Hey everyone, I'm back from San Diego Comic-con!

WOW, what a weekend I had! It was the most fun I've had in a LONG time! All my snakey friends were there and we did our Godmother skit on Saturday in the masquerade, and we were filmed for an upcoming documentary and I got to meet a ton of cool celebs! It was so exciting!

On Thursday I spent ALL DAY in airports on standby, it was pretty awful. But I finally arrived in San Diego and crashed in my hotel, then met up with my editor Lillian and later on hung out with , , and our friend Jenny, to talk about skit stuff. We actually had a problem with the audio that was already recorded for the skit, and had to redo some lines by sitting under a blanket in Krys' hotel room, with our computers and a shotgun mic. It was pretty silly-looking but it worked out really well.

Friday we all went to the Adventure Time panel, but I got stuck outside because there were SO MANY people trying to get in! So I waited to see the cast at the signing later that day. We got everyone's signature, it was so cool! And I met Tom Kenny, the voice of Spongebob, which is one of my fave cartoons!

I also dropped by the Archaia booth to say hi to editor friend Tim Beedle and meet Wendy and Brian Froud!! They were so awesome! And I got an autographed poster...if only I'd known I was going to see them, I would have brought my "World of the Dark Crystal" book for them to sign!

One thing I forgot to do was go by the booth that I go to every year to buy more of the japanese Alice in Wonderland figurines that I collect...the ones based on Tenniel's original illustrations. I go there every time to buy a few more figurines and the man at the booth saves them in a little box for me, but I was just SO SO busy this weekend I totally forgot! I only like to buy them from the guy who sells them there, so I'll wait to until next year to get more. Waiting makes collecting things more fun!

On Saturday we worked hard on practicing for the masquerade, filling out paperwork and running around doing stuff like that. I still found time to go meet Mike, Kevin and Bill from Mystery Science Theater 3000, and now Rifftrax! I LOVE them! They were SO funny and they wrote crazy things on my autograph sheets (one for me and one each for my brother and sister, because they're big fans too). It was so cool meeting them! I wish I could have stayed up long enough to go to the Rifftrax presentation on Friday, but I ended up not going because I was exhausted and wanted some sleep. :\ But that's ok, because we were also in the MASQUERADE!! This was my fourth time entering, but my first time NOT doing a solo entry at San Diego. It was SO much more fun entering as a group and having fun with my friends!

It was an AMAZING masquerade this year, like always! So many incredible entries, I don't know how the judges handle choosing the winners from all of the great contestants. I really loved a skit that some of my friends did involving time travel...they had Bill and Ted, Marty and the Doc, Doctor Who, and even a Quantum Leap joke in there, so cool!

And our skit won the Most Humorous trophy (along with medals for all the girls) and we were SO HAPPY! It was the best time ever, so much fun doing a silly skit with my friends. I think you can find the skit online if you search for this year's Comic-Con masquerade, entry #26 "The Godmother." I was the Godmother, Krys was Aurora, Jenny was Cinderella, Morgan was Belle and Kat was our snappy henchfairy, Kibbles. :3

(We gave the trophy to TinyCrab for "Best Crabsmanship")




Sunday was almost even BETTER than Saturday! I got to wear my Kira costume from the Dark Crystal (pictures are being posted in my gallery right now!) and Morgan and Krys helped me take some great pics. Plus our awesome photographer friend Judy took spectacular pics of us sitting on the Thor's throne promo set at the Marvel booth. It looked so much like something from the Skeksis' castle that I couldn't resist sitting on it! It's the absolute BEST picture of the weekend for me.



I also went to the Archaia/Henson studios panel and got to show Brian Froud my Kira costume...actually, everyone kinda noticed when I slunk into the panel room a few minutes late because the moderator pointed me out to the crowd. Wah wahhhhh XD But it was SO COOL a panel and I had a lot of fun there! Even if I could only see out of two tiny pinpoints in the mask (Morgan had to hold my hand in the hallways so I wouldn't walk into things).

Back in the exhibitor hall, I got a Mr. Timms fish at the Mr. Timms booth:



He's a wind-up toy fish that flaps his tail! There was a huge line of people all weekend, waiting to toss a ball into a giant Mr. Timms' mouth and win either a poster, a t-shirt or a toy fish. I thought I'd never get a spot in the line because it was so long and I had somewhere else to be, but the man at the booth was so nice that he snuck me a Mr. Timms toy under the table

And it was a super special surprise Mr. Timms! The Mr. Timms toy fishes come in identical boxes, and most Mr. Timms are orange, and one in fifty are "special surprise Mr. Timms" silver ones, and one in 500 are "SUPER special surprise Mr. Timms" that are golden...and I got a golden Mr. Timms!! He's just the cutest thing ever!

So after that, we had to get back into our princess getups from the night before to go be filmed for a documentary that's being done by the fellow who did "Super-Size Me." He's doing a movie about Comic-Con and a friend of his who is a friend of OURS asked if we'd be OK with being followed around with cameras while we get ready in costume and then do some interviews. So we did that and it was a lot of fun (but very tiring!) and later on did a quick photoshoot and met some cool celebs who were also there for the movie! Nathan from Firefly, Tara Mcpherson, Frank Miller...so awesome! Thanks to craft services for the sandwiches, I'm pretty sure those are the ONLY reason I wasn't dead on my feet for most of the day. I didn't eat all morning and afternoon because we were SO busy!



