This week, we're joined by Christopher Wanamaker and Craig Vaughn, DC Anime Club's President and Vice President respectively. The club has semi-monthly meetings as well as larger events, including international cosplay day which we promoted in our event list recently. Between Christopher and Craig, the DC Anime Club focuses heavily on community outreach and interaction, encouraging regional fans to come out, socialize, show off their talents, and even try to make the leap into production and professional roles.
I feel like I owe Christopher an apology. He told us he was "America's Greatest Otaku" and I assumed that he was just being honest about his otaku fame. No, no, there's actually a title, a competition, a show, and he's totally won it. I'm now completely addicted to it on Hulu. Here's the link to the show page so you can start from the beginning or skip to Christopher's win.
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| Christopher Wanamaker, America's Greatest Otaku |
As VP, Craig Vaughn controls logistics, graphics, and generally seems to be the hero that DC Anime needs. Listen in and you’ll hear that his focus goes well beyond the practicalities of helping run the club. He brings up discussion points about awareness of how the media perceives our fandoms, as well as some recent examples from Baltimore. Should our fandoms embrace the terms “geek” and “nerd?” Or are these epithets too dismissive of our passions? (Given our name, you can guess the DC Geeks’ stance on this one.)
You’ll also get to hear about large projects the club has a hand in, about how we got into anime, and about a few of our favorite AMVs. Celebrating their ninth year as a club, the group has expanded beyond anime showings to include educational presentations at local schools and universities. Christopher and Craig describe a variety of events from costuming workshops to teaching Japanese culture through anime.
DC Anime Club meets at MLK Library on the second and fourth Saturday of every month. You can also find them online:
Craig also points out that their marketing department mass promotes across DC and through the local con circuit, so if you have an event that's anime-related, make sure to throw an email their way.
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