Archive for the Events Category


Yuri Panels at AnimeNEXT, June 8 2018

June 8th, 2018

Join me at two Yuri Panels today here at AnimeNEXT 2018 in Atlantic City, NJ.

Yuri Court

Be heard! Defend or Accuse a Yuri series of being Innocent (Good) or Guilty (Bad) at the Yuri Court Friday, 12:45PM in Panel Rm 301. Bring your best arguments and win prizes!

Must-Read/Must-Watch Yuri

Get all the latest Yuri news and tons of classic and new series to read and watch at  6:15 Friday in Panel Rm 301. Good questions get prizes! 





Sailor Moon Musical ~Le Mouvement Final at AnimeNEXT 2018

June 7th, 2018

AnimeNEXT badge holders! Join me tonight at 8PM at the Showboat Casino Bourbon Room, for a screening of the Live Action Sailor Moon Musical Le Mouvement Finale.

I’ll be presenting a very short intro and settling in for another watch of what has been my favorite musical to date.





Yuricon at AnimeNEXT in Atlantic City, NJ!

May 28th, 2018

Please join me at AnimeNEXT, June 8-10 in Atlantic City, NJ where I am a Guest Panelist. I will be bringing Yuri content and prizes for great questions all weekend long!

Thursday, June 7, 2018:

Sailor Moon Musical – Le Mouvement Final Screening
Join me and other Sailor Moon fans 8:30P at the Bourbon Room, inside the Showboat Atlantic City Hotel for a screening of the live-action Sailor Moon musical! I’ll be presenting a short intro, explaining the musicals, Takarazuka and things to note!

Friday, June 8, 2018:

Yuri Court  -12:45pm – 1:45pm
Join me for a game where you defend or accuse a Yuri series of being bad (guilty) or good (innocent)! This panel is full audience-participation and prizes for convincing arguments will be lavishly awarded!

Must Read/Must Watch Yuri – 6:15pm – 7:15pm
We’re talking classic and new series and stuff to watch and read! ^_^

Saturday, June 8, 2018: 

!? vs ?! – The Great Debate!!! – 11:00am – 12:00pm
Two passionate duelists on the field of battle….which one will convince you that they are right? Watch me take on another Guest for a mystery debate that will shock you!

The “Secret” History of Yaoi and Yuri – 12:15pm – 1:15pm
Have you ever wondered where the tropes all come from? You should! Boy’s Love and Yuri have a rich literary and artistic history in Japan. Learn about it all here.

Sunday, June 10, 2018:

An American Otaku in Japan -11:15am – 12:15pm
If you have ever wondered how to get to Japan, how to get around once you’re there, what to eat, where to eat and how to find anime and manga goods, you’ve come to the right panel





Toronto Comic Arts Festival 2018 Event Report

May 17th, 2018

Once again, this year was the best year ever at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, held annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and the Toronto Reference Library. Last year, you may remember, I moderated way too many panels and consumed too much food and books. It was great. ^_^ It really ought to be called the Toronto Comics and Food Festival, because I swear all I do is eat when I’m there.

This year’s visit was really a last-second choice, so I had a slightly less hectic time of it. (I really shouldn’t have gone, I don’t have time or money right now but couldn’t pass up the chance.) I ended up only moderating one panel, but what a panel it was! Queer Romance in the 21st Century featured panelists Zora Gilbert of Margins Publishing, Hazel Newlevant, Tommi Parrish and Eleanor Crewes.  We discussed the words we use – and the evolution of the use of “queer” from self-identifying label to slur and spreading out to genre term, which I think I’ll really need to write about some day soon. All of the creators are younger than me, and I don’t particularly have any baggage about the word “queer” but I know that folks older than myself often do. They were sympathetic to that, but felt that it just didn’t apply. Also what did not apply was any stigma about writing about romance – although Tommi pointed out that much of queer narrative is wrapped up in who we love and pair up with, so there’s a kind of assumption of LGBTQ story=romance.  Which is what I was getting at in my review yesterday, in fact. As an audience of “queer” media, we’ve been trained to equate it to romance. Which is does not have to be and in some cases, ought not to be.
It was a great panel and the refreshing lack of angst about being a queer artist (beyond surviving personal drama) felt reassuring. 

