Category: Fandom

NY Anime Festival 2010: Artist Alley – Making it Big!

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GUEST POST BY SKEITH

For better or worse, the New York Anime Festival certainly shook things up this year by merging with the New York Comic Con. Thankfully, my usual haunt – the Artists Alley – was also on the winning end of this merger, taking advantage of the Jacob Javits Center’s layout to get as many of the 90,000+ attendees to take a look and perhaps buy some art from the many booths. I saw a lot of familiar faces, but more and more I’m beginning to see them making the transition from amateur artist to full-time professionals, making me wonder just how they made the jump.

“It’s a lot of work,” said  Sarah Moulder of Stuido Kitsu. “You have to look at it like a full-time job and put in the extra hours to do it.” Moulder started simply, making odds and ends such as Kingdom Hearts dangles. Now she peddles a wide variety of anime-inspired hoodies, costume pieces and more. Sharing a booth with Moulder are Carolann Voltarel and Carrie Wink of Athena’s Wink who also claim crafting as a full-time job – and not an easy one.

“The both of us sit [at home] 8 hours, Monday through Friday, sewing hats most weeks,” said Voltarel. “And half of our weekends we’re selling at conventions.” When asked if they could be considered a success story of the Artists Alley, Wink responded, “We’re still working on the success part.”

Sarah Moulder, Carolann Voltarel and Carrie Wink

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October’s Final Denouement: The Lies 90′s Anime Fans Told

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*I am aware that much of the anime we enjoyed in the 90’s was produced in the 80’s. But this is about what I thought anime was in 90’s, what was available in the 90’s that shaped that view, not what was produced at the time.

I started watching anime, at least what I knew to count among anime, in the summer of 1995 with the infamous Ninja Scroll. I followed that with Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Demon City Shinjuku, and more from the few local video places my friends and I frequented. If you had asked me back then, and people frequently did, just what was this anime we were gobbling up, I probably, no in fact I know, I would have said some thing about anime’s maturity, perhaps its dark or adult themes, and maybe some violence for good measure. And I probably would have thrown in some jabs at western works, too.

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The Shadow Ninja Literati of TV Tropes

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hisuiconWhile walking to work one day I had an unusual revelation about the true insidious nature of TV Tropes.  TV Tropes bills itself as a site where anyone can write about common facets of fiction that are used by writers in a fun manner. They bill the site encouraging casual language and discussion. That is merely their cover story. The site is nothing more than a candy coated factory for the subversive deconstruction and categorization of pop culture media with an agenda of guerrilla academic tactics  hidden by a populist facade.

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