True Story: Despite living in New Jersey for my entire life, the first anime convention I ever attended was actually Anime Boston, and since attending in 2005 or so, I have never been back to the large con. This year, however, is different.

I'm heading up from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with the school's Science-Fiction Association, which is organizing a trip to the con. While up in Boston, I will be blogging about the convention's myriad panels and events and maybe grabbing an interview or two with the guests. Plus, I will co-presenting with Daryl Surat of Anime World Order on his "Remembering Satoshi Kon" panel. (I ran a similar one at Genericon, and I hope to bring my own insights to what is already looking to be a great panel about the late director's life and work.)

As usual, I've included my tentative schedule — complete with overlaps that I will reconcile on the fly at the con — after the break. Note the number of Charles Dunbar panels; after Ink's great write-up and my own repeated failure to attend his panels, I'm going to make a real effort to see them this time.

Are you going to the con? What events are you looking forward to?

.aboston2011_tbl td { padding: 2px 5px 2px 5px; }

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Friday

When	What	Where
10–11 am	Who Was Carl Macek?	Panel 309
11 am-12 pm	Oda Nobunaga: Evil Sorceror or Space Alien?	Panel A
1–2:45 pm	The Tokyo "Nonexistant Youth" Bill and How It Affects You	Panel 309
3–4 pm	Castles, Forests and Bath Houses: The Worlds of Hayao Miyazaki	Panel A
3:30–4:30 pm	Future of the Fullmetal Fandom: Is It Really Over!?	Panel 306
6–7 pm	Dubs That Time Forgot	Panel 202
7–8:30 pm	Totally Subversive Toons	Panel 309
8:30–9:30 pm	I <3 the 90's	Panel 306
9:30–11:30 pm	Anime's Craziest Deaths	Panel 306

Saturday

When	What	Where
10–11 am	The Family That Geeks Together, Keeps Together	Panel 107
11 am–12 pm	Tezuka 101	Panel 206
12–1 pm	It's a Rumic World	Panel 309
1–2 pm	State of the Industry	Panel 306
2–3 pm	Sentai Filmworks	Panel 306
3:30–4:30 pm	Remembering Satoshi Kon (1963-2010)	Panel 202
5–6 pm	Notable Directors of Anime That Aren't Hayao Miyazaki	Panel 309
6–7 pm	Son of "Waratte wa Ikeru?!"	Panel 309
7–9 pm	Bad Anime, Bad!!	Panel A
8–9 pm	Dead Like Us: Shinigami, Death Lore and Japanese Media	Panel 107
2–3 pm	Sentai Filmworks	Panel 306
2–3 pm	Sentai Filmworks	Panel 306
11 pm–12 am	STEREOPONY Concert	Auditorium

Sunday

When	What	Where
10–11 am	The Visions of Akira Kurosawa	Panel 202
12–1 pm	Spirits, Wheel and Borrowed Gods: Religion in Japan	Panel 202
12–1 pm	Satoshi Kon RIP (this is NOT Daryl's panel)	Panel 302/304
12–1 pm	From East to West: the Superheroes of Japan & America	Panel A
1–2:30 pm	An International Game of Telephone: The Japanese Culture Exchange	Panel 107

Let me say first that I really enjoy conventions. I’ve gone to conventions for mysteries, science fiction, comic books, romance, fantasy, circuses, anime, writers, psychologists, and collectibles. I can’t remember a one that I don’t have fond memories of. But as convention season gets underway–Anime Boston the weekend after next, and then Malice Domestic–I’ve been [...]

Just a reminder for San Franciscans about TONIGHT’s benefit for the Women’s Media Center. The tickets are tax-deductible and start at $29 for general admission. (Students can get $15 tickets). If you can’t make it, there’s also going to be a “tweet-up”, a Twitter-organized meet-up, after the event. Please spread the word on all your social media networks!

Here are the details for both:

An Evening With Gloria Steinem and Young Feminist Leaders

Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 6 p.m.
The Herbst Theatre
San Francisco, California

Speakers include:
Lena Chen (TheChicktionary.com)
Shelby Knox (Change.org)
Miriam Perez (Feministing.com)
Latoya Peterson (Racialicious.com)

Moderated by Rose Aguilar, host of yourcallradio.org, KALW News

The Women’s Media Center works to make the female half of the world visible. We do it by promoting women as subjects and decision-makers within the media, training women and girls so they are media-ready and media-savvy, exposing sexism in the media, and creating innovative new media and original content. If you cannot attend, but would like to make a tax-deductible donation to the Women’s Media Center, you can visit the main donation page.

Racialicious Coolx2 Tweet-Up 

Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 8:30 p.m.
Tommy’s Joynt
1101 Geary Road, San Francisco

Racialicious is hosting a San Francisco tweet-up, “Cool x2,” with Latoya and Lena. (Miriam will probably be there, and maybe Shelby too!) The bar is a 10-minute walk from Herbst Theater and is wheelchair accessible.

Racialicious is a blog about the intersection of race and pop culture. Owner and editor, Latoya Peterson provides a hip-hop feminist and anti-racist view on pop culture with a special focus on video games, anime, American comics, manga, magazines, film, television, and music.

I’ll be flying back to Boston tomorrow morning :)

Just a quick progress photo on the OTHER pair of giant scissors: Casper's (mine!) for our Anime Boston Deathsmiles group. How did I end up doing two costumes in a row with giant scissor weapons? Who also wear blue? And have caplets? Who knows -_-

 

3 Stars

Review By James R. Holland   

Crazy Video Music/Game Fantasy Combo          

This 109-minute, PG-13 Rated strangle flick also seems to be one-part Gothic, one-part Cabaret and one-part Sci-Fi Fantasy with a pinch of insanity thrown in and mixed with sonic waves of heavy metal rock. (The soundtracks is “Army of Me” written and performed by Bjork.) If that combination seems kind of hard to visualize, welcome to the club. This film reminded this reviewer of his long-vanished youth when his friends leaned back in their theater seats and watched Disney’s “Fantasia” through a cloud of marijuana smoke.           

For them, the movie was much better that way. This one would probably make more sense by viewing it the same way. However, even stone cold sober, this movie is still a visual experience. The fantasies are more mesmerizing if the audience just sits back and goes with the visual and sound flow and doesn’t try to figure out what is going on. One of the producers is “Cruel and Unusual Studios” and another is “Lennox House Films.” Most of the movie takes place in the Lennox Home For The Insane. The Female Anime Logo of “Cruel and Unusual Studios” is a like a portrait of the star of this film. Her nickname is Baby Doll and Emily Browning plays her. She and her band of four other female musketeers with the record breaking long fake eyelashes, cut, slice and blast their way through a fantasy world looking for the four items needed for them to all break out of the combination mental institution and pre-WW II German Cabaret/Brothel.           

Director/Writer Zack Snyder produces some alien landscapes in which the sick ladies can conduct their scavenger hunt for the needed items for their escape. Scott Glenn portrays the wise man who is kind of a Charlie guiding his band of dancing killer angels. Oscar Isaac does a good job with the Blue Jones character. Gerard Plunkett is the murdering stepfather. Jon Hamm plays High Roller. Dr. Vera Gorski is the staff shrink who believes that dancing and acting out plays helps treat her patients. She is played well by Carla Gugino.           

The other four insane Angels are Abbie Cornish as Sweet Pea, Jena Malone as Rocket, Vanessa Hudgens as Blondie and Jamie Chung as Amber. They are like dreams come true for most of the males and some of the women in the movie audience.           

The supporting cast is full of strong character actors including Malcolm Scott as the tiny chef, Alan C. Peterson as Mayor/Lighter Orderly, Revard Dufresne as Big Boss Thug and Orderly #3. The employees of the mental institution also morph into the brothel fantasy characters. The obvious holes in the plot are easy to miss because the action doesn’t slow down long enough for the audience to think, which is probably the way the pacing was done that way.           

The filming was done in Vancouver Film Studios and other locations in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The locations probably won’t seem familiar to American audiences. They actually don’t even seem like they are earthly locations. They are more like scenes from ancient mythology.

James R. Holland is a film editor, producer, and author--most recently of Adventure Photographer (A Bit of Boston Books/ 2009).  He reviews movies exclusively for Basil & Spice.  Visit James R. Holland's Writer's Page.

Copyright © 2006-2011, Basil & Spice. All rights reserved.

Etc! Like the etc is the exciting part.

Two pics, one of Miaka of Fushigi Yuugi, and the other of a (caramel dance?) I know that there isn't that much to see but for the sake of completion I decided to do it anyway. I hope you all enjoyed this archive series (I really enjoyed making it) and I hope you all have a great holiday!

Schedules are for Wed/8–Tues/14 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS' TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $7. "Other Cinema: Dead Media," innovative works using repurposed material, Sat, 8:30.

BALBOA 3630 Balboa, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $10. Pink Smoke Over the Vatican (Hart), Thurs, 7.

BRIDGE 3010 Geary, SF; www.peacheschrist.com. $15. "Midnight Mass:" Christmas Evil (Jackson, 1980), Sat, midnight. With director Lewis Jackson in person.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-12. La Strada (Fellini, 1954), Wed, 2:30, 7. "Holiday Horrors:" Gremlins (Dante, 1984), Thurs, 7; Black Christmas (Clark, 1974), Thurs, 9:05. "Midnites for Maniacs: Push It to the Limit Triple Feature:" •Just One of the Guys (Gottlieb, 1985), Fri, 7:30; Point Break (Bigelow, 1991), Fri, 9:30; Maniac: The Restored Director's Cut (Lustig, 1980), Fri, midnight. With director William Lustig in person. •Cabaret (Fosse, 1972), Sat, 2:35, 7, and Xanadu (Greenwald, 1980), Sat, 5, 9:30. The Nightmare Before Christmas (Selick, 1993), Sun, 2, 3:45, 5:30, 7:15, 9. "San Francisco Film Society Presents:" Sir Arne's Treasure (Stiller, 1919), Tues, 8. With live score by the Mountain Goats; tickets for this event ($22.50) at www.sffs.org.

CERRITO 10070 San Pablo, El Cerrito; www.rialtocinemas.com. $7. "Cerrito Classics:" White Christmas (Curtiz, 1954), Thurs, check website for showtime.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10.25. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Alfredson, 2009), call for dates and times. Inside Job (Ferguson, 2010), call for dates and times. Today's Special (Kaplan, 2009), call for dates and times. "San Francisco Grand Opera Cinema Series:" The Elixir of Love, Thurs, 7 and Sat, 10am. "Buddhist Film Festival Showcase 2010," Wed-Thurs. These shows, $12. Remembering Playland (Wyrsch, 2010), Sun, 4:15. Director Tom Wyrsch in person.

