Event News: Flame-Con, AnimeNEXT and Girls Love Fest

June 13th, 2015

FlameconFlame-Con, NYC’s First Queer Comic Con is happening today at the Grand Prospect Ballroom in Brooklyn, (which itself is an old drag queen of a building.)

It appears at a glance that Flame-Con has done a reasonable job of encouraging diversity in it’s guest lineup and I hope that I’m not wrong about that. But I’m not really there for the guests. I’m there for the exhibitors. I’m hoping like hell this will be the LGBTQ small press and self-published comic fest I’ve wanted to attend my whole adult life. A quick glance at the exhibitor list tells me I may very well get my wish. ^_^

The most exciting thing about today is that this will be the second Queer-focused comic events I’ll have attended in 2015. How amazing is that!?

 

ANext2015On Sunday, I will be visiting AnimeNEXT, which is being held  in Somerset, NJ at the Garden State Exhibit Center. I was on the board of directors a while back for AnimeNEXT, and have seen it be run by many different chairs and I think the current set of organizers and senior staff is the best they have ever had.

2015 will be the last time AnimeNEXT is held in central New Jersey. They”ll be moving to Atlantic City for 2016, which is very exciting. Sucks for me, as Somerset is short ride from here, but yay for them. This means they’ll be growing into a space that will allow for 30K or more, putting them among the top tier cons in the country.

I’ll be presenting a workshop “Crowdfunding For Fun and Profit” on Sunday, June 14, at 12:30 in Panel Rm 4. We’ll talk about what works, what doesn’t, what you can expect and what you might not expect! I hope you can join me.

As an aside, I went to post the logo here and went “D’oh”! Dear Anime Cons, clubs, groups, fans – do not use the “rising sun” Japanese flag. It is emblematic of terrible things, and it may engender bad feelings especially among non-Japanese Asian guests…and anyone who knows history. (Kind of like trying to incorporate a swastika…it may look striking, but gives off bad signals.)

 

glfAlso on Sunday, June 14, on the other side of the planet (so this evening my time,) Girls Love Fest returns to the Tokyo area, twinned with Ai Fest, once more.

You can find the Participating Circle List here. I’m kind of impressed, that among the Love Live!, and KanColle doujinshi, so many of the circles are listing themselves as doing original work. And there’s at least one each of  Yuri Kuma Arashi and Akuma no Riddle listed, so those might be fun.

Also fun, Takemiya Jin-sensei announces that she’ll be at GLF, and will also be doing a special autograph signing session…not in the circle space, but in a special guest booth. That’s fantastic! You go Takemiya-sensei!

So grab up your business cards and put on your walking shoes…we have a busy weekend ahead.

4 Responses

  1. Julia says:

    *sigh* GLF on the 14th. It never fails. Just came back from Tokyo on Friday, the 12th, after a four week stay. Somehow I’ve managed to miss every event. I really need to plan my schedules better.

  2. Liz says:

    Flame con was awesome! I hope you had a great time at Animenext!

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