FRONT PAGE ARCHIVES
Jun.27.05
Time for a super-awesome notification...When volume one of Bizenghast hits stands this August, Bizenghast.com will be kicking off a cosplay competition
for Bizenghast-inspired cosplayers, with some fabulous money prizes to the best cosplayers and fun giveaways to runner-up winners!
Be sure to check back here periodically for updates!
Jun.24.05
Hey y'all! You can now read chapter one of Bizenghast at Tokyopop's Takuhai Online site: LINK
There's also a way-fun interview with me as Creator of the Month: LINK
Unfortunately, the pages represented in that preview are NOT the final pages of Bizenghast. They're taken from the advanced reader copy, and
aren't as high quality as the final pages (some pages aren't even going to be included at all in the final version, or have been replaced).
Why Tokyopop used those files and not the final versions is beyond me.
In other news, MTV.com finally released its Overdrive feature about cosplay that includes interviews and segments with me, my friend G-chan, Kev,
Paul and other cosplay weirdos. You can check it out at the Overdrive site! www.Mtv.com/overdrive.
I just got back from a guest spot at AnimeNext in Jersey, as well as judging a terrific masquerade there. My friend Jez, of course, swept the
whole competition with his EGA skit...great job, Jez! In a few weeeks I head out again to San Diego ComiCon...I never seem to be home
for more than a week, it's so tiring! But if you're going to SDCC, please stop by and say hello to me! Tokyopop will be selling
the first wave of some really cool Bizenghast merchandise at conventions this summer, including nifty posters and notebooks you're sure to love.
If I'm good, they'll even mail me some. :)
May.27.05
Sorry it's been a while since the last update...I have to once again push back the sister site to accomodate some
awesome new projects and to incorporate yet more cool interactive stuff in the site's design. But believe me, it'll
be totally worth it. To the left are three of the new sites that will be added to this website soon!
In other news, July's issue of Newtype USA has a cosplayer spread about me that mostly concerns how I use costume
design and creation to aid creating my book series. I'll be signing issues of July's Newtype at San Diego ComiCon
July 14-17 in San Diego, CA. So stop by the Tokyopop booth and say hi to me!
June is going to be a very busy month for me. In addition to another photoshoot, I'm also going to be very
involved with the filming of Riddle Road, as well as doing a guest spot at AnimeNext in NJ. If you're
going to AnimeNext, be sure to check out one of my panels!
The advanced reader copies of Bizenghast volume one shipped to the press this week and I've gotten
some great feedback on it thus far. The actual book ships to stores the second week of August, so reserve your
copy on Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com today!
-Queenie
Apr.22.05
Hey all! Here's an update on the sister site:
I'm almost done with it, but I don't want to post it until after this weekend's photoshoot in MA and next weekend's AnimeBoston
convention, because there are things from both events I want to include. So it IS coming, just very slowly! :) I'll have
some sneak peeks up in the next week or two so y'all don't eat my head.
By the way, if you're going to Anime Boston next weekend, why not stop by and say hi to me on the Tokyopop
panels? I'll be doing both the Friday and Saturday panels, and if you stick around after Saturday's gets out, we're
all going out for some late lunch and you're invited! :)
Last weekend was spent in Long Island and New York City, talking to Sean o'Hara, producer at NHK, one of Japan's biggest TV stations.
While I can't say exactly WHAT was discussed, I will say that Sean was a very awesome fellow with whom I hope I'll be working again soon!
Also went to I-Con on bizniz and interviewed Jewel Staite from Firefly...she was so incredibly cool! Overall these last
two weeks have been very busy, talking about new projects with TOKYOPOP and whatnot. And next month I have go away again for more photoshoots. It seems I'm always away every weekend...
it can only get worse once the major cosplay season hits.
M. Alice
Apr.01.05 (v2)
Yes, as you may have guessed, "Trick-Or-Thieves" is just an April Fool's joke, although that didn't stop it from making the front of OtakuNews.com. I have no
plans whatsoever to do such a book, and although I AM involved in some future projects with Tokyopop at the moment, this is not one of them. Happy April Fool's Day!
Apr.01.05
Hey everyone! Just wanted to let you know, the new sister site and this site's updates will be a little late. I've had some health problems lately and been bogged
down with a new project, so the new changes will have to put off til April.
In the meantime, please check out my new series for my company, entitled "Trick-Or-Thieves", at my DevArt gallery here: Trick-Or-Thieves . Or look online at www.otakunews.com!
-Q
Mar.24.2005
Hey all! I'm back from my "weekend" trip to Philly, which went into overtime cuz I love spending time with my friends in the area.
Saturday was the photoshoot and filmed segment for MTV...it was tons of fun! The ineffable duo of Gchan and Kev organized a Resident Evil photoshoot to which they invited some cosplay friends...me, Paul, Jamie and Josh, Rogue and Flexei. We had a super ton of fun doing a great on-location shoot with our fabulous photographer Jeremy (a really talented dude who was very patient with our assorted antics) and we later did a segment in a local club for MTV, along with another at an upscale diner. I had lots of fun, although I didn't much like the wireless mic they put on me because I kept accidentally sitting on the black box part.
