I’m planning a long trip to Japan next year in March or April together with my parents. Do you have any tips about things that we should not miss to see? I’m particularly interested in tips for the following regions:

• Ryukyu Islands / Okinawa
• Kyushu
• Shikoku
• Kyoto area
• Tokyo area

Some of you were already waiting for this news post: It’s time again for our yearly artwork contest! This time, however, the contest is only for Gaia related artwork! So it’s actually the Gaia artwork contest 2018. The reason for this is that there will be a special Sandra and Woo 10th anniversary contest later this year since Sandra and Woo will celebrate its 10th anniversary on 19 October 2018!

Nonetheless, the best entries of this year’s Gaia artwork contest will receive a nice sum of prize money. The total prize money is $750! If your drawing skills are just average, you will still have the chance to become one of the winners by drawing something funny, clever or innovative. To participate in the contest, your artwork must reference Gaia in some way. You can also submit other types of art such as 3D models, action figures, fanfiction, or even (photos of) a cosplay costume.

• 1st place: $200
• 2nd place: $150
• 3rd place: $125
• 4th place: $100
• 5th place: $75
• 6th place: $50
• 7th place: $30
• 8th place: $20

Please send your entry in an e-mail with the subject “Gaia artwork contest 2018” to novil@gmx.de. You can attach the file to the e-mail or put a link to it in the e-mail’s text body. You must submit your entry until (including) Sunday, 26 August 2018. If you have a website that I should link, please put its URL into your e-mail as well.

Additional information about the contest:

• You can submit several drawings or other types of art, but you can win at most two prizes.
• Please do not publish your artwork on other websites before the end of the contest. After that, you can post it anywhere you want.
• You can sign your work. But a large, ugly watermark will reduce your chance of winning.
• Digital images should be sent in their original size in a lossless format, for example as a PNG file with full color depth. If you draw the image on paper, you should send me a large, clean scan of it in a lossless format, for example as a PNG file with full color depth. However, you can’t attach files larger than 25 MB to your e-mail.

From 10 June 2017 to 18 July 2018, the following eight polls ran on the Sandra and Woo website. It’s time to present the results:

Poll from 10 June 2017:

Our readers were happy to see more of Cloud again in 2017.

Poll from 10 June 2017:

Given that The Divine Comedy is currently winning the poll about the best story arc ever, the short story arc about Larisa’s dating tips is also among our most popular ones.

Poll from 10 June 2017:

Ivan got a surprising amount of votes for appearing in only a handful of strips. I’m surprised that Seeoahtlahmakaskay and Ruth received more votes than Zoey and Luna.

Poll from 10 June 2017:

While Seeoahtlahmakaskay and Ruth won the poll for the minor characters, Lily, Shadow and Sid are in the last places in the poll for the secondary characters. I will create a new poll for all supporting animal characters soon.

Poll from 10 March 2018:

This result is not particularly surprising.

Poll from 10 March 2018:

Not many readers have bought a new tablet in the last two years, only 18%.

Poll from 10 March 2018:

One doesn’t often see such a uniform distribution! 54% of our readers bought a new smartphone in the last two years.

Poll from 10 March 2018:

In August 2011, I asked the same question. Back then, 79% of our readers were 23 years old or younger. Now it’s only 50%. I have therefore begun making plans to excite more young readers about our comic(s) again.

I have just added a new poll in the voting widget in the left sidebar: “What is your all-time favorite story arc?”

To keep things manageable, you can only select among the winners of previous polls about your favorite story arcs.

The following characters had the leading role in the listed story arcs:

• Larisa: 6 times
• Sandra: 2 times
• Cloud: 2 times
• Zoey: 1 time

I guess this makes Larisa the most popular character of our comic.

I would also like to encourage you to write something about your favorite story arc (which does not have to be from the provided list, of course) in the comment section of this post.

After my visits in 2016 and 2017, I also visited the Comic Con Germany in Stuttgart (site map of the main hall) last Saturday. It was once again a lot of fun. I met several German comic artists, bought comics and original artwork, and saw an enormous number of cosplayers with great costumes. In this post, you can have a look at all the photos I took with some added commentary. You can click on each photo to see a larger version of it.

While it was still quite crowded on midday and the early afternoon, there were fewer visitors compared to the last two years. According to a newspaper article there were around 40,000 visitors instead of 50,000 visitors. That led to a better experience overall because making your way through the crowded floors was often a challenge in the last years. I hope that the convention stabilizes at the current visitor number to area ratio in the future.

In the first part of my article, I want to give you an impression of several parts of the fair. In the second part, I want to show you some of the artists that were present there and the comics and artwork I bought from them. The area where independent artists showed their work was significantly increased in size this year. In the third part, I want to show some amazing cosplayers. In the last part, I want to show you some impressions from the massive LEGO area.

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