Consider me elitist if you want, but Otakon is supposed to be a convention of otaku culture. Not of the Hot Topic culture.

First of all, the obvious alphabetical bias of the webcomic selection. It’s honestly as though Merideth had an alphabetical list of the panels and checked off what she thought would work as she went and began running out of room.

Secondly, the two AMV panels. I have no doubt in my mind that the content in these will be identical, but presented differently. Two isn’t needed. Four as there were originally is even worse.

Same with mutliple lolita fashion panels. Or J-Music. This is just as stated in this post.

Lack of a Sailor Moon panel. It’s the 15th anniversary this year. Why do we have some junk Inuyasha panel and not this?

Lastly, I have to question an entire 18+ panel around Evangelion. Something about this sounds stupid.

James! Good to hear from you, sir. The idea of a ’supplemental con’ sounds amazing, I really need to pop in on the ADTRW thread. I saw what he was saying about the seemingly alphabetical selection, and once you check it out, it really is very apparent. What a shame.

But back to the ’supplemental con’ idea, I can say (and with fair amounts of confidence, I think I speak for Nick as well), we’d definitely support, and be interested in being a part of such a venture if it were to come about. The issue would be we wouldn’t necessarily be able to assist with the funding of such an idea…our money’s kinda tied up elsewhere.

Here’s a thought though…the 4chan panel OBVIOUSLY gets a lot of interest and attendance…why not build this additional batch of panels around a completely uncensored 4chan panel? Methinks it’d get interest, and hell, people might just want to help raise money for it.

Food for thought.

W T Snax (of 4Chan fame) raised a few good points about the panels this year. Take a look at the list and you’ll see that less tahn 10% of them are from the latter half of the alphabet (sorted by name, of course). They literally went down the list, checking off things they liked, and then scrambled to fill out a few more when they realized they were running out of room. While I’m sure that Embroidery is an important skill for otaku to have, I’m sure that webcomics would have made for a much better allocation of time. Do we really need 2 AMV panels? Especially 2 of the exact same thing?

Snax also brought up the idea of renting out the ballrooms of nearby hotels for psuedo-con panels. That way, people can hold panels of their own. While there are 2 fanfiction panels, I’d love to host a general writing panel called “Fanfiction: It’s Not All About Gay Fucking!”

PS: Juno, thanks for talking me into the Star Cross’d book. I reread it at least once a month.

I be a ma’am and I’ll be at the Star Cross’d Destiny/Swordwaltzer table, which will probably have Bohemian Trash Studio signage with two guys far larger than me.

At A-kon we have a schedule just for webcomics but at other cons I try to find out all the webcomic related panels I can so that I can support them. It’s a small thing we can all do to support each other and get the message to the con through. Hopefully someday the wave will catch on. In the last three years cons have gotten better and better. But still…

I say conspiracy now! ^_- See you in a month or so.

I cannot underline enough how badly I want Otakon to make good on this. I’ve been going to the con for what seems like forever, and have always been pleased with how it accommodates the growing needs and likes of it’s massive fanbase.

But since I started my journey into the world of webcomics, it became abundantly clear that we’re, for all intents and purposes, the bastard children of the convention.

My outrage, or rather, frustration wasn’t just toward that…it was the Otakon staff’s response to what was a rather vocal portion of their fanbase. It really seemed as if they were more worried by us speaking up, than by what we had to say.

I’m all for Love & Peace, sir/ma’am. But sometimes things need to be said.

I really hope they clear everything up…I LOVE that place, easily the best weekend of my summer, every year….but when I see things like this occur…it worries me greatly.

Hope to see you there. Maybe we can meet under less harried conditions.

I thought I saw that someone got a notice that they were approved. And maybe they’re fixing that. If they are, awesome sauce.

Webcomics have always been spat on. Always. I guess I’ve just gotten used to it. Few cons acknowledge or care about online comics and that’s gonna be a fact of life for a long time to come. But I don’t think getting in their faces about it is going to help the situation or make webcomics as a whole look better. It certainly won’t help them learn to respect us.

You can spit on me now if you want. Just always been a Love and Peace kinda person. :/