hakurei reimu, inubashiri momiji, yakumo ran, moriya suwako, tatara kogasa, and 9 more (touhou and 3 more) drawn by mizuki_hitoshi

Artist's commentary

  • Original
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    がんばれ小傘さん 545

    自分の日頃の行いを小傘さんに投影して描いてみようという日記漫画です。

    みんなコスプレしてましたが、全員描いてたら死ぬのでこのくらいで(笑)
    このまま続けてたら混乱するので、明日からはネタで描く以外はまた普通のキャラに戻します。

    ところでマリオいなかったけどどうしたんだろう？(笑)

  • Comments
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    Moonspeaker
    [hidden]

    Everyone was cosplaying, but it'd kill me if I drew them all, so this is all I did. :-) It'd be confusing if I kept on like this, so starting tomorrow, I'll go back to just the usual characters, plus anyone I have to draw for the sake of the gag.

    By the way, there wasn't any Mario. I wonder why? :-)

    Reader-added tags include "Mario's taking part in a game", "Hoshiguma Yamame" and "The eternal runner-up" (a.k.a. Luigi).

    The poll runs with the whole Mario business:

    Whom do you like in Mario?
    • Mario
    • Luigi
    • Princess Peach
    • Wario
    • Detteiu

    (That last one is the way Japanese fans phoneticize the noise Yoshi makes.)

    0 Reply
    Kilgamayan
    [hidden]

    In thinking about it, I'm kind of surprise he included Juhani's Suwako in this picture, since she wasn't a part of our group of rooms. I guess she traveled around enough with us that she stuck in his mind. Still, I expect we'll get a strip about his participation in the Friday shoot, so I would've figured he'd save Juhani until then, since both she and Masakuni's Kanako were involved.

    1 Reply
    Genichiro
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    Shot-gun Tokiko! (Can't see the legs, but I wonder if it's Tojiko cosplaying as Tokiko?) And Yuugi dressed as Yamame! We can only see SilentSword's back; I wonder if Mizuki-san will draw him as regular Reimu or KD Reimu? And at least, the Ran-tails! (I thought he was going to save Red's Ran for a mofu-mofu gag.) So great to see everyone getting drawn, thank you, Mizuki-san!

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    Moonspeaker
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    Rukaroa said:
    Translation request of the comments if possible. Or at least the gist of it.

    A couple are amused at how into cosplay Americans are—more than the Japanese, one says. One says the Tokiko in sunglasses reminds them of the master of Reitaisai. A couple have fun with the Mario characters, while one gets a kick out of "Yamame Hoshiguma". Then there's some exchange about the shotgunbrella.

    KentArrow said:
    Ur...by the way , do you know what Detteiu means?

    Yes, I explained it in my earlier post.

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    MaullarMaullar
    [hidden]

    YuriTenshi said:
    Well, it's not like we could sell doujinshi either. The localization companies would be over us faster than you could say "lawsuit"...

    I don't think it's fair to say the US lacks a doujin culture, so much as that the energies of independent 'doujin' creators are focused less on fanworks and more on original stories. Boston is actually a good example--we have the Boston Comics Roundtable, a network for indie cartoonists to share feedback, moral support, and information on New England-area cons and other sales opportunities.

    The thing is that these activities mostly take place away from AB and the anime culture, such as it were. If there were more interfacing between the independent comics scene and the anime scene--if there was more crossover of talent and creativity--I think we would see more of an American doujin culture in the sense that Japan has.

    Then why don't we? Certainly the legal system has something to do with it; Marvel serves C&D's on people cosplaying its characters in Times Square. (It's a copyright and trademark thing, and a general fear that their image will be tarnished if some guy in a Spiderman costume, say, drops a baby while taking a picture.) But that can't be the only factor; people continued to file-share despite the risk of liability, and it's simply not worth it for a publisher with limited resources to police every Artists' Alley around the country.

    Maybe it's an age gap thing; the average independent cartoonist I know has a good 10, 20 years on the average anime fan I know. Maybe it's a symptom of the general fracturing of the American nerd populace. I can't say for sure. But it's interesting to think about.

    1 Reply
    StriderTuna
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    _cf said:
    About the doujinshi scene, it can't be only about fear of copyright, because, you know, Touhou.

    The same can't be said about anime as the companies that hold the licenses for various series in the US would sue. That and I doubt anyone'd care for western drawn doujins based on anime series.

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    Robert3186
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    Personally I think the legal issues really are the core reason and others just sort of flow from them. The law is flat out probably the primary reason we'll NEVER see Japanese style physical markets. Earning ANY money(even just covering expenses) off fanworks in the US is a huge grey area at best and simply considered straight up illegal in most cases.

