FINAL FANTASY & MORE

Just a short list of books that arrived last night.

ANIME BOOKS:
1. Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Art book
2. Tsubassa art book
3. Deathnote -2 different art books
4. Metal Gear Solid -2 different art books
5. Mai Hime art book
6. Lineage Art book
7. Bleach artbook boxed set
8. Nartuto Artbook
9. Gothic Lolita Bible #30
10.Trinity Blood Artbook
11.Ragnarok Online Artbook
12.Gundam Seed Destiny Artbook

NON-ANIME BOOKS:
1. New RAGNAR - Vernaculir
2. New RAGNAR - Kings of the Road
3. Art of Josh Howard vol 2
4. Cartoon Modern
5. Bone Collected (fat one)
6. Absolute Dark Knight
7. Black Razor
8. Boris & Julie Bell HC

and lots more coming soon.

FanExpo Sept 1-3

Wow it's been a long time since the last post. sorry, wont happen again. So what's new you ask? Well since my last post, i've been to San Diego where i picked up a lot of new sketchbooks. I've also been to Paris France, where i placed orders for a bunch of really great new BD titles.

Our next event will be FanExpo at the Metro Convention Centre Sept 1-3. As a result of all the new stuff, we've expanded the art book section of the booth. If you havent seen us in a while, you will be pleased.

Some NEW sketchbooks include: Chris Sanders,John Nevarez,Stephen Silver, Dean Yeagle,Piere Alary,Jose Lopez, Robin Mitchel, Louie Del Carmen, Jim Lee with wildstorm crew,Leniel F. Yu, Adam Hughes, J.Scott Campbell, Bobby Chiu, Robert Valley (gorrilaz,aeon flux), Derek Thompson (pixar) and several others.

We also got in a bunch of great French BD, some terrific Anime Art books, and if all works out several computer animation/concept design books that you got to check out.
Come by the booth to see all the stuff.

NO STORE

So the bad news is NO Store. Yeah, we tried for a store, but came in second with the landlord picking another retailer. What can you do?

The good news is we'll have a lot more free time on our hands than if we got a store. Owning a store doesnt just cost a ton of money to rent($50k-80k a year), but is a huge time commitment. So Yay!

Other exciting news - I am heading for Comic-Con on Wednesday. Can't wait to get my hands on all the cool new sketchbooks. We already got books coming in from several artists, but you never know what you're going to find at this show. If you hear of anything, or want me to look out for it for you in San Diego, please email me.

We've also got a large shipment of French books coming in soon. Very excited about that!

STAY TUNED: I'll be announcing a downtown book sale shortly. It will be free admission -so you can see all the new books from San Diego, etc..

FREE ANIMATION -TEX AVERY & MORE

So by now you probably know of my professed love of youtube, but here's another blogger with an awesome list of full length animated cartoons you can find on youtube.

click here to see list

NOTHING'S OFFICIAL

So it could happen. We might be opening a store. the operative word is might. Meeting today with the leasing agent. Kind of excited and nervous at the same time. We've been running this business since 1988 and we've never had a store. In anticipation that we will get a store, i ordered a couple of books about store design last night. IF YOU HAVE ANY OPINIONS OR IDEAS on store design (maybe theres a store out there that you like -that you think we should check out for ideas on how to set up the displays)please email me. Also - started working on a mascot for the store. Will try and post some artwork next week. Oh -and i should be able to announce if we got the store or not next week too. Finally if you got any ideas for promoting the store, we would love to hear them.

OPENING A STORE

Show after show people ask us where's our store. Our answer- we got no store. So now we're in the process of looking for a store. The ideal store in my mind would be accessible by subway, be located near schools and offices and have decent pedestrian traffic weekdays and weekends. We have two types of customers - the manga crowd (typically 14-25 years of age students) and the artist crowd (typically 18-40 years of age. including both professionals and students) So our location would have to be appropriate for both our customer groups to be able to find us. oh -and if you see a 'for lease' sign in a store window that you think would be good for us -please email me. I would love some feedback. - where do you think would be a good spot for our kind of store.

John Lasseter Student Film Pencil Test

As you may or not have already observed - i love to look on youtube, and you should expect ill be posting some of my findings here. The following is John L's student film from his CalArts days. Brings back memories of Sheridan for me. Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnjzM7vY8DY&mode=suggested_some&search=pixar



On a side note, one interesting thing that i learned was that adding the word 'Pixar' the title of your clip might help it be found. Most are really bad student films. but i admit without it, i would never have discovered the following short starring an awful Scrat (of ICE AGE) rip-off. So that i dont appear overly negative, i will say that i liked the backgrounds and the senselss violence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxspiCMDLB0&mode=suggested_some&search=pixar