Wow, I think this is the first Anime North ever where I got a relatively decent night's sleep every night (bearing in mind my benchmark for a good night's sleep is if I manage 3-4 uninterrupted hours at a time). IT'S A MIRACLEEE
Thank you to my amazing roommates @atorier, @zanazac and Rachelle. You guys are the best hotel and con buddies anybody could hope for! And shoutout to my table/comics pals @om-nom-berries, @phaena and @illintentcomics plus seeing more of awesome people like @strengefruits, @sunhawk, @mfukuma, @lindateaa, @yamijay, @ichigorennyu (if only for a split second in some cases... lol) and many many more cool artists and makers I got to see again, to meet, and to chat with! And thank you so much to everyone who came by~
Above photos:
A photo of my table at the start of Sunday
Rude but delicious cookies by @illintentcomics
Some on-site commissions and drawings I did!! The middle two are not actually commissions - it's my hasubando North Bound version of Hokushin, drawn as a quick example for the style and media available, and @atorier's hasubando favourite character Sakuma Rei from Ensemble Stars. I googled some helpful information on tomato juice from the V8 website. Mmmm tomato juice. Almost all my commissions were for repeat customers/awesome people who've supported my work for a long time over years, like @yamijay (whose adorable nephew in a Spiderman hoodie was a delight to get to draw)! Thank you guys so much! It's always an honour getting to draw for you all!
The sucky: Somebody swiped a card from my personal Lenormand deck that was out on the table for demonstration/visual sample :( Kind of a weird thing to steal, but fortunately it wasn't something more valuable (I heard there were artists who actually had cash stolen!! Terrible), and actually if I had to name a single most useless card in the deck to me personally, it probably would've been that one lol. Still kind of sucky that any level of stealing happened, and to not have a complete version of my own deck. I don't wanna break into one of my nicely wrapped ones :/
BUT...
The awesome: Just like at TCAF, I did some super amazing Lenormand readings!! Basically people pulled two cards and I recited card meanings and they went "WOW COOL SO EERIE!!" or "OK sure whatever" lmao. Actually, in all seriousness, I’ve only really had one lukewarm response to a reading so far, which honestly surprises me. I always tell people they don't have to tell me their question unless they want to, and I find it way more interesting when they DON'T tell me before I walk through the cards they pulled. It’s really neat to see how people interpret the symbolism for their own situation. A lot of the card combinations - almost all of the readings I've done where the querent has actually shared their question/interpretation with me - do become startlingly relevant and helpful when you hear people's own insights, even if you recognize it as the human brain's fascinating tendency and ability to find pattern and meaning in everything. Some really good stories came out of doing these!
Also I FINISHED A NEW MY LIFE AS A MAIJI MINIZINE. It shall debut at my next event!! ...whenever that is lmao
And ALSO @mfukuma told me her sister (I don't know if she has a tumblr?) had (not at the con, some other time and place lol) showed my Demon King! Urameshi fanbook to a Japanese artist who had done Comiket, and they flipped through the book going "I WISH I COULD READ ENGLISH". I feel extra honoured since I've felt the same kind of feeling many times while reading Japanese doujinshi hahahha (and hey at least one of the stories requires zero translations... lol)
The thoughtful: I got asked a few times at both TCAF and Anime North about when the next Now Recharging book is coming out. I'm still kind of trying to gauge the interest and how best to approach it, since I'd have to reprint both the first book AND print the next book... which is not cheap for two full colour books averaging well over 100 pages each. But it's really wonderful to know there are people who are following the webcomic and interested in it!
NOW back to reality and catching up with all my other art projects, and reopening my online shop. Please stay tuned!
