IronCat folks are hyped and willing to work with me to help produce these volumes the way *I* want to make them. Megatokyo in print is a big deal, and i am going to work very hard to make sure that volume one, which will contain all of chapter 0 in its entirety along with a lot of extra material, is well worth buying.
I have a lot more i can say, but i think that should be enough for today. ^^;; It's all very exciting stuff, and as you can see, things here at MT just, well, keep getting more interesting. :P All this was actually more work than it would take to do 3 comics in a week, so i hope you guys at least understand why the delays. :)
Oh, and then there is that deadline at work on monday. Gonna have to put some time in the weekend to hit that... (sigh)
Monday - August 5, 2002
[Dom] - 07:00:00 - [link here]
It's 5 AM, and I've decided I'm just not going to sleep tonight. And no, Natsuki, I refuse to let Fujisaki Shiori count sheep. It's just not right. So instead of sleeping, I'm gonna write. Sleep will take care of itself. Until then, Otakon.
I already took care of most of the fun details, but skimped on the shoutouts and other fun little stories. Well, okay, here's some of the fun "behind-the-scenes" MT stuff you wouldn't hear about otherwise.
For example, Ken keeps bringing the same set of posters to any con he's at with Fred. This has only been two cons so far, so here's hoping he finds something else to hold over Fred's head than a picture of a girl in overalls. I figure that a few doses of Comic Party and he'll find something--or he'll just target me, which is fine because it's always amusing to prove to Ken that I have no public shame.
It's foogin' creepy to have guests be fans of you. In the Green Room, Fred Perry (whose Gold Digger animation looks like it'll be a reality soon, which is a frightening prospect given the one-man studio) asked Fred to draw a sketch for his daughter. Fred promptly cooked one up, gave it to the other Fred--and Perry tried to give Gallagher money. What followed was high comedy on the level of watching Vietnamese parents fight for the honor of picking up the check at a dinner. Money was offered, refused, forced, returned... it was awesome.
Meanwhile, Lianne Sentar also turned out to be a big fan of MT--and when Ken got my manga signed, Nightow-san inquired about MT. It's... just weird.
Speaking of Lianne Sentar, a bunch of people wanted me to ask if that was her real name or a pen name. I didn't ask--I figure if it's impolite to ask a lady's age and weight, it's also impolite to ask her what is written on her birth certificate.
As for being slapped, that is part of the "Smell my hair, it's an inhalant!" story. See, given I only had 2 minutes backstage to get my hair green, about half a can worth of green hairspray went on my head over the course of 2 hours, since I renewed the coloring in the Green Room. And the chemical smell was STRONG around me--Merekat was getting lightheaded just from sitting next to me, and I had an aura that rivaled the Abomination's Disease Cloud and the Fanboy Funk for sheer strength. Later in the night, it turned into a kind of potpourri smell, but while it was still wet, various people tried to noogie me and got green knuckles. Me being me, I stuck my head under that person's chin and rubbed my hair against the collarbone. The problem was that the person who noogied me happened to be female, and it looked like my head was going elsewhere--thus the slap. It stung, too.
As a random sidenote, I lost a friggin' expensive pair of slacks that was supposed to go with the suit for my Taishi costume. Many cosplayers can sympathize with the amount of swearing I did backstage at the NNMT:L! panel, when I discovered that said pants were missing. I ended up wearing the white pair of Kayama pants with the Taishi suit, which just looked horrible. I apologize for the pants going missing--but at least I was wearing pants...
Speaking of wearing pants, it's weird that when I take my glasses off, Young Wang of Nekobox looks better in a skirt than his girl Natsuki. I have no idea why. I think it's because I've known Nats for too long and find it strange when she acts feminine.
In a rather reassuring development, several people told me to my face that they fear what would happen if I ever got drunk. They continued by saying that they never wish to see it happen, confirming that their wishes align with mine. I love being as amusing and shameless sober as other people are drunk. It cuts out a lot of the headaches, and no one ever tries to slip you something to see what you're like drunk. I still pour my own drinks, though...
I love being interviewed. Some people will just say I'm an attention whore, and to some degree that's true. But I just love being asked questions and being able to come up with creative answers. My personal favorite was the "creativity as semen--don't release it and it'll all pop out at an inconvenient time" metaphor I used while on camera with Nats, Young, and Vaz. It really does explain a lot of webcomics out there, and it was an inspired bit of oddly appropriate word weaving.
The US Anime guys are cool, but what frightens me is that Doujin Man (update: His name is Andrew. However, for the rest of his career I will call him Doujin Man, and sing the Doujin Man song. Thanks, Doujin Man, we needed you!) rubbed Leaf merchandise on himself. I thought only Ken and my roommate did things like that, but apparently there's someone just as strange as they are out there. The prospect of there being more is at once comforting and terrifying.
G-On Riders is a piece of gooey, starchy shit. I feel compelled to say this about a series whose sole purpose in life is to fill in every fetishy girl position available--"Glasses-wearing girls of justice", my ass. When you can't figure out what fetish is left unfulfilled, you have a problem. Let's see, we have the nun with big sword, the schoolgirl whose panties keep falling off, the robot maid, the catgirl, the 12-year-old, the yamato nadeshiko, the nerdy girl with glasses --who if I remember right, speaks Kansai, but since I saw one episode at AX and almost punched someone, I won't watch it again to confirm--it's... well, yeah. Anyway, as I was saying, if Fred is ever subjected to that series, I will tie him to a chair and show him all of GTO, animation and live action drama. And that will be but the beginning of the G-On Riders purge. I despise the show/manga that much.
I forgot to bellow "FOR KHAZ MODAAAAAAAN" at the midnight panel while brandishing my vibrating Afro Ken. The warchief was saddened.
I guess that since this thing is running long and I'm finally starting to feel tired, it's time to give out the standard set of thanks.
Here's to Kei and that nameless yet cute Ironcat intern, who have put up with MegaTokyo's crap for quite a long time now. Seriously, on Saturday night when Kei and Fred went out "for a talk", I thought someone was gonna get cement shoes. But that may have just been the sleep dep talking. Thanks for the guitar, too, even though it was missing strings... all that mattered is that it fit my Kayama costume.
To Ken and Pocky, who amazed me with the depths of their fandom. And made me envy their Japanese skills--I wish I could read manga without furigana. I really do. But I don't have a proper dictionary yet and have to guess a lot of the meanings based on pictograms, and that's just a bad idea in Japanese :P
To the Otakon staff guys, who put up with all of our crap. I WILL have those poles onstage next time and I WILL make sure that the fans in the front row have their dollar bills ready. Yes...
To Natsuki and Young, who never fail to make me laugh, and Vaz, who's great at feeding me lines.
To my muse, you know who you are.
To all the people who told me that Shirt Guy Dom days don't suck. You're a bit deluded, but as long as I can make you laugh it's all good. And making people laugh makes it all worth it.
And to Fred, who, in his benevolence, hasn't had me liquidated yet.
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