Cleavage is bad?
Apparently it is.
Since putting the new logo up this morning we've received a number of complaints from people who are offended, and others who just don't think that it's appropriate. There have also been a few inappropriate comments about “How to win an Anime Fanart contest” (Answer, include fanservice).
That is completely untrue. We chose Valery's picture because it was a very nice piece of art. We all agreed that it was one of the best, and we all felt that it had beautiful coloring.
I was naïve enough to believe that none of our readers would have any problem with something as mundane as a bit of cleavage and a navel. A few other staff members did bring the issue up however.
As Dan said in the Forum, “I'm not kidding you when I say she won despite the cleavage, not because of it.”
On the other hand, we did fail to realize that various people read ANN at work and in the presence of others, so for some it isn't a matter of their own beliefs, but a matter of the beliefs of the most intolerant person in the room.
Regardless, we are not going to remove Valery's picture. We think it's a great piece of art, and to remove it from ANN would in many respects be similar to removing any famous nude picture from the museum in which it is displayed.
What we will do, however, is compromise. We will offer everyone (including non-registered users) the option of disabling the bottom part of the image (all you need is a browser that accepts and stores cookies). Perhaps without the bottom half you will be able appreciate Valery's excellent coloring even more. You can change your settings here
On to happier news. Today we will be adding links to the websites of all the artists that submitted work for the contest, so you can browse and see their other work. If you submitted art to the contest and would like to have a link to your art gallery/webpage placed beside your submission please send us another e-mail at [email protected].
We will also be adding a fifth page of some entries we received that could not be judged as part of the contest because they were either too late, or did not fit the guidelines.
Choosing a winner for the contest was very hard. When the contest was announced I expected to receive a dozen or so entries with 2 or 3 that were good enough to use on the site. Instead, we received over 20 entries and almost any one of them would have looked very nice on the website. So we decided to put it to a vote by the staff members, and it was very close. A number of very different pictures, some very complicated and some very simple, were listed by various staff members as their favorites.
Regardless of which one we chose, I couldn't help myself from feeling guilty about not giving some of the other logos the exposure they deserved. We considered running the chosen logo until December 25th, and then alternating to a new logo every day until January 2nd, but as one person pointed out, “You picked your winner for the sole purpose of using it for the whole month and if that was your original plan, you should stick to it.”
I never thought a fan art contest would be so hard to judge, but the fact is, this one was because the submissions were so great. We were honestly blown away by the great response. It's a kind of “good hard” one that we look forward to dealing with again next time we do something like this.
So thank you to everyone who participated, and to everyone else, I hope you enjoy Valery's logo on the top of ANN for the next month, whichever version of it you chose to have displayed.
Christopher Macdonald
Since putting the new logo up this morning we've received a number of complaints from people who are offended, and others who just don't think that it's appropriate. There have also been a few inappropriate comments about “How to win an Anime Fanart contest” (Answer, include fanservice).
That is completely untrue. We chose Valery's picture because it was a very nice piece of art. We all agreed that it was one of the best, and we all felt that it had beautiful coloring.
I was naïve enough to believe that none of our readers would have any problem with something as mundane as a bit of cleavage and a navel. A few other staff members did bring the issue up however.
As Dan said in the Forum, “I'm not kidding you when I say she won despite the cleavage, not because of it.”
On the other hand, we did fail to realize that various people read ANN at work and in the presence of others, so for some it isn't a matter of their own beliefs, but a matter of the beliefs of the most intolerant person in the room.
Regardless, we are not going to remove Valery's picture. We think it's a great piece of art, and to remove it from ANN would in many respects be similar to removing any famous nude picture from the museum in which it is displayed.
What we will do, however, is compromise. We will offer everyone (including non-registered users) the option of disabling the bottom part of the image (all you need is a browser that accepts and stores cookies). Perhaps without the bottom half you will be able appreciate Valery's excellent coloring even more. You can change your settings here
On to happier news. Today we will be adding links to the websites of all the artists that submitted work for the contest, so you can browse and see their other work. If you submitted art to the contest and would like to have a link to your art gallery/webpage placed beside your submission please send us another e-mail at [email protected].
We will also be adding a fifth page of some entries we received that could not be judged as part of the contest because they were either too late, or did not fit the guidelines.
Choosing a winner for the contest was very hard. When the contest was announced I expected to receive a dozen or so entries with 2 or 3 that were good enough to use on the site. Instead, we received over 20 entries and almost any one of them would have looked very nice on the website. So we decided to put it to a vote by the staff members, and it was very close. A number of very different pictures, some very complicated and some very simple, were listed by various staff members as their favorites.
Regardless of which one we chose, I couldn't help myself from feeling guilty about not giving some of the other logos the exposure they deserved. We considered running the chosen logo until December 25th, and then alternating to a new logo every day until January 2nd, but as one person pointed out, “You picked your winner for the sole purpose of using it for the whole month and if that was your original plan, you should stick to it.”
I never thought a fan art contest would be so hard to judge, but the fact is, this one was because the submissions were so great. We were honestly blown away by the great response. It's a kind of “good hard” one that we look forward to dealing with again next time we do something like this.
So thank you to everyone who participated, and to everyone else, I hope you enjoy Valery's logo on the top of ANN for the next month, whichever version of it you chose to have displayed.
Christopher Macdonald
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