This is a follow up from the last post. Read it first if you haven’t.
Well, that was exciting, wasn’t it, boys and girls? Yes.
Party’s over now, I’ve disabled the comments because I just don’t feel the discussion is adding anything at this point. If you really have something to say, you can mail me. Now that we’ve all had a chance to calm down, I’ve reopened the comments. Play nice.
Several persons have requested I take yesterday’s post down. I will not do so, because I don’t see what purpose that would serve. I may edit it as my understanding of the situation evolves, but at this time, my opinion is my opinion, and I have a right to it.
— [edit edit snippity snip] —
All right, whatever. I am willing to accept that my interpretation of Mike Tower’s comment as a veiled threat regarding my attendance at ALcon was just a big misunderstanding, and that he wasn’t trying to pressure me into removing the post. Oh, wait, no, he was trying to pressure me into taking down the post. But it’s nothing to do with ALcon.
Glad that’s cleared up.
There are a lot of misunderstanding in this whole saga, aren’t there? We’re just misunderstanding things left right and centre.
The Manga Alliance today carries an update. I quote and comment.
- Manga Alliance is still a work in progress, and while this site is launched, it has not been promoted whatsoever, even on most of our own sites. We launched the site to get initial feedback.
OK, but you know Google exists, right? There was no indication on the website that this was a pre-launch version. The front page asked for volunteers, not feedback.
- We are here to help ALL events, industry and websites – this is whether they join us or not. We are willing to still work with events, sites and publishers even if they do not officially join.
Compare and contrast: “Only by all fans and industry professionals working together can we defeat the credit-crunch and avoid anime & manga going backward in this country! Manga Alliance aims to unite all the conventions, events, meet-ups, news sites, communities and groupings under one alliance where the whole will be far stronger than the sum of its parts.”
- None of our partners in this will get preferential treatment at events. This is not the point of the alliance.
Hello, one of your partners owns the mascot that will be on the banner you put at events. That IS preferential treatment. There is also this, in the rules for events: “4- You will need to guarantee that you will put prizes and gifts from our sponsors in your con-bags.” That is also preferential treatment, for your sponsors (who are they?) Update: a commenter points about that Dimensional Entertainment describes themselves as a sponsor to Manga Alliance. What a surprise.
- The Pwanda icon was choosen because of its popularity. We welcome suggestions if you believe you could come up with something that would have a bigger impact. Please use the contact form to contact us.
It’s not about impact, it’s about the impression you make, and who you are. Do you represent the community, or are you a subsidiary of Dimensional Entertainment? It makes a big difference, and the mascot makes it look like you’re the latter.
- Another major goal of Manga Alliance is to bring in events which are not traditionally associated with anime and to encourage them to feature anime and manga products more heavily. This would actually help publishers and dealers not signed up with Manga Alliance, and we would be happy to help them get tables at these events.
How would you help? Why do we have to go through you, rather than talking to the events ourselves like we currently do? What are you other than an unnecessary middleman? Getting tables at events isn’t rocket science as far as my experience goes, you pay, they give you a table. Unless you’re too late and all the tables are gone. There is no widespread bias against manga, either. Comics events are happy to have manga people, I’ve been going to several of them for years.
- The website will be clarified and re-written in places over the weekend to avoid any further confusion.
Well excuse me for being confused!
But good luck with the rewrite. I think we have all learned a valuable lesson this week about the importance of good copy writing.
Although, for the record, I still think this venture is suspect as hell, that the way Anime League have handled criticism (mine and that of others) was disastrous, and that there is no purpose to this alliance. There is no need it fills. It’s a glorified link exchange that presents itself as the saviour of manga in the UK.
No, thanks.
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