The Eidolic Fringe forum is located at http://pub72.ezboard.com/bradicaldreamersonlinegraphicnovelforum

"You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villany"

I love it when I can actually use that quote, and this time it's very appropriate. So, here's the dirt. It turns out that a couple weeks or so ago, Penny Arcade did a spoof piece on "Strawberry Shortcake". Let's just say it had a S&M flavor to it (and I really didn't think much of it when I saw it). Anyway, it turns out that "American Greetings" let loose with the lawyers who strong armed Penny Arcade into pulling the image. I want to point you to the Slashdot thread about it, as well as the Penny Arcade Forum thread about it. Because I do feel strongly about this, I urge people to consider signing the petition (albeit poorly spelled) to boycott everything American Greetings makes, and to not buy any American Greetings cards for mother's day (they're the ones with the red tulip on them... the "Carlton" line of cards). To make a point, it really doesn't matter if you like Penny Arcade or not. The point here is creative freedom. If a corporate lawyer has the power to intimidate artists into voluntarily censoring their own work when it falls under (IANAL, so I'm not positive of the nuances of this) fair-use and parody, that's just not right. Of course this is just my opinion, and you should by all means make a decision on your own... but it's something you should definately think about.

Now that that's out of the way, we can move on to some fun stuff. First of all, Bizarre Uprising is trying to start up a series of interviews with web comic creators, and they chose us to be their first victims... er ... I mean guinea pigs... oh just go and check it out (just joking... we're flattered to be interviewed). Next, I can't believe it's May already! And that means our one year aniversary is coming up! Wow, it's been almost a year already. Well, it's still a couple weeks of, so I guess we'll make a bigger deal out of it when we actually hit one year.

May also means Otakon is coming up fast (okay, so it's still a couple months away, but ... it's only a couple months away)! So, unlike Anime Boston where I was somewhat of a larger than average sized fish in a relatively small pond, Otakon is an ocean of otakudom, and I doubt they would even notice us (now pretty much the equivalent of guppies... maybe that's exagerating a bit... plankton would probably be more approrpiate). So, there are really no big plans to do anything besides doing the normal advertising thing and the normal otaku thing (i.e. going broke in the dealers room).

Currently updated weekly every Monday.

April 28, 2003

• Issue 2 page 15 is up
• Issue 2 cover is up (see archives for link)

April 21, 2003

• Issue 2 Page 14 up
• Web Comic resource page can be found at here

April 14, 2003

• Issue 2 Page 13 is up
• Joe will be running the "So You Want to Run a Web-comic" forum at Anime Boston this upcomig weekend. The Panel will be at 1PM on Saturday in Panel Room 4.

Hello, it's me. I'm not dead yet. It's been a hefty chunk of time since my last rant, but as stated previously, as if anyone could remember what I wrote some three weeks ago, I've been in a bit of rut lately. I just feel like a slug. I basically don't want to be bothered with stuff lately. That's not to say, I don't want to do the comic or anything. I'm just feeling rather anti-social lately. Also, I just don't always have something to write about, so I probably won't rant as frequently as Joe. Incidentally, I don't like calling it a rant. That word has a negative connotation. It sounds like whining. I hate whining.

Enough of that. So anyway,I think I'm starting to pull out of my rut. I'm starting to feel a little more productive lately, though I'm not totally cured of it (this comic is late isn't it?). Spring is here, and it's starting to finally warm up where I live, and lot's of stuff is starting to come up. Anime Boston's coming up in a couple weeks, and even though I won't be going, I'll be curious to see how Joe's panel fares. I'm already starting to look forward to Wizard's World, though this year it looks like we'll only be attending one day, and plans are already in motion for Otakon.

Also, I was very pleased that Spirited Away won the Oscar (as it should have) as it enabled me, and I bet of lot of you guys, to finally see it. I don't really gush about stuff, but it was a refreshing movie, clean and enjoyable, and devoid of well...schlock. It was aggravating that it was considered an "arthouse" movie, but as thrilled as I am to finally see an anime in the theaters, my opinion is that the general American public are not mentally equipped to appreciate this film and many of it's kin for what they are. Case in point, I was on Amazon.com recently to look up the release date for the Spirited Away DVD and I saw amongst the many glowing perfects reviews, a one star commentary titled "This is an Outrage!" The person went on to exclaim, "Who do these Japanese think they are?" and told of how their 8-year old child was frightened by scenes in the movie (you can probably guess which ones if you've seen it). I dunno. All I can say is, that I think American children should be able to take it. Toughen up kiddies. Sentiments like this have basically bullied American media aimed at children into dumbing down their creations to avoid enraged parents empowered by the power of whining in this day and age. As a result, do you think an American studio will ever churn out a gem like "Spirited Away"? Probably not in my lifetime.

Ok, I'm blathering. Oh well. At least I'm writing again. Now, will anyone actually scroll down to read this far? Will anyone even know I wrote something?Hmm....