| Katsucon Saturday -
American Manga Artists |
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These were the "champions" of the Iron Artist competition
at Katsucon. Based on the cult food favorite Iron Chef, acknowledged experts
in the American manga style (left to right they're Tavisha Simons, Fred
Perry and Steve Bennett) faced off against an equal number of aspiring
young artists (Perry won, by the way) As the first anime convention of
2000, Katuscon was something of a get-together for the industry, and the
people who make their own books took time Saturday to talk about their
plans. |
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Pat Duke of Radio Comix and Will Allison, who has
moved from self-publishing to working through Duke's company, spoke about
their plans. Duke noted that Radio Comix is going to step up the number
of titles they release each month. Much of that increase is going to come
from Japanese manga which the Texas company will import, part of a trend
they started last year. Duke warned that one of those tittles is going
to be one of the strangest Radio comix has released, event weirder and
more violent that the Milk and Genus series. |
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Tavisha and Rikki Simons have spent so much time
working on projects for other companies - including a title for Mixx Publishing's
Smile - that they haven't paid much attention to their favorite, Reality
Check (which also has been held up by disagreement over ownership of the
series with the company that published the books). However, Reality Check
could get a new lease on life; the simons said that there's a chance a
TV network may pick up the series an animate the adventures of Catreece
and others in cyberspace. That will happen, Rikki Simons said, only if
they get the stories and content they want on TV - money won't be enough
for them to give up control of an animated Reality Check, he said. |
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Studio Ironcat has plans for more manga from Japan
and American series, too. The company, headed by Steve Bennett, has been
trying to encourage Americans to send in their drawings so they can learn
which might have a chance to be published one day. "Yes, you want to impress
us with what you can do, but impress us with your originality," said Bennett. |
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After the 19th-century steampunk titles Cathedral
Child and Clockwork Angels, Lea Hernandez will change to a pro wrestling
story with the upcoming Silky Warrior Tansie. Hernandez also
has dreams of animating the Cathedral Child book, and said that a U.S.
TV network is interested in that title (the same network which the Simons
mentioned as being interested in Reality Check). |
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