I really should be studying. I seriously should. But I meant to post here about how the Dragon*Con panels went, in case any of you stop by and are actually interested in hearing about them.
Classic Cartoons: I think it went really well. There was a bit of a problem with one of the four panelists liking to hear himself talk–the panel started at 2:30, and I came in thinking there was only going to be one other woman with me, but there was a man sitting at the table talking away (he’d signed up as a panelist that morning), and I really couldn’t get a word in edgewise. I think the panel ended up working out better with 4 people on it (though the second guy–poor him, he was sort of quiet and wasn’t able to say much of anything), and we did have some good discussions, and I felt that I was able to contribute pretty well. And bringing up Pirates of Dark Water, as well as Scott McCloud’s excellent book, Understanding Comics, both got me a little smattering of applause from the attendees. *grin* A bunch of my friends were there, but even though they weren’t, it was a full room, and a big success.
Women in Animation: I don’t want to say it “tanked,” because the two celeb panelists we had did get a lot of good questions directed at them–I just felt incredibly redundant up there. I’d suggested this to talk mainly about female cartoon characters, and that didn’t come up AT ALL, until I tried to bring it up (by asking if either of them had female characters that had influenced them), and one of the panelists just replied witha simple and blunt, “No!” Nice. 😛 Anyway–we were supposed to have 3 (an animator and 2 voice actresses), but 2 didn’t show up and the 3rd got there late–but there was a girl who’d come to watch who actually is an animator herself; she works as a lighting director for an Atlanta 3D animation studio (which is putting out this movie), and asked if she could join, which I was totally thrilled about, and she ended up being really nice and approachable, too. But the entire hour ended up being questions directed at them about their careers and jobs and how they got to where they were–I got nothing. Literally, nothing. Up until the last question, anyway. But a few people came up to talk to me about PoDW after it was over, and I got to plug my site (at both of these panels, actually), so it wasn’t a total loss.
And now it’s back to the grindstone…full load of classes, plus worrying about where I’ll be when I graduate in less than 3 months…I’ve got a ton of Japanese reading/translating to do and have an eyestrain headache, which is Not Fun. But on a much cooler note, the number of pageviews I’ve been getting daily has gone up–it was around the mid 50s prior to the con, but it’s been steadily increasing and is now at over 80 hits a day–which really isn’t much in the grand scheme of things, but it’s a lot for me. So thank you so much for visiting! I’m sorry I haven’t been updating lately…if I get a break I’ll get back to work on the site. :o)