Thursday, August 11, 2005

Well, the next better thing

I had a dream last night.

I had a dream that I had a webcast for the Jojo community to get news and to ask questions of Jojo and VIZ comics (the official translators of the book series).

I'm making that come true.

I just emailed the editor of Jojo at VIZ and he sent me the address of the person i'm to contact. I sent the following email:

To whom it may concern,

I am the webmaster of a popular North American Jojo's Bizarre Adventure fansite called 'jojopedia.com'. I have been online since April 2001 previously at 'Geocities' and, by the time of my URL registration of 'jojopedia.com' on August 1st, I had over 39,000 visitors in that time with an average of 17 visitors daily with parts of the site translated into Italian by some fans of its own. Now with the notice of an official translation of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure by your company VIZ Comics, my website has been getting on average 110 hits per day from people all over the world and I have received over 5,000 hits since my move on August 1st of this year. I am an active member in the online Jojo community and have been reading Jojo's Bizarre Adventure in its original Japanese since 1989.

I am adding to my website a 'Jojo Webcast' which will be a webcast for and about the Jojo's Bizarre Adventure community as a whole. In this I would be talking about things that are coming up in the US, Japan, Italy, and France (where Jojo is the most popular), interviews with webmasters, translators for fansites, and hopefully with some people at VIZ. I received your email address from a gentleman whom I believe is the editor of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure whom then instructed me to make my formal request to you. I hope this is acceptable.

I am writing to ask permission to interview one (or more) of the fine people working at VIZ Comics on the Jojo's Bizarre Adventure story, either translator, editor, or someone involved in the production of the manga. People in the community are 'chomping at the bit', as it were, for the book to come out in English and I thought that an interview with someone 'in the know' would be a great way to let the fans know a bit about some behind the scenes facts at VIZ and how Hirohiko Araki has influenced this translation as a whole.

For the interview I would send the exact questions I would ask in the interview via email and, if at all possible, I would like to have the interviewee send their answers back in '.wav' form for the webcast. I would then record the questions being asked myself and piece the interview together to make it sound as though we were having a conversation. If necessary, to make sure the broadcast interview is acceptable to you, I would send you the completed broadcast first and not make it available to the public until I receive your ok. This webcast would then be a free download at my website at 'jojopedia.com'. If you have optional ideas I would be more than happy to hear about them.

I thank you for your time and hope that we can work something out. I am very excited that VIZ is the company translating Jojo and hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,
Justin S. Carmical
http://www.jojopedia.com


She's out of the office this afternoon, but hopefully she will reply by the end of next week.

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