FORBIDDEN ISLAND TIKI LOUNGE 1304 Lincoln, Alameda; www.forbiddenislandalameda.com. Free. "Forbidden Thrills: Creepy Crazy Christmas Classics!:" •Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (Webster, 1964), and Santa Claus (Cardona, 1959), Mon, 7:30.

HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. "More Bay Area Culture and Performance Art," presented by video activist Steve Jacobson, Wed, 7:30.

ITALIAN CULTURAL INSTITUTE 814 Montgomery, SF; (415) 788-7142. $3. "Giallo:" Deadly Sweet (Brass, 1967), Tues, 6:30.

LUMIERE 1572 California, SF; www.landmarkafterdark.com. Free. Thurs, 7. "Anime Club:" "Space and Wolf," Thurs, 7.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. "Days of Glory: Revisiting Italian Neorealism:" Il grido (Antonioni, 1957), Wed, 7; Accattone (Pasolini, 1961), Fri, 8:45; Bandits of Orgosolo (De Seta, 1961), Sun, 3. "Grin, Smile, Smirk: The Films of Burt Lancaster:" Birdman of Alcatraz (Frankenheimer, 1962), Thurs, 7; A Child is Waiting (Cassavetes, 1963), Sat, 6:30; The Swimmer (Perry, 1968), Sat, 8:40. "Carl Theodor Dreyer:" Two People (1944-45), Fri, 7; Gertrud (Dreyer, 1964), Sun, 5.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-10. Saint Misbehavin': The Wavy Gravy Movie (Esrick, 2009), Wed-Thurs, 7:15, 9:15 (also Wed, 2). Machete (Maniquis and Rodriguez, 2010), Fri-Sat, 7:15, 9:30 (also Sat, 2, 4:15). Breathless (Godard, 1959), Sun-Mon, 7:15, 9:15 (also Sun, 2, 4). The Triplets of Belleville (Chomet, 2003), Dec 14-15, 7:15, 9:15 (also Dec 15, 2).

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. Howl (Epstein and Friedman, 2010), Wed, 7:15. The Temptation of St. Tony (Ounpuu, 2010), Wed-Thurs, 7, 9. "NorCal FreeFly Film Festival," Thurs, call for times. Bad Santa (Zwigoff, 2003), Fri, 7:15, 9:15. "An Evening with John Waters," Sat, 7:30. Fundraiser for the Roxie; tickets $250. Home Alone (Columbus, 1990), Sun, 4. Permanent Vacation (Jarmusch, 1980), Mon, call for times. Stranger Than Paradise (Jarmusch, 1984), Tues, call for times.

SUNDANCE KABUKI 1881 Post, SF; www.eggsploitation.com. $20. Eggsploitation (Lahl), Thurs, 7.

VICTORIA 2961 16th St, SF; www.sfcinema.org. $15-25. "Cinematheque Benefit:" Face (Warhol, 1965) and The Velvet Underground In Boston (Warhol, 1967), Wed, 6:30.

VIZ CINEMA New People, 1746 Post, SF; www.vizcinema.com. $10-12. Cast Me If You Can (Ogata, 2010), Dec 10-19, check website for times. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. "International Buddhist Film Festival Showcase 2010:" Shugendo Now (Abela and McGuire, 2009), Thurs, 7:30; •Dream Window: Reflections on the Japanese Garden (Junkerman, 1991), and Inland Sea (Carra, 1992), Sun, 2. "Luminous Darkness," transgressive videos focusing on erotic ritual and performance, curated by Daniel McKernan, Fri, 9pm-2am (screening continuously during YBCA's "Noel Noir" fundraiser; tickets $25). "Go to Hell for the Holidays:" Meat Grinder (Moeithaisong, 2009), Sat, 7:30.<\!s>

I had the fortunate circumstance to attend the Warriors Media Luncheon yesterday at The Epic Roasthouse on The Embarcadero, hosted by new owners Joe Lacob and Peter Guber. I came away with the impression that Warriors fans were lucky -- really lucky -- that Chris Cohan said no to Larry Ellison and picked these guys. And you're gonna love Guber and his forthcoming "idears". Here's my report (read: excessively long, full dissection, "soup to nuts"). There are also links to the major beatwriters' articles on Lacob/Gruber at the end of this. And I will answer any questions you might have in the comments, as best as I can.

But before I give you my fly-on-the-wall-ish rendition, there's no reason to wait until Thanksgiving to give thanks. For me to be invited by the Warriors to attend this schindig ranks right up there with attending the NBA Draft, Summer League, and Warriors Media Day. Thank you to GSoM founders Fantasy Junkie and Atma Brother ONE. Thank you to SB Nation. Thank you to Dan Martinez and Raymond Ridder of the Warriors. Thank you to Sheed of WarriorsWorld for keeping me company. Thank you to ShamSports for making me feel like it's okay to post excessively long posts. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

What made this event kind of ironic for me was that in my previous career working for the venture capital ("VC") business development team at PricewaterhouseCoopers, I got to attend a great many dinners, luncheons, dot-com launch parties and even VC firm launch parties back in the day. This totally reminded me of those days, starting with the free valet parking on The Embarcadero.

The Mingle

Stepping into the The Epic's foyer, I was greeted with a familiar face: Ben Chen of the Warriors PR team (his sister used to work for me), again dressed professionally in formal business attire, who handed me another cool blue Warriors-logo'ed folder to add to my new collection. Inside was the press release and a bio of Joe Lacob, Peter Guber, the other four ownership board members, and a list of other major investors. He also gave me a name plate with a table number in that familiar Copperplate font, as well as my name in some nice calligraphy font. Bottom line: classy, just like how Silicon Valley VCs and entrepreneurs like to do it.

As I chatted things up with Sheed, it being a press luncheon, of course, I saw all of the familiar Warriors TV and media faces: Bob Fitzgerald, Ric Bucher, Tim Kawakami, Matt Steinmetz, Marcus Thompson, Tim Roye, Raj Mathai, Monte Poole, Vernon Glenn just to name a few. I also spotted Garry St. Jean and Jim Barnett in a lively discussion about something basketball-related. I couldn't quite hear from where I was standing.

(photo taken by me, Poor Man's Commish)

When I watched the Comcast segment on this, I noticed that the younger spittin' image of Lacob had to be his son, Kirk Lacob. Let me get this one off the proverbial plate early: business owners hiring their sons happens all... the... time. If owned your own business, you would too. Also, Kirk is right now at the lowest rung of the GM ladder within the Warriors. You or I would be at this rung too. That's the statistical modeling, the number crunching, the grunt work.

Just like when your friend says he works at Kleiner Perkins. Well, he's not a General Partner, right? Then he is the whipping boy of them. He, like the average working class, answers to The Man. He has no decision-making power. This is him getting his feet wet, paying his dues in what will inevitably be a lifelong career in the NBA. Good for him. Too bad for you. It is a non-issue. If Lacob were not to announce it and someone found out, then it would be worse. And I'm sure when Lacob asked Guber and the other investors if they wouldn't mind having his son take a position in the franchise, they all said, "Hey, it's your franchise." Moving on...

Not long thereafter, everyone was encouraged to head downstairs to the restaurant. Everyone was individually seated. I found myself sitting across from Kevin Radich of KGO. To my right were Sheed and Adam Lauridsen. To my left were Steve Bitker and Hal Remy of KCBS.

My jaw almost dropped, as I was finally putting some extremely familiar voices with brand new faces. As Bitker called it, I had a moment of "the magic of radio". You see, back when I was a teenager I was always blasting hip hop or rap. But not in my mom's car; the radio was off-limits. Instead, she had on KCBS. It wasn't even adult contemporary! We're talking talk radio. Not even stereo. AM radio with the "MONO" indicator on!

Well, flash forward to my late twenties in the dot-com era when it was all about stock prices, sports scores, and avoiding traffic driving to and from the 9-to-5. Thanks to my mom, KCBS became a staple, especially since I had mellowed down from my "need-to-feel-the-beat" years. Anyways...

Bob Fitzgerald got on the mic, welcomed everyone, and introduced the chef. The food at The Epic was delicious, and maybe I agree with Thompson that the gumbo wasn't as great as advertised, but who am I to judge?

Over the next 45 minutes or so, we ate at our tables and chatted. I found out that Radich had covered the Jailblazer era of the Portland Trailblazers as well as the "Queens" era of the Sacramento Kings when they came oh so close to a championship (hey, it was the New Jersey Nets representing the East, remember?), only to be thwarted by the Shaq-Kobe Los Angeles Lakers.

The talk with Bitker, Remy, and Radich ranged from John Madden, to Joe Barry Carroll's locker being ripped out courtesy of a pissed-off George Karl knowing that a menacingly grinning Don Nelson outside was about to take his job, to the Jailblazers being stranded on the tarmac while private jet No. 1 was being serviced for a malfunction and jet No. 2 was being used to transport forty of Paul Allen's friends to a party, to Doug Christie's wife staying on hold on the cellphone while Christie took a few minutes to shower ("I'll be right back, honey"), to speculation that Latrell Sprewell's superhuman athleticism overcame the adverse affects of weed while the same could not be said of his smoking buddy Joe Smith.

The Chat (Lacob)

Alas, Fitz took the mic again and introduced Lacob and Gruber. Here was the opening statement...

You can see that Lacob is extremely articulate, straightforward, and speaks from his heart. He's obviously very level-headed, open, and humble while remaining confident. He thinks before he speaks. You find these traits a lot in the Silicon Valley venture world, especially with the top-tier firms like "KP".

He also still plays pickup, although he said that he is just a three-point shooter now (me too, haha!). If you know me, you know that I am a firm believer that basketball is basketball. The drama, roster issues, player egos, and maturity that happen in the NBA also happen in adult rec leagues. You can learn a lot from being passionately involved in most adult hoops team frameworks. That being said, I wonder to what extent does Lacob have such experience? Notice, I said rec league, not pickup ball. There are huge differences between the two. The structure and dynamic of having formalities such as referees, scheduling disputes, padding stats, and crunch time with the shot- or game-clock winding down cannot be overstated.

Lacob would later say that he approved the David Lee trade and that Lee fits perfectly into the type of player that he wants, not only on the court but off it, too. There was talk about a culture change, a change of philosophy. My conclusion is that Warriors fans should get the strong sense that we will never, ever have a Jailblazers situation here in the Bay, and that the types of players we get can be expected to conduct themselves in the same professional manner a la David Lee, or Lacob, or Guber. Whether or not that translates to obtaining a superstar player such as Kevin Garnett, which Lacob would later reference a few times, remains to be seen.

