AltJapan

WonderFest: the Manga

I be famous! Doctor F's Catch as Catch Can, an online "Essay and Essay" (!) posted on the Japanese-language Tornado Base web site, is a collaboration between legendary subculture publisher Doctor F and manga-ka Kondo Yutaka. (Sharp-eyed readers will recognize his trademark handiwork from Hello, Please! too.)

That's me, apparently, in the middle, hoisting a three-pack of Illanena's Daikaiju Trump soft vinyls amidst the chaos of WonderFest. The best part, aside from the fact I've been drawn wearing a T-shirt reading "gaijin" (oh, if only my wardrobe were so fly) is the all-katakana rendition of my speech, which probably sounds to native-speaking Japanese people like a recently-immigrated Indian cabbie's speech sounds to a New Yorker. "Cool desho?"

Daikaiju Trump

The summer "Wonder Festival," Japan's second-largest gathering of nerds amateur and pro, went down like that giant-ass freight elevator in "Akira" this Sunday. Only the minute details differ from previous years -- this time around there was decidedly more mini-sofubi, like the ones sculpted by my pal "license to" Ilanena, he of the awesome Kenner-style logo, a die-hard Flatwoods Monster fetishist and director of short films with titles like "Violence Farmer." (Seriously, check these things out: he sculpted them based on tiny illustrations from an obscure set of monster playing cards packaged with bottles of mayonnaise in the '70s. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.)