because I was stupid and didn’t make a prompt post about anime north HAHAHA

so I went to AN on saturday with jenny! we basically just walked around the artist alley like 4 times, raided dealer’s room and then got denied at double tree for panels because NEITHER OF US BROUGHT THE PROGRAMMING BOOK BECAUSE WE’RE RETARDS. I got to say hi to a bunch of super awesome people at the AA (which was my sole purpose of going to AN this year LOL) and really looked around AA for the first time in years, and man did people really pick up on the fact that stylish fanart galore is the key to success, because almost every booth has similar portraits of the current trending shows in each’s own style and I was sad ): It’s also weird that despite nailing this down, the only popular/successful fanart booths were really the same ones as before. I wish I could figure out why but it’s probably due to my lack of comprehension in this area that I can’t do well myself LOL. I bought a bunch of artbooks though! they were fucking expensive but I’ll just take it as saving on shipping/effort looking/worries about quality and postage. I miss 50rmb artbooks in china ffffffff

And then we pigged out at a kbbq place I knew… it wasn’t that great but it was the only one I knew of in my area LOL ): I forgot it was a hot day so we kind of grilled with the food in there.

I wanted to go to Dimitri’s afterwards BEFORE we went in but as you can guess we got really full afterwards so it didn’t happen ):

SO THAT WAS SUNDAY. TODAY MY BOOKS ARRIVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m swiftly taking over all the space in my house I swear I’m like a plague. I’ve been packing orders and organizing stuff ALLL DAYYYY ok I lied I only packed orders for a few hours and spent the rest of the time getting pissed off at fucking canada post for the imminent strike that is SO well timed with my preorders. I’m not going to complain though because this is beyond my control, and surely better than say, my books falling into the ocean or exploding with a derailed train or missing pages etc.

lol u gais look at dis mexican sweatshop and this is only like 1/4 or 1/5 of my orders LMAO. But yeah, just like when I started preorders, the beginning of this process was really slow as I was putting my well-planned streamlined packing I’ve prepared for this day into practice.  I believe it feels kind of like a rocket scientist watching their billion dollar baby turn from virtual simulations and scaled models into a machine blasting off into space, waiting for it to explode in midair and FAIL LOL. But I’m so relieved that the books are finally here and that nothing catastrophic has happened yet.

I am happy with the book’s quality; I wish I could compare the final book with the proof copy but my parents took it to read/show people without asking me and lost it LMFAO… but from my memory, the pages are printed in much higher quality than the proof (obviously since it was offset), and the binding–although not completely perfect bound which was a slight surprise, but I don’t know what they did because I’m still unfamiliar with the whole printing thing–seems solid and can withstand some force. As usual, I tried to rip one book apart and the pages withstood mishandling pretty well. The pages and the cover were both darker than the proof, so some pages turned out really dark, but it’s still fine to read. Overall I think I’m just too relieved to be picky right now (and probably a bad idea to start being critical about it before I even ship it out and scare/disappoint the buyers LOL) but I will probably write up a complete recount of my experience with printing for the first time sometime soon, so others will be able to learn from this and have an easier time ^^