Lacob talked about how in basketball, with just twelve players, and again using the Celtics as a benchmark, a team can be steered in the right direction in a relatively short amount of time. I have two problems with that. First of all, without any expertise into baseball or football roster maneuvering, I'm not convinced because I know inherently that building a strong basketball roster is a very difficult thing to do. It is already a difficult thing to do at the rec league level, so it must be exponentially harder at the NBA franchise level.

Maybe Lacob knows something I don't and it is really easier than baseball or football, but basketball's definitely difficult. There is always a variable such as a player's ego or maturity that you thought you had control over, but turns out you didn't. Then you are left with the painful choice of grabbing the bull by its horns or getting rid of it. It can be quite frustrating. Just look at how long and what pains it took the Lakers to re-achieve their championship-caliber status.

The secret sauce is to put your franchise in a position to be able to more easily bounce back from such setbacks. It has to be an unfair, usually hidden-from-plain-view advantage of some sort.

If Lacob recognizes that the Celtics was really a situation in which Boston put itself in a position to have an unfair advantage (you can't tell me Kevin McHale being the GM of the Minnesota Timberwolves and personal friend of Danny Ainge didn't have an iota of something to do with that), rather than a master stroke of genius by Ainge, then Warriors fans can breathe easy. The only problem is, we won't really know until after the fact.

Steinmetz said on the air last night that a KG deal like that comes once in a lifetime, and that's why Steinmetz isn't bought into what Lacob said. I'm not sure I agree with that either, as my sources have told me that the Warriors were closer than you would believe to acquiring KG, which essentially involved Brandan Wright being inexplicably picked instead of someone else. It's hard, but it's not necessarily blind luck as to be "once in a lifetime".

But if Lacob does not "get" that it is all about obtaining that superstar (let's face it, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen ain't nothin' without KG), that it is preparing the franchise to look attractive enough so that a superstar would actually want to come here as a free agent or in a complex trade, then we may be waiting longer for a championship. Alas, at least the intent is there. The open-ness, sanity-checking, checks and balances of the management structure, and genuine commitment to excellence will probably yield a very competitive team for as long as Lacob remains owner.

Guber talks a lot about being lucky. You have to position yourself to be lucky. I sincerely hope Lacob gets what that means, in a basketball context. And don't underestimate the ability to relate to your players.

Sorry for the blurriness. You can see "GM" Larry Riley right there, too.

The Chat (Guber)

I really like Guber. First of all, he personally introduced himself to every new face in the foyer. Secondly, you can see how a personality like his is tied to success in the film and entertainment industry. He wears his passion on his sleeve. He, like Lacob, thinks in clear, logical steps. A to B, B to C, and therefore D. He exudes excitement while at the same time not patting himself on the back or otherwise reeking with ego. He is very, very positive.

In fact, in that self-effacing-yet-subtle manner that you see a lot with successful business owners, Lacob explained that he and Guber had met about ten years ago in a failed deal. The deal was some kind of sports franchise. Lacob, being a previous part-owner of the Celtics, had been involved in several attempts to buy various franchises, and Guber has had a failed attempt, among others, at buying the Los Angeles Dodgers.

In Silicon Valley VC-speak, having all these failures is actually a plus. That means they are not coming into this wet behind the ears. They've actually already taken their lumps a few times.

Now back in my day I read hundreds of business plans (well, executive summaries) and one of the most important things to list were your Board members. True to the culture, Lacob proudly announced that they had a woman on the Board (Erika Glazer), and three Asian-Americans, one of which is Vivek Ranadive, CEO of TIBCO, and according to Lacob the first Indian-American to own an NBA franchise (the other two Asians are Harry Tsao and Dennis Wong). Ranadive holds the title of Executive Vice Chairman.

Lacob dubbed it a 21st-century model akin to the Boston Celtics' large ownership group. There are 22 or so, or more, investors in the entire group. I looked on the investor list and noticed Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube, and Nick Swinmurn, co-founder of Zappos.

Funny how not longer than a decade ago, Zappos was the only portfolio company left amongst Tony Hsieh and Alfred Lin's struggling VentureFrogs firm and restaurant over there next to the AMC Theaters at 1000 Van Ness. I could've never guessed that that dude working his butt off on the mezzanine floor would turn out to be a part-owner of the Warriors!

Lacob mentioned that while there may have been another person in the auction for the Warriors who was worth $28 billion, the collective pocketbooks of all of the new Warriors investors probably exceeds that. In short, the investor group has resources.

After the intro round where Fitz asked the necessary foundational questions, Warriors PR man Dan Martinez went around with a mic for questions from the audience. Ryan Leong of KCBS asked the first question. There weren't that many questions, nor hard-pressed questions, as we all had been buttered up while at the same time, the food portions were light (and curiously family-style), so it wasn't like we were in food coma. There were questions from Poole, Ann Killion of SI, and a few others. Most of the questions are answered in the articles linked at the bottom of this post.

Guber was asked if his location in SoCal would be a detriment to the team. He pointed to his example of the Loews Metreon complex as proof that he can deliver on location-based entertainment when needed. I'm not sure there's an issue there as Lacob is the majority owner and without question a Bay Area guy.

Perhaps the most challenging question came from Lauridsen, who referenced the Cohan era. Lacob said he did not want to dwell on the past and everything was about this point, moving forward. It would only be later that Guber would make his now-famous "cure for Cohan" quip. Other than that, there was absolutely no negative talk of Cohan, again true to Silicon Valley VC form (at least in open doors!).

Lacob stressed that, again as VCs often do when they take over a company, the current mode they're in is "assess". They need to figure out what's working and what's not, both on the court and off. He didn't mention the timeframe, but one has to imagine that there will be enough data to glean by at least the end of this season, if not sooner.

The Split: Lacob

As the talk came to a close, Lacob remained on the mini-stage while Guber sat down on a stool not too far away where the reporters could ask questions one-on-one. I listened in on each, first with Lacob.

The most interesting thing about his one-on-ones was that Kawakami had asked him about the $12 to $14 million in expiring contracts coming up, and Lacob corrected him to say $17-and-a-half million and that he thinks about that everyday. Really cool to see an owner (and not deferring to his GM) having a firm grasp on the roster numbers.

The other good news is that Lacob loves defense and rebounding. He spoke about how the previous roster makeup was run-and-gun, but if you couldn't rebound the ball, who cares? It didn't matter how good the guards were.

He said that he felt Stephen Curry and Monta Ellis represent one of the best backcourts in the NBA. He also felt that the Warriors need to add beef, a la the Celtics frontline, but that there could be a fusion with the Showtime Lakers, in that we would have the guards to run as well as the girth to board.

Then he mentioned that rebounders Ekpe Udoh and Louis Admundson had not even gotten a chance to play with the team yet. So even with the present lineup, he is optimistic.

On the topic of the Warriors logo, Lacob said that the NBA process for changing a logo takes three years. As with all other aspects of the franchise, as necessary they will assess and make decisions as they are brought to the Board.

The Split: Guber

Leaving to go listen in on Guber, you could really see where this was, indeed, an extremely complementary partnership. Guber, with all of his experience building cinemas and making movies, was oozing with passion for his trade. It felt like you could spend a whole day with him telling you stories of what he learned in each of his past business successes and failures.

His approach is very engaging. Along with the raspy Bostonian accent, he'll do a fair amount of hand and arm gesturing, even some finger pointing and poking you just enough to make sure you have his full, undivided attention.

He talked about his concern that young fans aged 7 or 9 would have a hard time coming to a 7:30pm game at Oracle on a Tuesday night. He talked about perhaps having a mascot to re-engage such fans. He talked about how he hated it when someone sang the national anthem and you couldn't hear what he or she was singing. And how he wants to somehow tie in social media, to which Bucher joked that ethernet at an arena was all but an impossibility.

Guber even broached the subject of anime or animation on-screen at the arena. He joked that the dot races were terribly outdated, although Bucher quipped that they were hugely successful. Guber wasn't disagreeing with that, but he was hoping for better ideas and even more engaging experience.

It was clear that Guber was ready to put every ounce of his expertise to work, for the benefit of Warrior fans.

Of course, in the press, he will now be forever tied to his, "We're not the cure for cancer, but we may be the cure for Cohan" quote. Sure, it raises eyebrows and is headline-worthy, but the most oft-repeated words I heard him say were:

• Location-based entertainment,
• A need to know the questions before the answers,
• Attitude along with the aptitude, 
• Communal aspect,
• You need to be lucky too and
• Fun.

Last week my dad, while not surprisingly broaching on the subject of Jeremy Lin, told me about Terry Tai-Ming Guo, the richest man in Taiwan. Well, Guo may be a tycoon, but recently some of his employees jumped off their building to commit suicide. This is a rather extreme example and I'm looking at this from a macro level, but suffice it to say, I have a feeling that Guo and Guber have opposite personalities, especially with Guber's continued repeating of the word "fun".

Reflection

After that, Warriors head of PR Raymond Ridder, scurried Lacob and Guber upstairs for more on-camera interviews and the event was officially over. On my way out, I had one of The Epic's magnificent desserts that I can only describe as something-that-is-not-ice-cream-in-a-mini-waffle-cone, splashed with some chocolate sauce. I almost wanted to take a 2nd one with me, but decided that I might look like a pig in doing so.

As I waited for my car outside, Marcus Thompson sure enough was trying to get rid of his dessert cone, to which Poole and Roye were having none of. I'm not quite sure how he got rid of it. In any case, I chatted up Roye, who had the envious task of being with the Warriors on their recent roadtrip. Surprisingly, Milwaukee was clear and sunny -- much like the day we had at The Epic -- although, it was still Milwaukee. He wasn't all too excited about Memphis, in sort of a been-there-done-that with the BBQ thing.

For me, I was giddy. After all those years of dot-com party-hopping and schmoozing with the VCs, with this new ownership group, I felt like my past life in Silicon Valley had returned to mesh with the new one in basketball. Lacob and Guber seem accessible. The fact that Guber had followed me on Twitter just hours before the luncheon, perhaps at the behest of Martinez, indicated that he was true to his word that he would try to make the Warriors even more social than they already are (with all due credit to Ridder, is that even possible?).

Here are two owners who "get" that an NBA basketball franchise is really about the community. It's the players, the roster moves, the management hirings, the media, the fans, the fan experience, and the continued cultivating of the market. Running a huge recreational basketball league that spans the three areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, which Lacob often referenced, I cannot stress how on-point that is: basketball and community are forever intertwined; it's a symbiotic relationship.

It seems to be an open-door policy here with Lacob and Guber. That's good enough for me, to start. I'd rather have that and no cleaning of the house, than a cleaning of the house but the front doors still closed.