For the rest of the event, I simply walked around meeting folks and saying hello to people and buying books! I discovered all sorts of exceptional talent that was new to me, as always. Kelvin Nyeusi Mawazo from Black Sun Comics had some awesome stuff. I spoke with Hope Nicholson about the anthology Love: Beyond Body Space and Time. I had a rare moment of quiet in the morning to meet Legend Of Korra: Turf Wars‘s artist Irene Koh. She is awesomer than you can imagine. I hope to interview her one day.

Margins Publishing is accepting submissions for Dates Anthology 3, their historical queer romance anthology. Do NOT self-censor. Submit your comics!

Band vs Band Comics has a very retro romance comic vibe that appealed to me instantly. That the postcards read “Tales of Gal Romance” didn’t hurt, either. ^_^ I picked up the Band vs Band, Honey & Turpentine minicomic.

skimines has a Webtoon that will appeal to the Okazu crowd, You Were Always By Me, about Lydia and the women she loves. And Nicole Goux and Dave Baker’s Fuck Off Squad, about queer skaters, had the best t-shirt ever.

I finally got to meet H-P Lehkonen who has put out a book with his girlfriend Sara Valta called Outo-Queer Identities, and who has a comic about his transition called Short Gay Stories that’s out right now from Cow Press.

I picked up a copy of Do You Remember? by An Nguyen, who always seems to know exactly what buttons to push for me.

Shihho & Naito put out Our Story Begins With…, a cute little GL comic that was nicely put together.

And my very sincere thanks to Merc for a hardbound copy of Giant Days, by Allison, Treiman, Sarin and Cogar, which I’m looking forward to getting into. 

I picked up a copy of How the Best Hunter in the Village Met her Death by Molly Ostertag. Cannot wait to read that. She says this is the most personal comic she’s ever drawn.

I spoke at length with Lissa Pattillo and Lianne Sentar of Seven Seas, which I will write up separately, and have in my hands a copy of Claudine, My Solo Exchange Diary and The Bride Was a Boy! Whee! 

And then I discovered…..

Corpse Talk: Ground-breaking Women, by Adam & Lisa Murphy in which Adam draws himself interviewing famous dead women. It was a brilliant idea and I was waffling over whether to get it, when I opened up to a page on which he interviews Julie D’Aubigny, and I was hooked. La Maupin is my boom. Always and forever.

We shared outrageous Julie stories and became fast friends. Like the time Julie pretended to be a nun in order to seduce one of the nuns, and that time she dueled with a Duke who thought she was a man, defeated him and, when came to apologize to her, took him as her lover. She’s awesome.

This amazing and delightful discussion with dead women would have been my favorite book of the show, but as I took one last spin around the floor, I discovered the book that  won. Literally.

TCAF hosts the Doug Wright Awards every year, which is an award given to promising Canadian comics talents. TCAF this year made a very conscious effort to highlight Canadian comic artists and even had a special reception for Toronto-area artists. (As well as bringing over Asano Inio-sensei from Japan and having a Danish comic pavilion in conjunction with Art Bubble, which was great. I spoke with Tatiana Goldberg about her story Kijara, which looks great.)

One of the winners of the Wright Award this year was Jenn Woodall for her Magical Beatdown comic. When you take a look at the cover, you will be not at all surprised that I am in complete love with it. It is, quite literally, all my things all at once.

It is exactly what it looks like – a violent magical girl comic, in which the lead character transforms into an eye-patch wearing magical brawler who uses a nail-bat to cave in the heads of assholes. She’s my perfect fantasy woman. ^_^ There is so much blood in the comic that it would be gross, if it weren’t hot pink. 

So Magical Beatdown gets my full recommendation. Multiple thumbs up from me. 

Ohohoh! I forgot…I did say all my things. Magical Beatdown has Yuri. ^_^

Before I wrap up, just want to give my love to Simona Stanzani and Jocelyne Allen, two brilliant translators I was able to once again hang with. Simona had the line of the con this year, saying that she hates cons, because they fill her luggage and take all her money. ^_^

Thanks to Erik Ko of Udon Entertainment and Manga Classics and to Brigid Alverson, Johanna Draper-Carlson, Deb Aoki and Heidi MacDonald for being amazing people and role models for me in so many ways, but especially as comics journalists.

