Currently I’m juggling my marketing scheme and coming out on the bottom, but at least making progress. I’m working on a flyer to distribute at the long line of upcoming conventions, and things are okay so far. I’ve also got to design a business card. I’ve got a good postcard though, and it’s here. The postcard is going to be issued by TokyoPop, and going to be distributed free as part of signings!! I took the liberty of creating all new art for it rather than just slapping the cover onto it – so power be to moi!

I’ve also printed the art for the Electrofringe festival out, and they look fantastic! Will probably reuse them for the other conventions. And it is confirmed. The Electrofringe Art Exhibition will go from 22nd September to the 9th October, and I will be there at a panel on the 2nd October to talk about my work. More details on convention attendances to be posted up later on.

This is actually in colour, with the same colour scheme as the Cover of “The Dreaming”, but this duotone version looks pretty too, so I’m posting this up.

Block 6: The Webcomic is here. And page117 is up. It’s the last page of Chapter 5, though in reality I’ve decided to split Chapter 5 into two segments because of the length. Not that it’s making any difference. Part 1 of Block 6, due to the chapter changes, now ends at Chapter 7, and Part 2, I guess it’s safe to say, involves a police investigation of a suspicious murder at “Block 6”. And we get to see just how thick a folder this building has. And who gets to die in a horrible way.

Update – Interview with Marty LeGrow: There’s an interview up on MangaLife.com with the creator of Bizenghast!

I’m busy working on the additional pages for “The Dreaming”, such as the extra bits and pieces in the back, previews, table of contents, etc. It’s been a busy week, and from the way things are going, it seems that I can beat the 15 August deadline after all, even with all the extra art changes to the later chapters required as well. DAMN amazing. The deadline was originall 15th September, but since they moved the street date back a month, they moved everything else back a month too (but I didn’t find out until last Thursday). Things are going on schedule so far (it’s a miracle!), but I won’t be laughing yet until I get confirmation that all 7 chapters have been accepted by TOKYOPOP.

There are other hiccups. Apparently the book needs to be completely re-lettered by TOKYOPOP in-house, because of a font incompatibility issue between Macs and PCs (for Anime Ace). Good Heavens. At least my editor promised to watch them like a hawk and make sure no weird typos are made, but I feel myself losing a few tufts of hair over this. I hope nothing goes wrong.

The page for “The Dreaming” is also up on TokyoPop’s site. So far, it looks fine, though I WILL have to draw a decent pic to replace the one of Amber sleeping. Too redundant. But that’ll have to wait after the additional pages are done.

Raijin Comics Shamefully Dead?: Raijin Comic’s website died a while ago, and I read on another message board that it has gone totally out of business. And it was apparently a sordid story as well. I quote from the forum post:

“on anime expo 2005, I made friends with one of the shipping supervisors of raijin comics, he told me that after they refunded the money of everyone that suscribed to the magazine, they had to send everything back to japan to be resold in cheap markets, the last day of work in the raijin warehouse, everyone raided the warehouse and took whatever they could like complete collections of “the master editions” of hokuto no ken, boxes and boxes of loose manga and whatever they could got in their hands, they were fired already so they took advantage on that.

Shueisha lost a lot of money and they simply closed both companies in japan and USA, so the “Hiatus” was more like an “shameful out of business” and they are not returning anymore….”

Good heavens, I wonder if this is true. It’s not the first American manga company to end in such ignominy. They had some really good stuff too – I wonder what went wrong? Sure, they were aimed squarely at the Shonen/Seinen market – but with hits like City Hunter and Slam Dunk, and it STILL crashed and burned? At least Slam Dunk has been picked up by another company.

Hilarious: The Revenge of the Sith: Backstroke of the West. Sound like a familiar name? It’s the Chinglish translation of said Star Wars movie, and some of the laughable tranlsations are here. Haven’t laughed so hard in a long time. This is another testament why you shouldn’t buy pirated Chinese DVDs if you want quality. Nah, you buy it for the laughs instead. Come to think of it, at this rate, China will fast replace Japan as the #1 source of mangled English in the international arena. Not a bad thing, really – more laughs to go around.

Personality Test: I did this Humanmetrics Test twice, and both times I said I’m an INTJ, meaning a Mastermind Rational. Apparently they’re rare – less than 1% of the population, but the description fits me quite accurately so I can at least vouch for the worthiness of taking this test. Apparently I am in distinguished company, with Gandalf the Grey being a Mastermind Rational as well.

I got Jeanie from “The Dreaming” to do the test, and she turned out to be ESTJ, or a Supervisor Guardian, which SOUNDS somewhat like her. Jeanie likes to feel accepted by her peers, and has a strong sense of responsibility as well as a no-nonsense attitude. She does have a rebellious streak too, but that’s more due to teenage-dom than personality. She isn’t particularly conservative though, which is a mainstay of the ESTJ personality… but it’s close enough.