I felt really opportunistic and hopeful. I felt like we were lucky. Even though we all know that Ellison has a limitless pocketbook and his devotion to winning the America's Cup clearly shows that he will stop at nothing to win, I think we were fortunate to get Lacob and Guber instead. The way that they are going about this, that is the Bay Area way. From every topic, including the one about whether the Warriors would be eventually moved San Francisco, was addressed in the multi-faceted way we look at things here in the Bay.

Predictions

So, here are my predictions with this ownership group, based on my feel for Lacob and Guber (and I could very well be wrong):

• Cleaning house will not happen. True to the VC way, people will exit without much fanfare. New hires will be celebrated, but not overly-hyped, because that is no longer necessary. The culture is already changing. To reach their soon-to-be-determined desired level of culture change, need not "rock the boat". This point goes against Kawakami's beliefs that there needs to be a clear and present change from the Cohan era.
• Riley probably won't be here long-term, especially once Lacob learns the nuances -- if he doesn't already have them from his experience with the Celtics -- of the relationships needed in making deals happen.
• Lacob still needs to hire a brand-name GM on the level of Jerry West or Donnie Walsh. I just have this feeling that Lacob can see the jungle of the NBA and plan for it, but as far as getting in there with a machete and hacking his way through to the Promised Land, he needs an expert guide (who can find the Tarzans).
• Keith Smart will definitely be earning his paycheck, but the good news is, his philosophy happens to be in line with Lacob's.
• The Warriors frontline will get bigger.
• By next season there will be a Warriors mascot and, with Guber's Cohan quip, it certainly will not be a reincarnation of Thunder.
• You will probably see some nice Draft-day maneuvering on the (revered) level of Danny Ainge.
• You might see an All-Star Game back at Oracle sooner rather than later.
• If there is an NBA lockout, you can rest assured that when play resumes, these owners will do everything in their power to mend the inevitable broken hearts of the fans.
• The Warriors will continue to be the franchise that leads the NBA in technological and social media advances.
• Guber will become a regular reader of GSoM. (okay, that's a wish more than a prediction, but I think we're right up his alley)

Links

Here are the links from the luncheon. If there are any I missed, post them in the comments and I will update...

• Kawakami: Joe Lacob on the New Era Warriors: "Something very special is happening already" - Includes in-depth quotes from the Lacob sitdown.
• Thompson: Lacob and Guber Talking Big; Bobby Rowell Sticking Around; Overrated Gumbo - That would be overrated free gumbo he's talking about.
• Thompson: New Warriors owners Joe Lacob and Peter Guber preach patience
• New Warriors Owners Talk Big Game - by Sam Amick of AOL Fanhouse
• Ratto: Warriors Ownership a Potent Pairing - More of a bent towards Guber.
• Steinmetz: Guber, Lacob Talk of Change
• Tribal Warriors fare: a chat with Peter Guber - JA Adande of ESPN with more insights on Guber's philosophy towards community
• Poole: New owners bring hope to tormented Warriors fans
• Warriors.com: Warriors Ownership Group Introductory Luncheon

Oh By The Way

Incidentally -- and here is your reward for reading all the way down to here -- my sources (not the same sources as the KG/J-Rich deal) tell me this is how the $450 million broke down. And it is second-hand information, so it could very well be wrong. Note: this information was not available at the luncheon...

 

• Lacob: $75 million
• Guber: $25 million
• Major investors: $100 million pool
• Minor investors: $100 million pool
• $150 million in debt instruments

 

I will try to answer as many questions from the comments as I can. Thanks.

What can you do with a Sharpie? Boston Herald Enthusiasts of Cosplay, the performance art often influenced by Asian media like anime, can be dead serious about the wigs that help them transform into ... and more »

Colleges NYU Stern [Early Decision] U of Rochester Cornell ILR Carnegie Mellon Babson Brandeis Villanova Bentley Boston U Boston C RPI (not sure if I want to go to RPI for business) Sorry about the long list! Thank you! -bow- Unweighted GPA: 3.5 I'm not too sure about the conversion, but it's an 88.5/100 average, with a good upward trend from an 84 average freshman year to a 92 average senior year. My school's a very large and competitive magnet school, ranked highly in the nation. AP/IB/honors courses Junior Year: AP Comp Sci Senior Year: AP Calc AB, AP Statistics Senior Schedule AP Calc AB, AP Stat, CORE Government, CORE Economics, British CORE Literature, Creative Nonfiction Workshop, Environmental Studies, (Required) Photography, Modern China Economics, Nutritional Science Class Rank / Size School doesn't rank. Class size of around 800. SAT/ACT/AP scores -SAT I: (taken this month, expecting a 720+ CR, 800 math, and ??? writing; probably 2150+) -SAT II Math2C: 760 -SAT II Physics: 680 -SAT II US History: 640 (Not sure if I should send this. What do you guys think?) -ACT: Composite: 32 (Eng 32 Math 34 Read 30 Sci 31 Write 29/8) -AP Comp Sci A - 4 -AP Statistics - To Be Determined -AP Calculus - To Be Determined -AP Microeconomics (Self Study) - To Be Determined Extracurricular (probably my main weakness along with my GPA) -Tutored students grade 2-10 at a community tutoring organization from Freshman->Junior year: 5 hours a day during summer weekdays, and 2 hours a week during the school year: about 150 hours logged altogether -Saturday Chinese School for 10 years up until Junior year -Volunteer website designer for new nonprofit organization made my an old teacher of mine (Sophomore year to now) -Writer of school newspaper for junior and senior year -Chief of Publications of Graymatter (senior year): it's a new student run volunteer organization focused on funding underfunded schools in the city Not sure if these count: -Have animated sprite videos on Youtube all throughout High School to express myself -Administrator/Moderator for a small online animation forum since middle school: spent 2 hours a day making sure that the members follow the forum rules I wrote (Baw, it sounds kind of childish to me. Any opinions here?) -Family Responsibilities: Mother works from 8AM-9PM with an hour commute and father is elderly and retired, so I do most of the cooking and chores. They're also bad at English, so I fill out official documents for them. My family members in China have been trying to immigrate here for the past few years, and this leaves me a lot of paperwork. It's been eating up my time. -Vacation to China during summer before Junior year: I did not use English at all. Recs/Essays Physics Teacher Rec - He loved me, and knows me as a person. He's an author too. US History Teacher Rec - He also loved me, and knows of my extracurricular. Guidance Counselor Rec - She knows me VERY well. Common App Essay - Personal, though it hints that I enjoy Urban areas and communicating with people. NYU Supplement Questions: 2/3 look creative to me. I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out what to do with the last question, since I'm afraid of getting rejected if I put that I want to bring an anime character to this world. ;_; Additional Info -First Generation College Student (dad didn't graduate high school, mom didn't graduate middle school; both schooled in a foreign country) -Asian American Male (Chinese) Thank you guys, again! I'm so nervous since NYU Stern is like, my dream school.

Anybody love/like anime/mangas? My favorites are the shojuos type usually: Inuyasha, Vampire Knights, Fruits Baskets, Kuroshitsuji....and more that I can't list here. I often visit onemanga.com site and a few of others...but you could imagine how SO sad I was when onemanga scanlations were shut down over the summer :'( T_T I haven't been to an anime convention yet, but there's one upcoming in Boston sometimes next year...and I really want to do cosplay! :) :) What about you guys?

At UFC 118, four out the ten total fights on the card will be featuring fighters in the lightweight division.

UFC newcomer, Nik Lentz will be one of the fighters in that lightweight showcase, and he managed to take some time out of his busy schedule preparing for Ultimate Fighter season nine finalist, Andre Winner to speak with Bleacher Report.  

 

B/R: Ok so let’s just get this out of the way now, because I am dying to know. How did you get the nickname ‘The Carnie’?

NL: I was in Japan and on the last day I went to the arcades. By the end of the day I had won around 30 different things from stuffed animals to remote controlled cars. As I was walking back to the hotel, Japanese people were clapping for me and congratulating me on my epic claw machine prowess. Then when I got back to the hotel a women that spoke English explained to me what everything was and after that I got the name because of how good I was at all the carnival type games.

B/R: Midway through earning your college degree, you decided to forgo your college wrestling scholarship and jump straight into MMA. What made you decide to make the jump so soon?

NL: I had tried MMA and felt like I was a lot more talented at it. I was a good wrestler, but I knew with the proper training that I could be a great MMA fighter. Besides, I had really lost a lot of the drive for wrestling. They train hard at all times, but do not take the time to think about why they do things.

B/R: How did your family react to your decision?

NL:As always they were very supportive

B/R: When you started out, Minnesota Martial Arts was the place for you. How has it been training alongside such high profile fighters like UFC Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar and former UFC Lightweight Champion Sean Sherk?

NL: It was an easy pick to go to the academy. I have always known that if you want to be successful at anything you do in life, you have to surround yourself with people that are good at it. Training with champions makes you one. 

B/R: Let’s talk about your upcoming bout at UFC 118 in Boston against Andre Winner. With your wrestling background, do you feel that you’ll be able to take control early considering many European fighters are lacking in that area?

NL: Yes and no, I feel that I definitely have the wrestling to control him, but he is very good at sprawling and brawling. I think it will be a good fight, but in the end I will be able to control him.

B/R: What other fights are you most interested in checking out on the card and why?

NL: I don't really watch the fights when I'm there. I have enough to worry about. I am not really the best fan of MMA. If I watch fights it's usually to learn, after that I like to do other things with my off time.

B/R: What is something about you that most MMA fans would be surprised to know?

NL: Well it has been discussed before, but I am a big gamer. Whenever I'm not training, I'm usually playing video games. I also watch anime religiously and have very little interest in things that most athletes do. 

B/R: If Nik Lentz wasn’t a mixed martial artist, what would he be doing right now?

NL: I dont know, I went to school to be a doctor...but who knows

B/R: Thanks for your time Nik. Good Luck Saturday. 

 

Nik's fight can be seen on Spike TV as part of the UFC 118 Preliminaries show.

Zach Lanier brought up HacKid (pronounced ‘hacked’ I’m told) on the podcast last night and I just realized I haven’t even written a single post on the subject.  My friend Chris Hoff, aka @beaker, is one of the key organizers and Zach is on the committee as well, and this looks like it’s going to be the start of something that’s every bet as fresh and original as BSides, except this time it will be kids who are learning, rather than a bunch of angsty security professionals who felt they weren’t being properly represented at Black Hat (I’m teasing, if that isn’t immediately obvious)

My kids are little geeks, similar to many of your kids in all likelihood.  They wake up in the morning and hop online or start playing on the DSi, or just pick up a book and read.  Their favorite magazines are Make and Science Illustrated.  And some fool introduced them to Japanese (is there any other type?) anime a couple of years ago.  So a convention aimed at teaching them how the Internet works, how to stay safe online and building robots really appeals to them.  Add to it that the convention is happening at the Microsoft NERD center and MIT is just down the street and you’ve got something that budding geeks will find unresistable.