The most insane part of the early morning photoshoot was that we all had airsoft guns and prop guns with us, and a local resident spotted us on the way down to the shoot at seven a.m. and called the POLICE and reported us as being armed. We were only a few minutes into the shoot when policemen snuck up on us and shouted for us to throw our weapons down. Kev apparently thought that meant he should take his gun OUT of his holster and throw it down. When the cops saw him going for the gun, they nearly riddled him with bullets! Kev, you can be profoundly ridonkulous sometimes. Kev was seriously almost muerte at that point, but luckily the cops figured out why we were there when they saw the cameras and were very relieved we weren't up to no good. It was a pretty scary moment. But that was the only real incident of the day, besides me getting a run in my stockings and having to book it to a local CVS for more.
We should all thank the MTV host for putting on a pink wig and looking scared in pictures He was very nice and had to do a lot of different takes for many scenes, including standing out in the cold a lot.
Overall it was a lot of fun to do the gig and later on Kev, Gchan, Paul and I did another shoot elsewhere for my Alice costume and Kev's Resident Evil riot gear.
I believe you can see the feature on MTV.com's "Obsessed" later in April...I'll let you know when it comes out!
In other news, I officially received my schedule for book two of Bizenghast, yay! Now I can start in on it and post preview pages from the second volume.
-Q
Feb.28.2005
Bizenghast.com will be getting a slightly new format AND a sister site for more multimedia projects to be archived on, plus a whole bunch of new gallery art, an actual guestbook and
BZG-related fun...all in the month of March!
Feb.21.2005
MC Chris is going to be in town this week! That RULES!
Feb.12.2005.
Hey y'all! I'll be at Katsucon 11 in Virginia THIS WEEKEND (18th-20th), yay! I'll be sitting in on the hall cosplay to judge costumes. Please stop by and say hi!
You can now view the Flash Player for Bizenghast at Tokyopop's site! It's got previews and info all about volume one. Click the image at right to go there now!
Feb.06.2005
Reserve a copy of Bizenghast, volume one NOW at Tokyopop's shop site! Click the link at top to go there now. You can also reserve volume one through
Amazon.com. :)
-Q
Dec.30.2004
I just saw the awesome feature about Shoujo Phonebook in SCAD's alumni magazine. Shoujo Phonebook is this great manga-ka club at Savannah College of Art and Design that
I SO wish was there when I was a student! Unfortunately manga wasn't terribly popular in the comics department back then...I was one of six girls in the major when I arrived
at SCAD four years ago. I got a lot of grief from other students for drawing "japanese-style comics." But now there's a huge calling for manga fans and the Shoujo phonebook has been putting together big volume anthologies of their work.
I think that's wicked awesome! I just wish I knew where to buy those books. :|
Dec. 27.2004
I'm completely mired in MYST IV: Revelations. I really love the Myst games, but this is definitely the hardest one yet. It's also got a wealth of plot going on, which
I really like. But some of the puzzles are so difficult! This is definitely going to have me working at it for another week or two.
-Q
Dec.23.2004
Christmas is almost here! I can't wait!
Now that there's a nice fall of snow on the ground, I'll be updating the gallery with an all-new Cosplay section that includes some pretty winter-themed photos. I'll also add new costumes shortly and expand the section to
talk about each one and how it was made. Cosplay is so fun!
In addition to that, I'm working on a new set of Bizenghast-themed cosplay outfits for this summer for a SECRET project. It's way cool.
Right now I'm working on volume 2 of Bizenghast...volume 1 is getting put into production for reader copies to be sent out to reviewers and such. Street date is July 10th.
Check back here for more updates soon!
-Q
Nov.27.2004
Just checked out the great article BUST Magazine did about the emerging U.S. manga industry, including a nice feature piece of art by moi. It's still so odd for me to see big articles about manga
in a decidedly non-comic related publication. It got me thinking about the recent flood of "anime-ish" american cartoons (Teen Titans, Totally Spies, etc). It's always a struggle to accept some of the less appealing collisions of japanese and american pop culture that can sometimes
result in less than spectacular products, but it's important to realize that without these first steps into bringing a larger audience into the field, a lot of the comic book industry in America
would not be recovering from its massive slump right now. For that reason, I'm glad of new shows like HiHi Puffy AmiYumi and others that try to introduce the manga and anime-related
culture into more mainstream american channels. I had a really fascinating panel discussion at Savannah College of Art and Design's Comics Art Forum this month on this very topic, among others.
Howard Chaykin (a really amazing and funny guy in person) was lamenting the fact that the american comic industry is something like guys delivering pizzas to each other over and over...
mostly inbred and exclusively catering to an audience of about 200,000 readers. He was surprised when my editor brought up the fact that TOKYOPOP averages in the millions of
readers, giving support to the idea that manga, like it or not, really has breathed a lot of new life and energy into the american comic market. In particular, it opens up the female
reader demographic...something Marvel and DC have tried maybe twice in the last two decades and then given up on. One of the staff at SCAD running the forum mentioned that they had a Marvel
representative at the forum a few years ago who stated emphatically that Marvel "had already tried" to garner female readers and that it simply wasn't feasible. Joke's on them, I guess. Didn't try hard enough or something.
That was an awesome panel, by the way. I had an incredible time at the whole forum doing my workshops and whatnot, but I think the highlight was having a couple drinks at the Pirate Ship
while expounding with Scott Hampton on the absolutely most offensive jokes we could think up. :)
But my point is, gold star stickers all around to the programs that some people may crit for either being "not authentic Japanese" or for apparently trying too hard. At least they're trying, guys.
I think we've come a long way from Shonen Knife doing Powerpuff Girls music videos a few years ago.