    I think the perfusion fanart, often very good quality, on the web shows that talented artists with the interest to do it probably exist, but the legal issues make it a losing proposition so it stays diffuse and small scale. Laws would need to change before western fanart became anything more then snippets floating around in the safety of the web.

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    MaullarMaullar
    [hidden]

    I think that really depends on the level of enterprise you're looking at. Note that Viacom didn't sue YouTube until Google acquired them, because that's when there came to be money in suing YouTube.

    Which brings me to the reality that copyright litigation is a rare duck, because there's no profit in it. The costs of trial are high, and the rewards in most cases--especially against a "judgment proof" (that's lawyer-speak for poor) amateur artist--are peanuts. Even if a rightsholder gets a settlement nice and early, there's far more money in big-ticket mergers and acquisitions, in patent, in oil and gas law, etc. Look for a law practice of any appreciable size that specializes in copyright, and you'll find a scant handful if any at all. If this trend continues, we may end up in a situation like Japan's where there are too many potential infringement actions and too few IP prosecutors.

    I would also note that counterfeiters continue to do their thing in spite of prosecutors' and legislators' efforts. (At least, that's what the shady guy who sold me my fake Rolex said.) I think the takeaway is that if the demand is there and if the money is there, creators won't be deterred by the risk of liability--no more than pre-Google YouTube was, at least.

    Of course, change needs to come from the copyright law. The definition of derivative works ought to be scaled back, and really, fanwork should be the realm of trademark rather than copyright. A creator has a legitimate interest in protecting consumer goodwill in his works and his characters. But that goodwill is not necessarily denigrated by fan engagement. That, like the falsity that copyright must be enforced or it is lost, is a misconception that rightsholders cannot drop fast enough.

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    Firestorm29
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    So you can choose who to enforce a copyright against and not worry about losing it? I thought that's the way it always worked, that an owner can choose how a work is used and a release to public domain is a decision explicitly made by the owner alone.

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    NWSiaCB
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    I think the "lack of demand" is a greater issue than "copyright litigation".

    Keep in mind, it's not exactly like there aren't fanfiction-themed websites out there. It's just that fanfiction on the Internet over here is FREE.

    Copyright litigation is also not really a certain thing. Keep in mind, you can trade mark the name Batman (TM), you can copyright the batman logo, and you can copyright Batman issue #1934, but you can't copyright the concept of a guy in a mask and cape fighting crimes, even very specific types of crimes or plotlines.

    In fact, most of the comic book industry has superheroes that are shameless ripoffs of the popular heroes of other comic book companies, and you'd better believe Marvel would rather be winning a lawsuit against its archrival DC than one of their own fans (who probably won't be much of a fan for much longer) wearing a Spiderman suit. They don't sue, however, because copyright lawsuits are, usually, just a bluff.

    You can copyright the exact words of a story or the exact code you used in a program, or the exact pictures you used, but if someone else creates their own version (including, especially, parodies), then it's fair use.

    When D&D started, they were sued by Tolkien for trying to use a "Balrog" in their obviously LotR-inspired game, so they used a "Balor" instead. Then Warhammer ripped D&D off. Then Warcraft ripped Warhammer off. Then 4th ed D&D ripped World of Warcraft off...

    There's actually a pretty good case to be made for things like AMVs not being copyright infringing: http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity.html

    So, back to the point... The real reason you don't see a big doujin market booming is that we Americans just don't think of fan-made content as being something we expect to be charged money for. We expect it to be available to us for free over the Internet.

    Maybe a few of us will buy the print version of a webcomic of our absolute favorite webcomics, but those that do probably read plenty of online media for free, and only choose to spend money on those artists we want to support, not because we can't get that content without spending money for it.

    It's much harder for a fanfiction writer to get any sort of fame (at least, with the exception of infamy like My Immortal), and there's always a bit of the stigma that fanfiction isn't as "professional" as writing your own original work, so it's naturally going to be harder to find people who are going to be willing to drop cash for the things you write.

    That's not to say corporations can't be dicks about not respecting the notion that the "amateurs" who self-publish in a field that they think should only allow their giant publishing firms to decide who is or is not allowed to publish their works, but that they don't really decide what happens in the marketplace. In the market, demand is king. As long as there is demand, someone will somehow find a way to make money finding a way to supply. The reason there isn't anyone making it supplying doujin works in the western world is that there isn't enough demand.

    1 Reply