If you’re on the East Coast anywhere near Boston, have kids between the ages of 5 and 17, think about taking them to HacKid in October.  Do keep in mind that every young person must be accompanied by an old person (read: adult guardian), but that each of the classes will likely have almost as much to teach the adult as they do the kids.  Everything is being done on a volunteer basis and the event is organized as a non-profit, so the money is all going to a good cause.  But hurry if you’re going to sign up, the cost goes up from $50 each to $75 next week. 

I know this is a very early question to ask, since it's only the beginning of 2010, but I want to know ahead of time. I'm planing to go to AB 2011, and I'm probably just going for one day. So I'm asking all you cosplayers or non-cosplayers, should I cosplay Chrome Dokuro from KHR or Momo Hinamori from Bleach. A little about my appearance: I'm asian 4'10" (short for my age :P) Black hair (a little longer past my shoulders) Average body size - thank you :]

Last week, Chad Concelmo told you all about all the stubbly, brown-haired game protagonists that have glutted the gaming scene of late, and how we could use a few less of them. We've got nothing against stubbly Caucasian males, of course. Radical cartoon characters with attitude may have owned the gaming scene in the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, but after the CD-ROM came along with its capacity for voice acting and detailed cut scenes, it was time for "Hollywood leading men" to take over games as well. That's just the way trends work. They tend to beat things into the ground until they aren't interesting anymore.

The Ben Affleck-looking action star isn't the only visual archetype that has made the leap from movies to videogames. We've also got the busty leading lady, the funky urban sidekick/pimp/arms dealer, and the colorfully coiffed anime star, among many others. The closer that gaming gets to the mainstream, the more it's bound to get infected by mainstream entertainment's least interesting qualities. In other words, generic, lowest-common-denominator heroes are inevitable in any art form that's made for profit.

That's the bad news. The good news is that there will always be game developers that make it a point to give us an alternative to that. Whenever there is a mainstream, there is a counter-culture, and gaming's counter-culture protagonists have never been more interesting.

Here's a quick list of some of my favorite atypical videogame mascots, none of whom look anything like Ben Affleck.

10) The Viewtiful Joe series

On the surface, Viewtiful Joe doesn't seem that different from a lot of mainstream anime/action stars. He's basically a super-deformed Power Ranger with a goatee and tight abs. It's only when you see him alongside more standard game characters in something like Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom that it becomes clear just how weird Joe is.

Combining big-head-little-body cuteness with Western superhero muscles and a pink scarf is not normal. Made up words like "Viewtiful" are also not normal, and Joe exclaims them on a regular basis. Although it's easy to trace the influences that went into creating Viewtiful Joe, it's pretty hard to think of another videogame character that looks or plays quite like him.

If Ben Affleck played Viewtiful Joe, he'd have gone from a bizarre tribute to both Western and Eastern geekdom to being just another random superhero. There is no way his adventures would have been as memorable as "Viewtiful Ben."

9) The LEGO series

The LEGO games get a lot of crap for being uninspired. That may be true now, but when LEGO Star Wars first hit the scene, it bucked a lot of trends. The game was released at a time when game adaptations of live-action properties were focusing more and more on realism. Then the LEGO series came along and turned that notion on its head.

Developers that are in love with the idea of making their games look "real" have to resort to creating lead characters that look like the primary demographic (Ben Affleck look-a-likes) in order to assure that their games will appeal to a wide audience. The LEGO games (and most Facebook games and Nintendo's Miis) prove that developers who are willing to forsake realism can go on to appeal to an even larger demographic: everyone with two eyes and a mouth.

8) The BioShock series

I guess the general consensus is that BioShock 2 isn't as great as BioShock. I could never get into either game myself, so I can't really say. That's not to say that I didn't want to like them. Upon first sight, I really though I was going to love the game, and that has everything to do with the series' figurehead: the Big Daddy.

There was no reason to think that a game about gigantic deep-sea divers who live to protect creepy little girls would take off. Deep-sea divers are not what's "hot on the streets" right now, and they never were. Ken Levine and company could have just as easily made the Big Daddy with a more time-tested enemy design, like a zombie or a Nazi, if they wanted to assure some mainstream comprehension of their work.

Instead, they stayed true to their Delicatessen/City of Lost Children influences and created the Rapture and Big Daddy that we know and love today. Good show, 2K Boston! If you're going to rip off a movie, it might as well be something from Jeunet and Caro, sans Ben Affleck.

7) Scribblenauts

The star of Scribblenauts is a brilliant example of truly effective character design. He's simple and easy to relate with, but still has personality. Though it's likely that Scribblenauts would have gotten some critical acclaim regardless of how Maxwell looked, it's hard to imagine that the game would have gone on to be as famous and profitable as it has without such a memorable and likable lead character.

It's all in the accessorizing.

If Scribblenauts starred a "wacky" anthropomorphic animal, or a handsome leading man, or a generic anime protagonist, it would have had a much tougher time gaining people's trust. Before you play a game, you have to have some faith that you'll enjoy it. You have have to be curious about what it has to offer, while also feeling some immediate kinship with the game and its world.

Maxwell pulls all of that off, and he does it using just one thing: his rooster hat. It immediately tells us that he's weird, he's creative, and he's up for something different. He's the kind of little dude that most gamers want to be, and represents what a lot of us want our games to be.

Can you imagine Ben Affleck wearing a rooster hat? That might even be worse than Daredevil.

6) The Katamari series

Katamari Damacy is weird on every level. The way it looks, the way it sounds, the way it plays; everything. Given how drenched Katamari Damacy is with insanity, it's understandable that its protagonist, the Prince, actually looks somewhat normal in comparison to rest of the game. Compare him to other videogame characters, though, and he he's clearly doing something different.

The Prince lacks almost all of the features that are present in most "cute and cartoony" videogame characters: no funny sidekick, no catchphrases, and no arched eyebrows. He doesn't have eyebrows, let alone arched ones. He barely even has eyes. No Pixar movie, no fast-food chain mascot, and certainly no big-budget videogame character would ever dare look like the Prince. Someone like him might end up on some bizarre Japanese stationery at best, or as a "common enemy" in someone else's game at worst.

That's what makes the Prince different; unlike almost every other central character, he's totally unassuming. His games are never named after him. In fact, he's barely seen for the majority of his own games due to the size of the giant clump he's packing. Where most games make a point to constantly drive home the fact that their lead character is the most charismatic and personable creation ever, the Prince is lovable because he is truly an underdog.

That's the real reason I'm happy that Ben Affleck doesn't play the Prince. Big-chinned guys like him just can't believably play underdogs. As a big-chinned guy, I know this from experience. People automatically assume we're good at sports and can destroy planets with our bare hands. Affleck could maybe pull off the King of All Cosmos, but for the Prince, he's a no-go.

5) The Meat Boy and Bit.Trip series

These two characters are about two very different things, but from a design philosophy perspective, they are similar enough that I'm lumping them together (also, top ten lists are always more enticing than top eleven lists.)

On the surface, Meat Boy and Commander Video both appear to be throwbacks to the forced-minimalism era of gaming: a time when games simply couldn't give you characters that had more detail than two hands, two feet, a body, and a couple of eyes (or in Commander Video's case, one eye). The difference with these two is, the minimalism here isn't forced. The minimalism is part of their messages. Sometimes, these messages are obtuse and fuzzy; sometimes, they are crystal-clear. But at all times, they defy expectations of what a videogame mascot can mean.

Don't believe me? Do you think it's meaningless that Meat Boy is constantly expelling blood, and that Commander Video is always gushing rainbows? Then maybe it is for you. That's the beauty of using minimalism and abstraction to send your message. It's up to you, the player, to figure out exactly where the meaning is.

Would Ben Affleck work in the role of Meat Boy or Commander Video? Trust me, I'd love to find out. I'd love to play a game where Ben Affleck is constantly bleeding and/or shooting rainbows out of his ass. Sadly, though, that would probably get old fast, and wouldn't work to express anything other than goofy good times.

4) The Chibi-Robo series

Chibi-Robo is a lot like the Prince in that he barely demands your attention, and he lives to make others happy. And like Meat Boy and Commander Video, Chibi-Robo is almost completely featureless. He's got two eyes, a head, two arms, two legs, and a body. That's it. No face, no color; nothing. He's the very definition of un-design.

As for his adventure, it's a journey into the world of minutiae. It is the anti-blockbuster. Where most games work hard to give you an experience that's larger than life, Chibi-Robo takes you to all of the smallest things that life has to offer. Cleaning stains, washing dishes, and watering flowers; these are the big moments in Chibi-Robo's world. These are the moments that define Chibi-Robo. These are moments that could only work with a character like Chibi-Robo.

Can you imagine a little Ben Affleck running around your house, cleaning up stains and picking up after your pets, with no quips to quip, no Phantoms to fight, and no Armageddons to Armageddon? I don't think it's possible. If cast as Chibi-Robo, I don't think he could resist blowing up a giant meteor and/or mouthing off a few one-liners. A little Justin Bieber could maybe make it happen, but not Ben Affleck. He's just too alpha.

3) The Okami series

I've been playing videogames for a long time, and Okami and its upcoming sequel are the only two games I can think of that star non-verbal, four-legged animals. Sure, there are tons of games that star anthropomorphic animals, or have "realistic" animal sidekicks, but Okami and Okamiden are the only games I can think of that star animals who are totally incapable of talking, walking on their hind legs, or doing any of the things that people do.

I've always thought that casting a dog as its lead character is the main reason that Okami didn't sell that well. People may hear all about how great the game is, but when it comes time to put their money down, they just can't wrap their heads around playing a massive action/adventure game as a non-human. The concept is just too foreign. People even balked at a few wolf-moments in Twilight Princess. A full-on wolf game was just too much for people.

This is one entry on the list that might have done itself some good by getting in on some sweet Affleck action. There's no way in hell I would have preferred that the game star a handsome man like Affleck, but I bet it would have had a much easier time finding an audience (but only if he put some pants on.)

2) Retro Game Challenge

Retro Game Challenge is one of the only games that truly pays tribute to the gamer. While there are hundreds of movies about movies, and thousands of books about books, there are only a handful of videogames that are about videogames. Among those few, Retro Game Challenge sits close to the top of the list.

In the game, a guy in his late 30s named Arino relives his childhood by tasking his pre-adolescent self with playing a variety of fake videogames from the late '80s and early '90s. You play Arino's friend, but in reality, you're just playing yourself, hanging out with Arino in a virtual living room, and playing some awesome new videogames.

