I sometimes wonder where my obsession for collecting manga, for in many respects that is what I do, came from. It’s easy to assume that it started with comic collecting, but I wasn’t that big of a comic collector when I was growing up. There were a few series I followed, but it was nothing like the “gotta catch ’em all”, feeling I sometimes get with manga. It finally hit me, as I was driving home from work, listening to a podcast. I had grabbed the mp3 of a BBC Radio program, “On the Outside It Looked Like an Old Fashioned Police Box”. It’s a radio documentary about the old Target book novelizations of the Doctor Who TV series from the 70’s-80’s. This series of books made available all the episodes of Doctor Who long before there were VCRs or DVDs. And I used to read them. I was a big Doctor Who fan long before I was a manga/anime fan. And with the show not starting in the US until the 4th Doctor, Tom Baker, there was almost 15 years of the show that couldn’t be seen, but through the novelizations, could be read. As I’m listening to this…
Yeah, I should have written this last night, but I didn’t get home until after midnight and was exhausted. Saturday was a struggle to wake up, but we managed it, had another nice breakfast, and checked out. We made it to the convention center just in time for the Women in Manga panel, the only manga panel I was able to make it to all con. That’s just the way it goes. I’m not lamenting. Lots of other people were there to cover the manga panels, and if I’ve got anything to add, I’ll do it in my weekly news post.
Day two started out with a real breakfast. Eggs, pancakes, french toast and toast. This hotel is awesome! It’s a lot better than the fast food sandwiches we usually end up with. Didn’t make it to Stargate Universe, but we weren’t looking forward to the line, and we were tired last night.
Found via AiCN. Gia of Anime Vice has put together a collection of fanart pictures of the Doctor, manga style. Most of the pictures are cute, and I really like the strip art on the far right with the companions. Very funny. The art features the current 10th Doctor played by David Tennant. He’s young, cute and very action oriented. He’d be the perfect subject for a manga adaptation. Especially as a bishonen, as this rendering shows (credit needed). Now would be the perfect time for the BBC to captialize on this and allow an OEL manga of the Doctor to be made. The announcement of the eleventh doctor, Matt Smith, has led to a lot of speculation, with the one that makes the most sense to me is that he will be going goth. Yes, we’ve had Victorian with the 1st and 8th Doctors, but speculation I’ve heard and seeing what he’s done in the past makes him perfect for the goth style. And it’s what’s popular with the teenage girls, a demographic Doctor Who hasn’t quite captured yet. Russell T. Davies has already given the Doctor lots of angst in his 4 year run. This just seems to…