Then we had to go do another photo shoot down near the harbor, on an antique carousel. We just wanted to get in with our photographer Leonard and do the pics so we could FINALLY get out of costume and go swimming, but since we were Disney princesses, like a MILLION kids showed up and started swarming us! And the parents started lining up for photos, and it was really hard to make them understand that we're NOT like the princesses at the Disney parks...we're not here to take pics with your kids! XD But we did pose for a lot lot LOT of photos with the children, then managed to get our own photos done and make a very hasty escape. A bunch of Disney princesses running away from children is a very funny sight. We also did some photos on a horse-drawn Cinderella coach and then were at last able to get into normal clothes.



I was so exhausted, since I'd been in costume and makeup for 8 hours, so we jumped out of our costumes, got some dinner in the harbor and then went swimmin' with a fish puppet. I GOT A FISH PUPPET. HE'S SO COOL. HIS NAME IS DOUBLE FISH PUPPET.



I loved him so much I wouldn't take him off, even in the hot tub! Krys even got a picture of me sleeping in my bed with the puppet still on my hand (I WASN'T sleeping though, I was just tired! So there!).



I AM SO EXHAUSTED, but no rest yet, because this weekend I have to meet up with the TOKYOPOP tour bus! Another four days of busy busyness, film crews, drivin' around on the bus, doing the tour thing. I'm hoping the weekend after this I can finally go home to visit my parents...my mom's birthday was last Wednesday and I couldn't visit them, which really bummed me out. So hopefully after the tour I'll get a few days to go home and see ma famille!

That's all for now, but I will keep you updated on further antics as they occur. Bye!

-M







In case you haven't heard by now, TOKYOPOP is doing a HUUUGE summer tour of America called the TOKYOPOP TOUR, and in the words of Publisher's Weekly, is "best described as the otaku version of MTV’s reality show, Road Rules. In this case a group of six otaku (or super fans of Japanese pop culture) will travel across the country in a tour bus with Tokyopop founder, CEO and COO Stuart Levy. The tour will stop at manga and anime conventions across the country and footage of the visits will be broadcast online." They'll be looking for AMERICA'S GREATEST OTAKU, who will win awesome swag and a free trip to Japan!

And guess who's joining the tour bus in August? AS IF YOU HAVE TO ASK. I'll be on for the ride for the first week of August, rockin' the tour bus with Stu and the Otaku Six, traveling the east coast to find America's Greatest Otaku! I just hope my hair looks OK...me and humidity are MORTAL ENEMIES.

You can read more here!: [link]

It's gonna be fun on the run! AND on a bus! You can watch the live blogs and video clips from the tour at THIS SITE: [link]

YAY! I'll be bringing my own camera along to do some personal videos about the tour...although I'm sure by the end I'll be WAY sick of all the cameras on board anyway! But I'll be sure to do some shout-outs to my snakey friends at Deviantart!

M!


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OH MY GOD U GUISE!

Kev, Paul and I just got done recording a two and a half hour commentary on book 1 of Bizenghast for the...wait for it...Bizenghast Book One DVD Commentary!

A DVD commentary for a book? The hell, you say! But I assure you, it can be done. I've combined my love of DVD commentaries and the first volume of my comic series into a movie-length running commentary, performed by myself and my two best friends. We'll be talking about the series, about peanut butter and ironing boards, and about why Kev is wearing women's jogging pants, all into one AMAZING DVD, which you can purchase from Etsy very soon! The DVD will also contain lots of bonus material that was cut from book one, interviews with editors at TOKYOPOP, and much much more!

IT'S SO EXCITING AND FRUSTRATING! EXCITING because it's totally exciting, and FRUSTRATING because we just recorded for two and a half hours, only to find out that the track was not recorded correctly and is unusable. Also we were too drunk. So now we'll have to do it AGAIN. RAWWR TECHNOLOGY, YOU WIN THIS ROUND!!

But I hope you're all looking forward to this astounding DVD, which will be low in price but SUPER AMAZING in content! I hope to have it available for purchase SUPER SOON, by the middle of August. YAY!!


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For those who were interested in buying the Lady Gaga posters that I was selling at my con table:


I put a few of them up on my Etsy: [link]

So be sure to buy one before they run out!

Some even BETTER news: the Bizenghast website is BACK UP with a new design, yayyyyy!!: [link]

I'll be adding some new content soon, and in the meantime you can send your new letters to Edaniel's advice column!




Here are some great fan-made Bizenghast groups on DeviantArt!

NEW! Vincent-Much-Loved Fan Club
The Mausoleum Fan Club
The Beloved Edrear Fan Club
The I Wuv Edaniel Fan Club


Other Links:

[link] My Tegaki Drawing Journal
[link] Official Bizenghast website
[link] My Etsy Store