The game presumes that you, the player, love videogames more than other forms of entertainment. It's not such a strange thing to suppose. Why else would you spend your time and money on the game in first place? It also presumes that as a videogame fan, you like videogame fans. Logical, right?

Sadly, if the game's U.S. sales are any indication, the developers were wrong. In the United States, gamers aren't always so proud of the fact that they love videogames. There is an ongoing chase on the part of many gamers to find a game that's as legitimate and important as movies are, that closely resemble that more culturally accepted art form. Maybe that's because most gamers have been made fun of for at least a portion of their lives, just for being gamers. That kind of prolonged mockery can lead to internalized shame that doesn't go away overnight.

Personally, I love Arino. I love the gamer archetype, despite how many times I've been mocked for fitting into it. I think gamers deserve to be celebrated, more so than most athletes and movie stars do. That's why I'm probably in the minority when I say that I think that Arino is much more awesome than Ben Affleck. That said, I still would have bought Retro Game Challenge if it starred Ben Affleck. The games it contains are too fun to ignore. In fact, I'd probably like Ben Affleck more if I could associate him with something awesome like videogames, and not something not-awesome like Reindeer Games.

1) The Uncharted series (no, seriously -- hear me out)

In case you haven't noticed, I'm not a fan of most Hollywood hunks. I've always been this way. The first time I saw Star Wars, I thought to myself, "Jesus, that Han Solo guy is a real dick. Glad I'm not forced to hang out with him in real life." The first time I saw a James Bond movie, I thought, "Man, I hate guys like that, always pushing you around and making you feel small." As you might have guessed, my real-life experiences with "the popular kids" have not been so great. Of course, there are exceptions to that, but in general, the super-confident, super-good-looking, super-outgoing men of the world have not been easy for me to be around. They may be fun to watch in a movie, but hanging out with them in real life can really suck.

That's one of the reasons I don't like the fact that those "leading men" are taking over videogames. The other big reason is that they're just... boring. Seeing a good-looking, athletic guy climb a wall, beat up a bad guy, and get the girl is just so... expected. Of course he can beat up the bad guys! Of course he can get the girl! Just look at him! What can't he do?

It's much more interesting to see a regular guy, or a kid, or better yet, an irregular guy achieve the same goals. That's why I love Donut Drake.

In case you don't know, Donut Drake is the code name for a fat-guy mod created for Nathan Drake. Who's Nathan Drake, you ask? That's a matter of opinion. To me, Nathan Drake is the epitome of the dull, predictable, wanna-be Hollywood movie star that I don't want to see in a videogame. Everything about the character -- his look, his voice, his lines -- is all textbook Hollywood, by-the-numbers mediocrity made to appease the lowest common denominator in the Uncharted series.

Once Drake gets fat, that all changes.

Sure, his dialogue is still pretty sitcom-worthy (in a bad way), but there is something about a 400-pound guy hitting on two beautiful women that I can get behind. Just add a thick layer of blubber, and Drake stops being Brad Pitt and starts being Angus. He starts being relatable. He starts being likable. More importantly, he starts being exceptional.

It's a given that a good-looking athlete will get the girl, climb the brick wall, and take out the hordes of trained mercenaries. Seeing an action-movie star act out action-movie cliches is the antithesis of evocative. Seeing a 400-pound man do the same stunts (particularly the one about climbing the brick wall) is something else entirely. Even though I know it's fake, it's still amazing, inspiring, and exciting.

Yeah, I love Donut Drake. I want more videogame characters to be like him. I want more gamers to pay tribute to their imperfect selves, instead of dreaming of being the captain of the football team.

But will we ever get there?

It's nice that certain games' alpha males, like Solid Snake and Max Payne, have grown into more physically flawed, "human" characters, but that's just two guys out of the hundreds of dull-but-pretty male bimbos that current populate the majority of non-Nintendo AAA games (the difference between Nintendo's AAA games and everyone else's AAA games is worth noting, but that's probably best saved for another post). For the most part, it looks like the male-model game protagonist is here to stay.

How about you? Who do you prefer -- sexy and predictable regular Drake, or fat and amazing Donut Drake? Do you want to play a game that pays tribute to you, flaws and all, or a game that stars characters cast by the values and standards of a Hollywood talent agent?

Oh man, am I actually making a post? Yeah. Don't fall out of your seat.

Oh I love it. Pokewalkers where allll over Anime Boston this year. One of the venders actually put their pokewalker on a display so people could just trade info without having to ask. What made it so great is it said "let's touch balls" XD I'm so juven...

A discussion of the mysterious nature of the video game series Kingdom Hearts along with a healthy dose of seriousness and humor!

The sun beams fiercely on the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and even as evening approaches, the humidity is relentless. Backstage, costume makers prepare to show off their best to a circus tent loaded with strangers who share their eccentric hobby. I glance over my opening speech one last time before noticing a veteran cosplayer sweating bullets through her eye shadow, shaded cheekbones and full-body jumpsuit.

Though she has been modeling her homemade costumes for over six years, earning over thirty awards from conventions across America, Caitlin Beards is sweating through her skintight pleather and spandex one-piece. This is her one-hundredth costume to date, and she has poured three months of her skill into sculpting the seven yards of metal chain and the eighteen-inch tall wig strapped to her head to become the video game heroine Bayonetta. Beards, like many others, belongs to a previously underground sub-culture of geeks that has blossomed in recent years.

The selected nineteen cosplayers standing with me under the tent are accustomed to posing for photos at conventions, but never for an audience of magazine and radio personalities, and never after having their make-up applied by personnel from MAC Cosmetics. For the first time in New York’s history, fashion-centered video game and Japanese anime fans have been pampered and prepped by internationally acclaimed make-up artists. 2010 has so far marked a new step in public exposure and professional treatment for cosplaying, and the community is still rising in the public eye. The hobby of cosplay is easy to explain but difficult to execute: it is the act of dressing like your favorite character from a TV show, movie, video game or comic book. In some social circles, cosplay is a competitive sport, to others it is a challenge to prove their sewing skills, and for some it is purely for fun and an excuse to meet other fans.

Cosplay was arguably birthed at Star Trek conventions, where Trekkies posed as Starfleet officers, Klingons, and Vulcans alike to display their fandom. It was taken to a competitive level in Japan and spread itself worldwide through anime conventions. The hobby latched on in America in the early nineties, but skyrocketed with the domestication of the Internet. Dedicated cosplayers create online personas and profiles on forums to display their various fashion innovations, using materials from sheer linen to duct tape to altered Armani suits.

For the past three years, I have been touring anime conventions with attendance numbering anywhere from a few hundred to over twenty-four thousand. One of my recurring roles as a convention guest is to host a quintessential event: the cosplay masquerade. The largest event I ever hosted was at Anime Boston this past spring. Initial performance submission was so massive that the lead coordinator filtered all entries just to narrow down to forty performances that would fill the three-hour time block. Convention attendees waited outside the main events hall for hours beforehand, hoping for a spot in a room that fits five-thousand, or the spillover room that accommodated another thousand using state-of-the-art video equipment. The convention itself boasted a new record high of attendance of nearly seventeen thousand, despite being held during Easter weekend and competing for its audience with the Penny Arcade Expo East, the largest video game convention on the East Coast to date, which was held the weekend before at the same convention center. It seems neither recession nor religious holiday can deter us nerds.

Cosplay is rapidly blossoming under the public eye in New York, because while the anime industry is evolving from DVDs to streaming websites like Crunchyroll and Hulu, convention attendance (and with it, cosplay exposure) is on the rise. Interest in cosplay has taken hold of a younger, more ravenous generation of anime fans, and with new anime series coming over every season from Japan, the fans are increasing their efforts to respond. The New York Anime Festival, held each fall at the Jacob Javits Center, saw its attendance increase dramatically in its first three years. Between 2007 and 2008, Reed Exhibitions reported attendance swelling from fifteen to eighteen thousand, and for its third straight year, attendance capped just above twenty-one thousand. The event has such immense interest behind it that now corporate sponsorship has moved in to reward the elite cosplayers. At their headlining competitive cosplay event, the winning team is handed a free trip to Japan, which is quite impressive compared to a dollar store trophy and a boxed set of Hayao Miyazaki DVD’s.

New York’s dense population and entertainment industry help stoke the flames of cosplay awareness and provide the perfect environment. Just by Bryant Park is the largest Japanese bookstore, Kinokuniya, spanning three floors, the top one dedicated to Japanese comic books and art books from anime. Other stores such as Image Anime by Penn Station, often hold holiday competitions and offer prizes, which only encourage fans to come out of the woodwork to present costumes they have worked on for as long as three years. These constant events are pulling together a community regularly enough that the experienced can now mentor and encourage the newer fans, not to mention trade off cosplay war stories. Cosplayers now gather for regular public outings in places like Central Park and karaoke bars just to meet up in and show off their newest costume designs. Some go for realism, some for sight-gags like “cross-playing” (dressing as a character of the opposite gender), but all have a great time doing it.

Events like the Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival (a.k.a. Sakura Matsuri) at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the Japan Society may be elevating the public’s knowledge of cosplay as serious business. Only two weeks after the Fashion Show at the Botanic Garden, another major cosplay event has been scheduled: a competition at the Japan Society, right nearby the United Nations building.

As I prepare to host and present the participants, I see someone standing off in the stage wings: a young girl, fifteen at most, wearing her first cosplay. Even with the eight-foot Styrofoam sword slung over her back, she is shaking noticeably. She’s worried the audience will notice her wig’s ponytails are too short, or the crude stitching around her foam armguards. Moments ago, she approached me backstage and asked to be pulled from the masquerade due to her stage fright. I asked her what her character would do in the face of fear; since she is dressed as a demon-slayer, she might as well play the part. Her eyes grow in reassurance and realization, almost to the Bambi-eyed ratio of the comic book character she portrays. I wink from the podium and announce her name as she steps into the light confidently: a new cosplayer is born. And the tradition goes on.

Voice actor Christopher Ayres shares his experiences from anime conventions, we take a look at Anime Boston 2010, and Doug reflects on the passing of an anime legend, Carl Macek.

I have recently finished my first AMV, and it is focused on The Hitachiin Twins from Ouran High School Host Club. I am looking for some feed back/ critiques to help me make it better. Or if you thought it was good or not, but please explain why or why not. I am hopefully going to enter this into the AMV contest for Anime Boston 2011. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqTaZRuyWbo Thank you so much! ^^

Sweetdiculous the Boston based Electro Trash Band will be performing at Spring Kaiju Experience a one day Anime Kaiju event.

