Dominic Deegan creator meets fans at annual Japanimation celebration

by Nicole McEwen

A Somerville artist was one of the featured speakers at the “Anime Boston” April 29 to May 1, where thousands of fantasy-seekers – many dressed as ghoulish creatures, scantily-clad women, and weapon-wielding warriors – converged for the annual three-day Japanese animation convention.

“Some people think I’m quick-witted, others think I have a horrible sense of humor,” said Michael “Mookie” Terracciano, the creator of the popular manga Web comic “Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire.” 

Terracciano signed autographs and hosted a question-and-answer session for a few dozen of his fans as part of the convention’s breakout sessions. This is Anime Boston’s third year in the Hub.

The artist said he was sick of tough-guy heroes with square jaws, cleft chins, and broad chests, and he liked how Japanese comic heroes were more feminine, more elegant, he said to a room packed with young men and women, many wearing wigs, kimonos, gothic-themed outfits, or tight bustiers.

“Dominic Deegan is a combination of what I love about both,” Terraciano said.

Terracciano, who waited tables before devoting himself full-time to his cyber comic strip three years ago, was a fan of American comic books as a child, but after watching a Sci-Fi Channel special on Japanese animation in 1994 became hooked on the unique, highly-stylized form of animated artistry, he said.

Terracciano’s comic strip is centered around a boy with supernatural visions, a seer, who gets into a lot of trouble with his colorful group of friends, he said.    

The geeky school boy is a big theme in Japanese animation, and the plots in his black-and-white strip speak reflect that influence, he said.

One of Terracciano’s most acclaimed strips was one in which the mean-spirited high school jock was blown to smithereens, he said.

“It was a bit childish, I admit, but it represented every dumb athlete that kicked my *** when I was young,” he said.

Still, the most important thing for Terraciano to create a comic strip where most people can relate to the hero and periphery characters, he said.

The most touching fan response he ever received was from a 13 year-old boy who thanked Terracciano for creating a character that was handicapped, he said. The boy wrote: “I’m disabled, and it’s nice to see someone in a web comic that can’t walk, like me.”

“I’m always amazed when people take the time to write me. It shows they really care about the comic strip,” Terraciano said. 

Terraciano said he has been imagining characters, plots, and themes since he was in the sixth grade, and he gets additional inspiration when in the shower.

“I’m a solitary guy. When you’re by yourself, you make up little friends and think up little stories,” he said. 

The Japanese comic artist tries to keep politics and sexed-up overtones out of his stories. Terracciano had penned a few stories with homosexual themes, but quickly learned that some of his fans thought a sexual focus, regardless of the different gender pairings, would drag down the strip, he said.

Terracciano, a supporter of gay rights, still maintains the homosexual bent of a few characters but tailors the majority of the strips toward more wholesome plots, he said.

It takes him exactly four hours to do an eight-paneled, black-and-white strip. Staying faithful to his fan-base, still in the cult-following phase, Terracciano posts a new strip every day of the week on his Web site:  dominic-deegan.com.

The site gets about 17,000 hits a day, he said.

Coping with the daily pressure of creative output can be overwhelming at times, said Terracciano.

When he’s feeling too boxed in at home, Terracciano takes a table by a window at Davis Square’s The Someday Café and cranks out his comic strip there, he said.

The Web artist said Somerville is a regular source of inspiration. “It just hits you in that Bohemian spot. It makes me want to write and draw.”

Terracciano, who said he plans on publishing a Dominic Deegan comic book in the near future, said his job is like a vacation.

Like all fans of Japanese animation, Terracciano enjoys the self-expression that is encouraged in this fantasy world, he said.

Anime Boston attracted an estimated 6,000 people, many from outside the New England area.

“The games, the comics, the outfits…This stuff is fun,” says Yuan Chen of Massapequa, N.Y., who traveled to the convention with three of his friends.

Attendees at Anime Boston enjoyed a wide variety of festivities, including anime music video contests, anime screenings, an artists’ alley and art show, karaoke, game shows, video game tournaments, role playing games, and live-action role playing.

“There’s a whole other side of video gaming that people didn’t even know existed,“ says Andy E. McGuire, owner of Tokyo Game Action, a Japanese arcade in Woonsocket, R. I.

McGuire, who provided equipment for the convention’s video game tournament, said he grew up playing video games at Assembly Square’s Good Time Billiards in Somerville.

McGuire makes regular trips to Japan – purchasing games in Tokyo a full year before they are released in the American market – and has one of the nation’s most authentic Japanese gaming centers, featuring Bemani music video games, which require players to stomp feet and pound fingers in sync with musical melodies.

“There’s so much to keep up with in the Japanese video game market. I’m always upgrading my equipment,” said McGuire. He plans on introducing a top-secret gaming innovation this summer. McGuire also sells other Japanese-import products at his store, such as anime.

Anime – the Japanese word for animated films – has become a big business in America, accounting for $500 million in video sales and about 10 times that in licensing, rights and related merchandise sales annually.

Although the most well-known anime are Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh!, there are other genres within the realm of anime that target a mature audience with complicated characters and sophisticated themes. 

Japanese comic books, called manga, are also enjoying enormous popularity among masses of Americans, young and old, for its wide-ranging entertainment appeal.

“Manga has love stories, comedies, action, or whatever else you’re looking for,” says Southern California resident Bryan Musicar, who sells yaoi, a genre of comic book that features male homosexual romance.

Women account for 95 percent of yaoi sales, he said Musicar.

“Many women are attracted to pure, non-threatening romance, regardless of the sexual orientation of the story’s characters. Japanese men tend not to be romantic, and the women really enjoy seeing sensitive male characters,” he said.

The androgynous portrayal of characters in anime and manga is part of what makes Japanimation so attractive, said Ashely D. Freeman, a student at M.I.T., who helped lead a panel discussion on “Queering the Mainstream,” a recent trend of homosexuality depictions seen in the media.

“It’s nice to see gay characters whose gayness isn’t the focus of the story,” Freeman said. “In yaoi, the emphasis is on the individuals.” She studied yaoi for one year in Japan.

Freeman said the stories are idealized and are not a reflection of Japanese society. “In Japan, homosexuality is not accepted or mainstream at all.

In addition to celebrating fantasy characters free of societal restrictions, many attendees at Anime Boston came to check out new developments in anime and meet the masterminds behind the storied fantasies.

Even people who are not hardcore anime-lovers appreciate the no-holds-barred atmosphere of Japanese animation, said Tim A. Guay of Manchester, Conn.

Guay said he does not watch much anime, but came to Anime Boston dressed as Edward Scissorhands.

Many convention-goers approached Guay and complimented him on his elaborate costume, which Guay crafted himself over a year ago, he said. “It’s not anime, but it’s really cool. I just thought people here would like it.”

“That’s why people read comics. We can do things in comics that we couldn’t do in real life,” Terracciano said.