DRAMACON is a manga about Anime/Manga convention culture, specifically a group of friends who are artists and writers trying to break into the profession producing their own Dojinshi. I love the series and wound up buying the omnibus edition in hardback.

I consider myself an Otaku, and to me, Manga is an artistic style, or range of familiar styles with its own visual language, etc. I’m a big fan of MEGATOKYO, which was ground breaking insofar as it has been translated from English into Japanese and sold in Japan.

I also like Anime dubbed into English–prefer it, in fact, especially if the story being told is an American or British one. I become weary of my fellow otaku who dismiss all dubs out of hand with the blanket statement: “Dubs suck”…maybe in the 80s and 90s they had a point–yes, some of *those* dubs from *that* era were truly awful. But since the early 2000s, I don’t think that kind of blanket dismissal is really fair. Some dubs are quite well done, and the success of quality English dubs has gone a long way to making Anime/Manga more and more mainstream and profitable and recognized and popular among young viewers/readers. I’ve started to branch out, but initially the only Manga I would read would be from shows I’d already seen the Anime for.

I think there will always be purists among otaku who will always be dismissive of Manga written by non-Japanese and they are the same people who still diss dubs in Anime, no matter how well done…it will never be good enough for these folks.

As an amateur critic (I blog very infrequently about Anime/Manga), I will probably keep the distinction OEM/OEL, but I can understand why as an artist it is a no-win scenario for you in working with publishers.

One small request/question…I am a listener of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe and heard your interview, and I have bought the iTunes versions of the Legend of Ztarr…but I am disappointed you haven’t yet published this two-part Manga in print yet. If the online version is a success, do please try to pitch it to an actual print publisher. I would definitely buy it.

As it stands, I will have to wait until I buy my first iPad to enjoy your series (probably this Xmas). It’s a little to hard to read just on my iPhone at the moment, and I can’t open it up in iTunes either–or if there is a way I haven’t figured it out yet.

Anyway, wish you all the best and continued success in your artistic career.

Really, the big problem is the misunderstanding between theory and myth and theory and hypothesis as well.

Regards and pleased to meet you.

@carlosxabier

If you have beauty and intelligence, you will just have to accept that most people will not be able to reconcile this fact without getting to know you well.

Intelligence can compensate for beauty and vice versa, but if no compensation is required then people will put you into a deficit on one and since beauty is generally more obvious than intelligence you could argue that the first thing they will do is demote your intelligence.

“Surely a girl this beautiful wouldn’t need to think too much to make it in the world. How can I trust what she is saying when I can only assume she coasts through life on her beauty alone? Why would she ever need to think about things?”

Obviously all my propositions are invalid, but it is how I think many people will be thinking in the context you’ve described.

I generally feel that everyone is smarter than me. If I can understand something, surely everyone else can understand the same thing.

For the record, everyone I speak to starts off as smarter than me by default. Only you can change that by saying something I “know” isn’t true. As a result you’ll tend to hear me say “cool, I’ll have to look that up” a lot. One, because it might be some interesting new thing I didn’t know about and Two, because how could I trust what a box of kittens says to me

As far as I’m concerned, and probably most of your male fan base, there is nothing more desirable than a pixie with a critical mind.