By Tom Spurgeon Frank Frazetta, an artist that enjoyed a decades-long career in comics before ascending to pop culture icon status as a painter of powerful fantasy imagery, died on Monday in Fort Myers, Florida from complications due to a stroke. He was 82 years old. Frazetta was born in Brooklyn in 1928 as Frank Frazzetta. He would drop the extra z as a schoolboy due to aesthetic concerns (he didn't like the way the second z looked in the same name with two t's). Like many talented young artists, among his first memories of making pictures was a commercial consideration: selling artwork and roughly done comics to eager schoolmates. An early beneficiary of the many opportunities for art training that existed in New York's public schools in the first half of the 20th Century, Frazetta took courses at the Brooklyn Academy of Fine Arts from the age of eight under the tutelage of an artist named Michael Falanga. Frazetta described his training in a 1994 interview with Gary Groth at The Comics Journal. "He'd [Falanga] come and see where I was working and he might say, 'Very nice, very nice. But perhaps if you did this or that." That's about it. We never had any great conversations." Frazetta cited a number of his fellow students as equally important in learning how to make art, as well as studying the work of cartoonists like Milton Caniff. Frazetta was one of a handful of precocious teen artists that found work in the first decade of mass comic book consumption before and then directly after World War II. According to his entry at the Lambiek site, Frazetta's first job in comics was assisting John Giunta, then a member of Bernard Baily's studio. His first published work was the Snowman story that appeared in December 1944's Tally-Ho. Frazetta worked for Fiction House during roughly this same period, doing assistant's work cleaning up the by-market-demand, furiously performed artwork of veterans like Bob Lubbers and George Evans. His final apprenticeship came at Standard/Nedor soon after Fiction House. There the young artist became a skilled maker of funny animal comics, placing work in such titles as Supermouse and Happy. According to a biography assembled by art and books dealer Bud Plant, Frazetta's work in those first few years was providing illustrations to text stories that were included in the various Nedor magazines. Between 1946, when Frazetta did his first solo work for Prize Publications' Treasure Comics and 1948, when he began to take on a veteran's workload in terms of active art assignments, Frazetta began to flower as a comics artist. His pages during the 1948-1951 became much more his own, more idiosyncratically drawn and lovely to look at, much more effective comics in terms of flow and tone. His clients expanded to include DS Publishing, Eastern Color, DC Comics, Avon, American Comics Group and Magazine Enterprises. Most of his comics during this period were adventure-oriented, including a well regarded run of "Shining Knight" six-pagers that ran in Adventure Comics in 1950 and 1951. Other series on which Frazetta worked included "White Indian" in the Durango Kid title. In 1951, Magazine Enterprises reached out to Frazetta, hoping to secure a more structured and more profitable relationship with the young cartoonist who admitted later he was still as interested in playing baseball -- a naturally gifted athlete with acrobat's physique, he was once offered a tryout with the San Francisco Giants -- as he was in art. The result was Frazetta's first solo comic book series, the jungle adventure Thun'da, which ran for six issues in 1952 and 1953. Frazetta did not commit back to Magazine Enterprises. He added Toby Press, Prize and EC as clients to his already crowded list. Frazetta enjoyed a second run on a name character at DC, this time on the Tomahawk feature. He created a comic strip for the McNaught Syndicate called Johnny Comet (later Ace McCoy that ran for only a couple of years. It wasn't his first gig in strips, having ghosted for Dan Barry's Flash Gordon in a period just prior to launching his own feature. He even began a limited focus on covers-only work during the early '50s, suggesting an eventual direction and specific for the cartoonist's career in future years. His "Buck Rogers" covers for Famous Funnies are some of the most-lauded mainstream comics covers of all time. Given the nature of his skill, his time at EC wasn't as fruitful for Frazetta as it would be for many of his peers. He created a handful of well-regarded stories, with "Squeeze Play" likely making the greatest impression. That story appeared in Shock SuspenStories #13 in Spring 1954. In 1953, Frazetta began work for Al Capp as an assistant on Li'l Abner in part to make some money in a more structured way than may have been available to him in the rapidly shrinking and always chaotic American comic book industry. Capp offered him $100 a day for five days' work in Boston. He would need it, marrying Eleanor Kelly in 1956 (on Sadie Hawkins Day) and starting a family with her soon after. He would continue to work for Capp until early 1961, moving the bulk of the work to his home studio. In exchange for the stability involved, the assignment involved infrequent trips Boston, working for the parsimonious and famously difficult Capp, and doing work not his own for an extended length of time. Frazetta's run on the strip is regarded by some comic strip fans as a highlight of that feature's middle years and by some Frazetta fans -- and perhaps Frazetta himself in the years right after -- as a frustrating side journey that took the artist away from many of the things he did best. He left the job when Capp demanded he relocate to Boston. Upon his departure from Capp, Frazetta quickly discovered that the comics market had changed just enough to gently nudge him onto its sidelines. Unaccustomed to being on the outside looking in, it was during this period that Frazetta did work for various Men's Magazines, work later reprinted in books like The Sensuous Frazetta. He assisted Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder for a time on the solidly lucrative Little Annie Fanny feature they were doing for Playboy, although it's unclear if that ever felt like a long-time gig to the briefly struggling artist. In 1964, Frazetta forged a relationship with Jim Warren and his fledgling empire of genre-driven magazines. He would do one major interior story but soon switch to covers and the kind of iconic single-image making that was increasingly dominating his professional life. Frazetta's art on the Warren Magazines Creepy, Eerie and eventually Vampirella combined some of the pulp tendencies for which he was soon to become very well known with a sense of classic horror. They remain some of the company's most iconic pieces of art, and many were re-used in the 1970s as the companies did more in the way of special issues and compilations. He also did the covers for Archie Goodwin's short-lived Blazing Combat, some of the most somber and fascinating pieces of art the painter would ever attempt on behalf of a comics company. Although much fewer in number than their reputation might have you believe, Frazetta's Warren covers provided that company with a visual standard that provided a boost to its general newsstand presence, and took Frazetta's name and visual impact to mom and pop store magazine racks coast to coast. There was a second major component to Frazetta's creative and professional rebirth in the 1960s: paperback covers. Encouraged by Roy Krenkel to try providing art for paperback books, Frazetta began to take on gigs at Ace Books. Starting with Tarzan covers and an assist by Krenkel, this soon expanded into a full-time job providing painted covers and occasional interior illustrations to a number of Edgar Rice Burroughs paperback series and related genre works. The Frazetta paintings sold books all by themselves, and if any of the characters seemed slightly off-model in terms of what the books might describe -- Frazetta wasn't reading them, and wondered out loud how many people were -- nobody seemed to care. It was as if the artist had reached back to moments of high illustration craft that were common in visual media in the 1920s and 1930s and employed them solely in portrait after portrait of vigorous men, savage beasts, inclement weather, the occasional powerful, foreboding female figure and scores more soft-looking, bosomy maidens sporting fleshy buttocks that all by themselves were an effective argument for a type of beauty that ran in the opposite direction of that decade's more androgynous fashion icons. It was impossible not to feel grateful for the work in addition to slightly overwhelmed. His paperback cover-painting career is probably most firmly linked to a certain physical conception of Conan The Barbarian that envisioned him as a hard man but not an overly muscled one: a stone cold, stone-age killer. It was an older client that changed Frazetta's life. His portrait of Ringo Starr in a mock advertisement for "Blecch Shampoo" moved him out of making comics and more fully into making painted images, a place he would stay for the remainder of his professional life. It directly led Frazetta to his first gig doing a Hollywood movie poster, for the Peter Sellers film What's New Pussycat? He dove into this lucrative profession in typical Frazetta fashion, making poster art for a slew of films for the next seven or eight years, including The Secret Of My Success, The Busy Body, The Fearless Vampire Killers, The Night They Raided Minsky's and Mrs. Pollifax. As the cartoonist Sam Henderson points out in this short post , between the posters and the occasional humor gig, it was clear that Frazetta enjoyed chops that weren't As the 1960s became 1970s, Frazetta the painter started to accumulate enough work in enough high-profile showcases that he started to become Frazetta the brand. Frazetta's career was firing on a number of cylinders, a combination of mainstream gigs like the Hollywood posters (his last before his own Fire and Ice was a much-publicized poster for the Clint Eastwood/Sondra Locke effort The Gauntlet); an almost grassroots effort that involved connecting with fans of his paintings through portfolios, prints and books; and using the accumulation of prestige in all corners as a way to facilitate the sale of original art to collectors of both the status-seeking and genuinely-touched variety. The rising heavy metal music world picked up on the boldness of Frazetta's fantasy imagery and his work ended up appearing on a number of album covers, perhaps most famously southern rock outfit Molly Hatchet's 1979 Flirtin' With Disaster album, that made use of the painting Dark Kingdom. It was that group's biggest hit, and the gothic excesses embodied in such covers were both a part of that aspect of the music scene and an element against which pushed later pop music scenes and movements. The New York Times reported in 1977 that a single volume containing multiple reproductions of his work, The Fantastic Art Of Frank Frazetta, sold 300,000 copies for Bantam in its first two years on the market -- a hit by any standard and an almost unfathomable one for a book of pulp art paintings. That book would continue to be sold and reprinted well into the 1980s. Frazetta enjoyed other book successes over the years. The best single volume was likely 1994's Frank Frazetta: A Retrospective, published by the Alexander Gallery as a stand-alone but as a catalog for their showing of the painter's art. Its high-end production values have made the first edition a book worth multiples of its original low three-figure price. The verve of and general success enjoyed by Frazetta's work hadn't gone unnoticed by younger artists, and he remains a popular touchstone for anyone that wishes to combine fantastic subject matter with western painting tradition. A slew of popular artists such as but certainly not limited to Jeff Jones, Gerald Brom and Boris Vallejo, inspired to varying degrees by Frazetta's work and professional example, began to find work of their own starting in the early 1970s, and the number of artists with at least some Frazetta influence has grown in every decade ahead moving ahead. While the level of fealty some displayed for Frazetta's work might bring accusations of their riding the artist's coattails or simply providing an inferior version of what Frazetta did well for an audience that frequently wishes for more of something somewhat related to an original if no more original is to be had, the sheer number of artists who found at least some inspiration from Frazetta has meant that his approach to fantasy imagery has retained currency above and beyond the direct impact of his own work. Long before his passing, Frazetta's spirit haunted the science fiction and fantasy sections of most mainstream bookstores. While not everyone knows Frazetta's name, there are very few literate adults that won't recognize him according to his general artistic approach and subject matter if described in a few words. In the early 1980s, Frazetta collaborated with animator and director Ralph Bakshi to produce an animated film based on elements of his work. Fire and Ice opened in the US in August 1983 on approximately 90 screens and in various markets around the world for the next three years. Its domestic box office total was $760,883 according to Box Office Mojo. It has enjoyed a haphazard critical reputation over the years, although it seems to fare well for those looking to an alternative to Disney and anime styles that don't balk at the film's use of rotoscoping, or drawing over actors. The film is at its best capturing the physical action of its actors/characters, feats sometimes worked out on set by Frazetta himself according to the Groth interview some years later. Beginning in 1986, Frazetta experienced the first symptoms of a debilitating thyroid condition that he spent the next eight years fighting, along with a related 50 pound weight loss (to 128 pounds) and massive amounts of anxiety. In the 1994 interview with Groth, Frazetta cited a massive workload and exposure to inexpensive chemicals in various work materials as a potential cause. He also indicted much of the art from this period as lacking the verve of work before and after. The Frazetta name also made several minor, sporadic comebacks into comic books over the last 25 years. Fantagraphics published two comic book-sized collections of Frank Frazetta comic book material in 1987 as Frank Frazetta's Thun'da Tales and Frank Frazetta's Untamed Love. Then-Fantagraphics rival Kitchen Sink Press published some of the artist's humor work as Small Wonders: The Funny Animal Work Of Frank Frazetta in 1991. A reasonably high-profile series featuring Frazetta's Death-Dealer character appeared from Verotik in 1995; those books featured Frazetta paintings as covers and involved both Vertotik's founder Glenn Danzig and two Frazetta-influenced artists, Simon Bisley and Liam Sharp, in various creative roles. That series ran five issues at a point at which the North American comics industry was beginning to fracture badly especially for anything not a recognizable superhero comic. That series informed or at least prefigured a more ambitious, interlocking series of comics from Image starting in 2007. Bearing Frazetta's name and based on a number of iconic paintings, series and one-shots released to date include Frank Frazetta's Death Dealer, Frank Frazetta's Dracula Meets The Wolfman, Frank Frazetta's Moon Maid and Frank Frazetta's Neanderthal. Those comics again featured Frazetta paintings as cover with the interior duties coming from younger writers and artists. The Frazetta's opened a small museum on their East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania property in 2000, which quickly became the focus for the artist's ongoing projects and the starting point for establishing his artistic legacy. Lance Laspina's 2004 DVD release of his Painting With Fire documentary brought new attention to the Frazetta, and a glimpse into their life at the time of filming starting in 2000. It was generally well-reviewed. Frazetta continued to paint throughout. He would expand the number of images enjoyed by certain Frazetta icons, such as the Death-Dealer, and work in a wider variety of fantasy settings, from the soldiers in Seven Romans to the almost science fiction-looking Sound. In the early 2000s, Frazetta suffered a series of small storkes that caused him to relearn to draw with his left hand. There were eventually rumblings late in his career that like many older artists Frazetta continued to work on older paintings that many thought could suffer due to the time passed, a drop in facility, and the potential lack of connection between the aims of the older artist and his younger self. Ellie Frazetta passed away on July 17, 2009 after a year-long battle with cancer. She was rightly memorialized as not just Frazetta's life partner but as a savvy managerial presence who managed to raise both the artist's profile and the money he was paid for art gigs and original work. Following the loss of the family matriarch, the Frazetta children began to fight over custodial matters regarding their aging father and his impressive estate. This boiled over into public view in December 2009, when Frank Frazetta Jr. was arrested after trying to break into the East Stroudburg museum, maintaining that he had his father's permission to move some of the work to a safer location. Those 90 paintings had an insurance value of $20 million. Just last month a statement from the family said that the conflict over the work had ended due in part to the insistence of Frazetta. The criminal charges were subsequently dropped. It is no small note of encouragement that this arrangement was reached before the passing of the artist. It's hard to grasp the overall impact of Frazetta's long life and prodigious career. He had enough credits and displayed enough skill early on that he might be considered a forgotten Golden Age Great if his career had stopped the moment he left Al Capp's studio. There are a couple of massive What If? moments that took place in the early '60s. If DC hadn't been so rigid in terms of its approach to house style and someone smart there had seen Frazetta's work as grounded in the same Dan Barry take on adventure comics that drove a lot of their books even then, he could have been an astonishing high-workload, high-craft freelancer and provided them with another Joe Kubert-type anchor for their line as Marvel surged. Or he could have become as Henderson suggests a valuable contributor to MAD in its soon-to-be sales heyday, with all the attendant freelance illustration work that like would have come his way. Unlike most people in comics, Frazetta's roads not taken aren't the happier story; he accomplished almost three careers worth of work in his busiest decade, and stayed as productive as possible after that. He kept the important rights to his work, and he connected with fans like almost no other visual artist of the 20th Century. Frazetta's attention to fundamentals of craft, his dominant influence on a field of illustration that is likely to continue for decades yet and his relationship with iconic figures in an entire sub-school of popular literature, provide ample opportunity for children born at any time over the last 60 years to experience his work in a meaningful way. Coming across his work in the 1960s and 1970s, amid those decades' absolute disconnect from the recent past and outright suspicion of junk culture, was a specific revelation for their being so very little out there like it. Frazetta's work was one of the few consistent, visually accomplished gateways to somewhere else, a way of escape available to a generation of kids that was psychologically preparing to die when someone set the skies on fire. Frazetta's were potent images, strange, of obvious skill and stuffed with conflicting messages. There were the soft women and the more dread, powerful ones. Men faced off against monsters but also nature, and in some cases their own savage impulses. There was light like the light we were used to but also strange colors, light like no one had seen but that Frazetta somehow understood. They weren't inviting fantasies, but impressive ones, foreboding, aspirational rather than something that coddled or flattered you. If you went through the wardrobe into Narnia, events would likely fall into place, and you were pretty sure you could've handled that ring, but if you went to one of the worlds Frazetta painted something was going to eat you or stab you or have your soul -- if you survived the weather. These were fantasies you steeled yourself towards rather than fell into. And so it was with Frank Frazetta's art: it frequently impressed, but it almost always inspired. Mr. Frazetta is survived by three sisters, two sons, two daughters, and 11 grandchildren. ***** ***** *****

