In this, the final part of my review of Otakon 2010's webcomic events, I'll look at the two sponsored by the Create a Comic Project: the "Make a Manga Tournament" and "Manga, Literacy, and Children." The tournament is based on similar events I've done at the New Haven Public Library since 2007 and has also been held at Tekkoshocon. I like having fellow webcomic creators serve as judges. This year had Erin Ptah (And Shine Heaven Now), Kittyhawk (SGVY), and Kuroitenshi (King of the Web) return from 2009, joined by Samantha McDaniel (Kibou) and Jamie Haram (Picatrix). There's an open invitation for all webcomic people to join in, so if you're interested in being a judge in 2011, let me know. A benefit: Otakon pays for your badge if I let them know in advance who's helping.
This was the tournament's second year at Otakon so it had gained some word of mouth advertising from 2009. This time it was up against two of Otakon's major events: the Masquerade and the Saturday rave. Despite this, it had a line begin to form a full half hour before it started.
It also had people reserving seats for themselves by staying through from the previous workshop.
Aside from the warm-up, the first event used comics with blank word bubbles with a theme in the form of a quote, such as, "People die when they are killed" (Fate/Stay Night), "Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow" (Doctor Who), and "You must construct additional pylons" (Starcraft). The judges (pictured above: Erin Ptah) took to drawing large pictures on the big pads to represent the themes.
Here's Kittyhawk drawing her own theme picture.
Kuroitenshi, who helped judge last year, came back again. Joining the team for the first time were Samantha McDaniel and Jamie Haram.
The tournament this year fell on my birthday. So, using my perogative as the organizer, one of the themes for original comic making was, "Happy birthday to me!" Kittyhawk was nice and drew me a birthday card.
"Alice in Wonderland" cosplayers were among the participants.
The tournament was held to a packed house (~100 people). This was a great turnout since a large portion of Otakon's attendees go to the Masquerade at this time.
Sara Beth Winters, a friend of mine who made my "Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei" costume. In front of her is a Three Panel Soul template.
Here are the tournament winners for 2010! Otakon has invited us back for next year and even offered to cover the cost of prizes! I'm hoping to get the tournament tied to the illustrious Hiroko-chan prizes given to winners of events such as the Otakon LARP and Masquerade.
The panel, in its second year at Otakon, provides background information and focuses more on the educational theory behind the use of comics in the classroom or after-school. It was a last minute addition to the schedule (Sunday afternoon) and didn't get on the official program, but people found it online and came. Several of them were teachers or interested in education and I had a great time talking to them. Now that I'm working as a teacher, I'll have even more interesting stories for next year!
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