Once again, my sincere thanks to Christopher Butcher and Andrew Woodrow-Butcher, and the entire staff of TCAF, you throw a great party and it is always my very sincere pleasure to attend!





Yuri Meguri 2018, Part 4

April 30th, 2018

Art by CannoMy last full day in Tokyo had arrived. I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to catch up with more people, but today it was all business.

First stop, back to Aoyama for another spin around the Yuriten, (photos can be found on the Yuriten photoset on Facebook) The lighting made it a little difficult to get some of the pictures, as it does. What makes it easy to see, makes it hard to photograph. ^_^; I arrived before it opened, and was able to do a quick headcount, the ratio was 30/70 women to men, with a surprising age range in the women. The men all looked young to me, which means nothing, everyone does, now. ^_^ Every box of the next round of Lucky Boxes will have Yuriten goods, you can be sure.

Every day at the Yuriten, there is different signed art by the participants on the table at the end. Today’s, as you can see included this image, is by Canno.

Because my next stop after Aoyama was Harajuku, I decided to walk. It was a very pleasant 20 minute amble through back streets full of galleries and clothes stores.

As I headed down toward Harajuku, the stores shifted not-at-all-subtlely from art and fashion to fashion as art. (On the way to Aoyama that morning, I was on the train standing next to a young lady who was clearly dressed up for the location. She was trying to see the train map, but she couldn’t from her seat; I could see that Harajuku was next and said “tsugi” We both laughed. )

My first stop was Kiddyland, where I was on a mission for my wife. But legitimately, they always have surprising items, this time they had a bunch of Sailor Moon and Card Captor Sakura goods. Picked  up some stuff there, and headed over to Laforet where I spend too much time and money. (And sang along with the music. Can you imagine working in the Sailor Moon store? You’d be so goddamned sick of the Sailor Star Song, or Otome no Policy or whathaveyou, with them playing on an endless loop.)

So, there are two Sailor Moon stores in Laforet. on Floor .5. (This is not a typo – it’s a half floor between the basement and Floor 1. Take the elevator to Floor 1 and walk down the stairs to Floor .5.) One store is high end fashion items, purses for $450 kind of thing and gashopon, because of course, and across the hall is the goods store. 

The goods store has some exclusives, including a series of little teeny senshi dolls that looked like felt outfits on corks. They were both adorable and awful and I fought myself for while and opted to not get them. 

There were a ton of Uranus x Neptune goods, incluing 3 new phone case designs. I didn’t get those, either, but did get a phone charger with this design.

I took Takeshitadori back up to the train station. Have I mentioned that it’s Golden Week? Unsurprisingly, there was a crowd. It wasn’t the worst crowd I’d ever seen, but it was the touristy-est crowd I’d ever seen.

Dropped my stuff off a the hotel and decided to have one, long, lingering walk around Ikebukuro. I went down to Otome Road for the first time this trip. There’s nothing there for me at this point, but I like to experience it anyway. 

I like that I don’t recognize most of the series advertised here or in Akihabara. I don’t play the games, don’t listen to the drama CDs, so they all seem strange and familiar at once. The cafe this time, for instance, was themed for a series called “Hypnosis Microphone” which I have never heard of – I could look of course, but at the moment, don’t know if it’s a game, a book, or what – that Animate expects is popular enough to support a cafe.

Fun, huh? ^_^

(Update: I looked it up, ヒプノシスマイク -Division Rap Battle- is a series of “rap battle” CDs voiced by male seiyuu. Huh, that’s a new one on me. Like Catcher in the Rhyme by voice actors on CD.)

I stopped in Uniqlo and was very thankful there were no Rose of Versailles t-shirts, as I’ve really spent too much already. ^_^; Then over to Tokyu Hands to do some shopping for the wife. And finally Animate, where I managed to find one of the last two books on my list, and had one more spin around Yurimate. I wrestled with myself over getting a ticket to Kase-san, to get the postcards, but I just couldn’t. I only want the images for my screensaver anyway.

This morning I had a quick walk around looking for Pokemon (why are the ones I don’t have so far away?!?) and food and now I am wrestling with packing everything. My poor suitcase.

Thank you Uchida-san, Kawamoto-san and Morishima-sensei, Simona, Laura, Jotaro and James! I had an absolute blast. Mata ne, Tokyo. And, thank you all for joining me on this adventure!