Though I'm sure the hundreds of artists creating chip music will disagree, renown Final Fantasy music composer Nobuo Uematsu recently described the resurgence of chiptune as a fad, like fingerless gloves, mood rings, or Soulja Boy's "Crank That" Dance.

"I acknowledge the returning popularity [of chiptune]," said Uematsu at a Q&A; session during Anime Boston last month. "Perhaps it is because its 'rough' sound texture is really fresh for the current generation. The trend comes and goes so I think this chiptune movement will go away at certain point just like any other trends."

Before those hundreds of chiptune artists reach for their tar and feathers (materials they'll later use to mod/personalize their Game Boys), blogger Zen Albatross, who posted the quote, points out that the composer could be referring more to the trend of developers using retro-style video game music in modern releases. Still, I hope both of those trends are here to stay. Like pogs.

Extra cosplay pictures are over here. A-Chan stuffs. Apparently one of the themes on the table is "AB Rocks." As much fun as most of the other themes sound too, I wanna do a punk rock and/or rockgod outfit sooooo bad. So classy! ...

Following their success at Anime Boston this year, I sat down for an interview with the creator of this outstanding group of musicians who specialize in video game music remixes!

So better late than never I always say! I've had the pics on the server for a while now, but now I'm throwing an official link on them. This will probably change a bit, but only for the better! Here are links to the pics, and the videos ...

At an anime convention in Boston, Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu said off-handedly that the Super Mario Bros. theme should have been played at the Olympics, and not Japan's national anthem. Is there something deeper going on, though? More »

Final Fantasy Composer's Chocobo Cosplay Wishes, Avatar Scoring Dreams Kotaku.com (blog) At last weekend's Anime Boston 2010, Uematsu got candid in an interview where he revealed everything from his thoughts on Avatar to his future cosplay plans ... and more »

Final Fantasy Composer's Chocobo Cosplay Wishes, Avatar Scoring Dreams Kotaku.com (blog) At last weekend's Anime Boston 2010, Uematsu got candid in an interview where he revealed everything from his thoughts on Avatar to his future cosplay plans ...

Hi all!  Nightengale Needles is back from Anime Boston and Tekkoshocon (here in Pittsburgh!).  Over

Mike Interviews Rorschach at Anime Boston 2010

As expected, day 2 saw more cosplayers than day 1. Day 3 had fewer, of course, and had a more relaxe

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of rocking out at Anime Boston!! The week(s) before were very stres

We had to assemble two hours before the show started, which seemed a little much, especially for the hall cosplay contestants who are really just put in order and told to sit. I understand that prep time is needed for the skits but ...

Anime Boston 2010: How to Get Down with Over 17000 of Your Closest Friends Toon Zone (blog) That's not to say that there is no cosplay at all on Sunday, only that it tends to be far less than the other two days since most attendees no longer have a ...

 

Review By James R. Holland

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      

All Photos by James R. Holland.

James R. Holland is a film editor, producer, and author--most recently of Adventure Photographer (A Bit of Boston Books/ 2009).  He writes MOVIE NIGHT REVIEWS exclusively for Basil & Spice.  Visit James R. Holland's Writer's Page.

Anime Convention 2010: Boston 

2010 Anime: Wacky, Weird, And Wonderful!

Anime Convention 2010: More Photographs 

Boston Will Miss Anime 2010

Copyright © 2006-2010, Basil & Spice. All rights reserved.

This is just a quick note after Anime Boston this past weekend, which was great! I wasn't really there for very long compared to my usual attendance standards, but I had fun while I was there. I went to Nobou Uematsu's QA panel... so amazing ;_;

Photos from the Northeast's largest anime confab
Photos from Anime Boston 2010 at the Hynes Convention Center

 
Photo: Maddy Myers

Anime Boston 2010 | Hynes Convention Center | April 3, 2010

 

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A positive view of Anime Boston from a member of Anime Club

Hi all, Tesh here. ^^ I never mentioned in this blog that I like Japanese animation and graphic nove

 

Review By James R. Holland

Gold Fish Caught In Revolving Door

 

 

 

 

All Photos by James R. Holland.

James R. Holland is a film editor, producer, and author--most recently of Adventure Photographer (A Bit of Boston Books/ 2009).  He writes MOVIE NIGHT REVIEWS exclusively for Basil & Spice.  Visit James R. Holland's Writer's Page.

Anime Convention 2010: Boston 

2010 Anime: Wacky, Weird, And Wonderful!

Anime Convention 2010: More Photographs 

Copyright © 2006-2010, Basil & Spice. All rights reserved.

But this is not about the direction or trends of the cosplay market in the United States. With so many cosplayers in halls, it seems it is time to review proper cosplay etiquette. So here at the Anime Boston blog we went undercover in ...

Anime Boston 2010: First Impressions Toon Zone (blog) The theme this year is "Mad Science", though I can't say I see too many people doing a whole lot of cosplay along those lines. Probably because mad science ...

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