Anime fans were scarce at cons but at ones I went to since 1983. There were fan clubs like the C/FO before that.
I hired John McLaughlin, the chair of Animecon, at BayCon in 1989.
My ex held the 1st anime con, YamatoCon, in 1983.
Toren Smith put on a legendary anime showcase at BayCon in 1986. It had its own program guide.
Anime had not broken HUGE yet, but it was at cons, especially in California.
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I was in an animation fan group in the 80s when I was thirteen. We used to watch stuff like Nausica, Wings of the Honneamise and Kamai with plot summaries. I think I went to San Diego Comicon when I was 14, so that was about 25 years ago. The Robotech anime and comics were big and the Eclipse reprints of Kamai, Mai the Psychic Girl, Uresei Yatsura and others were just starting to come out, or about to, but anime was still pretty fringy. They had movie rooms with anime with fan subs, but very little to nothing in translation. By 93 that was just starting to happen. The fan base just wasnât there yet. Only a small core fanbase would have known was Neon Genesis Evangelion was. It wasnât until the big Tokyopop and Viz manga explosion that people started to really care about this stuff.
Black and white comics companies were small enterprises after the black and white boom. Darkhorse was just making the transition to color. I remember they had one of their own Robotech knock offs early on, but not a big hit with fans.
This was the state of affairs when Lea was showing her portfolio around. And it turns out that she wasnât entirely wasting her timeâshe was building the relationships she needed to to have the career she has today. That sounds like effective networking to me. So, âpersonality issues?â Iâm guessing that wasnât the problem.
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sounds like we were in similar(ish) boats at about the same time, just in different parts of the country. Fans in D/FW (or Texas in general at the time) weâre super fortunate, as we had a direct pipeline via C/FO San Antonio (and way to many other groups etc to go into). Strong enough influence that Harmony Gold test screened their (ill-conceived) Robotech: The Movie here (double feature with the original animated Transformers).
anywaysâŚso far as the rest⌠we have gotten way off topic, and oceans away from the intent of my original comment to whole new areas of misconstrued intent etc, and long since venturing into unnecessary flame war turf. I am still really interested in a discussion about the history of the COMIC BOOK INDUSTRY* ( and some of that history I still believe is debatable), but clearly this ainât the time or the place.
For my part, I do sincerely apologize for the disruption, and despite the periodic temptation to chime in, with regards to this ongoing webcomic, Iâma just vow to âlurk moreâ.
*which between Diamond, several years managing a Comic Shop chain, and a decade working guest relations/picking the brains of every artist/writer/publisher/distributor/actor who came through town makes up just shy of 20 years of my 42.
EDITED FOR CLARIFICATION.
I think lurking is wise.
My experience encompasses half my life, I was center stage for and midwifed some big changes in anime and manga, I was part of the best manga translation and lettering packager in the US (Studio Proteus). My bonafides, credits and knowledge are not up for debate.
Go somewhere else to have that discussion. This isnât the place for it.
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