Doujicon / Minifest

May 8, 2010
10:00 am	to	6:30 pm

What do you get when you cross a sleazy Spanish octopus with possible underworld connections with a sweet 16 year old girl who’s a former goat herder now living in the big city, but recently got kidnapped by people from Adelaide?

Peppa Chan - Recently kidnapped by AVCon's mascots

Yeah, I’m not sure either… Not even sure where I was going with that to be honest. The point is that two events I’m organising are being smooshed together as one (like I always intended them to be… sorta)!!

DoujiCon / Minfest Details

The DoujiCon and Minifest will be on Saturday, May 8th, from 10am, at Monash University’s Caulfield campus, in Building K.

Entry is $15 for a full day of screenings, workshops, games, events, and a live metal gig by Faeble following the closing ceremony.

But Why?

DoujiCon, for those that don’t know, is an independent convention for cartoonists that I started up back in 2006 after far too many of the local cartoonists were bitching about how they weren’t able to make sales at big conventions because they had to justify to people why they should be purchasing an unkown comic book versus another Naruto headband for the same price.

Antonio Pulpo - Mascot of DoujiCon, lover of the women

Yes, the name is a pun, based on the conjunction of the two words “Doujinshi” and “Convention” However, it’s meant to be pronounced “Dodgy Con”, being a not-so-subtle joke about the supposed quality of work of Austalian cartoonists. The mascot is also another not-so-subtle joke… The event was originally meant to be tied in with the Melbourne Anime Festival as a sub-event, but the then powers that be rejected the idea. As a joke, the not-yet-existing mascot was blamed. So an appropriately inappropriate mascot, an octopus that is a lover of women in the vein of Hokusai’s The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife was created.

Basically DoujiCon is an event where cartoonists gather to sell their comics with out commercial pressures. They also get to network and collaborate, making for one of the largest gathering of Australian cartoonists anywhere in the country.What’s more, tables are free.

For regular attendees, there are also classes in literally every aspect of making and marketing a comic book, from basic illustration all the way to theoretical based classes on marketing and gathering an online following.

Minifest is a different kettle of fish altogether. Begun in 2005 as a way of letting Melbourne based otaku let off some steam between Manifest events, it is basically there to be the non-commercial anime convention… That is to say, there are no traders there. So it’s basically Manifest or SupaNova, minus a traders hall. The funny part is that attendees still bring money and attempt to buy things, mostly from each other. You’ve been well trained, my consumer whores!

The perfect marriage of manga and western comic styles... *shudder*

So by smooshing the two together, not only does it save a fair bit on venue hire and organisational issues, it also brings two co-interested crowds together, exposes otakus to non-manga comics, and exposes non-manga cartoonists to thigns like cosplayers and tentacle rape.

What could possibly go wrong?

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