Well, since there doesn't seem to be a main thread started for guests yet, I'll start one!

Music
I'm sick and tired of all the Jrock and Visual Kei bands. It just ain't my thing. How about some nerdcore up in this convention? I'm thinking MC Chris! Best known as the voice of Hesh on Sealab, and also MC Peepants on ATHF, MC Chris would make a great addition to this convention! He lays down lyrics about nerds, anime, and Star Wars. In fact, I don't think there's a bigger fan of Star Wars than MC Chris. 'Cept maybe MC Frontalot who would be another great musical guest (if you can get him to come out of hiding, he doesn't tour much).
http://www.mcchris.com
http://www.frontalot.com

Artists
Why pull all the artists from Japan over here, when there are plenty of great artists right here! I would like to see some of the American artists from Tokyopop come out and talk. Like Marty, who does Bizenghast. Or how about Svetlana, who is coming out with the manga Dramacon.
http://www.bizenghast.com
http://www.svetlania.com

Personalities
I think this should be the con of internet personalities. Star Wars kid, Tron Guy, and Lip-synching guy to "Numa Numa Dance". They could all give a panel about what becoming famous on the internet has done (or not done) for their lives. I think it would be great and funny.

Okay, everyone else give your ideas!

That would be simply insane

Great ideas, Leechan!!

Actually I was thinking about MC Chris myself, and it's definatly worth looking into!
For artists we can probably snag Michael Poe, as his girlfriend is in our organization. Also, apparently we know someone who knows someone who knows someone who is one of the rising stars of manga winners in the US, so we'll ask that guy. We can also get that MacHall guy, and HOPEFULLY the penny arcade guys will show up.
I'll look into those other guests as well!

Does anyone actually know where to find the starwars kid? Didn't rumor have it that he ended up moving and being treated for severe depression or something?
Oh well, if we track him down we'll have him duel the bear with lightsabres!

MC Chris would be the best!

Since We will be trying for MC Chris Why not Mindless Self Indulgence MSI and MC Chris are doing a show together in NYC ans lets face it us Angsty teens love MSI and if you wanted to sell tickets to a show this would make them sell like freaking hot cakes MSI probly dosn't ask too much since they mainly do club shows anyways. if we were really cool we could get a projector and play MSI's AMV's while they prefrom since theres like a freaking AMV for each of there songs. I bet we could totally book MSI and that would blow the doors off of any other Con!!!!!! Also I know first hand MSI has a huge Ohio following I saw them at Bograts and Newport so they do come to Ohio alot

MC Chris and MSI Baby!

http://www.mindlessselfindulgence.com/

starwars kid is a no no he was sueing everyone around I dought he would be happy to jump along

There's a growing amount of secondary literature about anime in English. We could try for an author like Fred Schodt, Brian Ruh, Susan Napier, Helen McCarthy, etc.

Another idea might be to find a prof or grad student who's published on anime/manga. Not the sort of thing that would draw tons of people, but it could be a cool addition to the regular assortment of VAs.

Fuck MSI. Plain and simple. Do you want this to be a pretyy rad Anime Convention or Revenge Of Ohayocon with its droves of roving goths. I'd say stick with some Nerdcore. MC Frontalot, MC Chris, Maybe even get KOMPRESSOR if you could. (KOMPRESSOR is just for me though). I'd like to see MC Chris come and maybe do some signings and a show. If he would agree to take part of a panel to tell us what it was like hitting it big with the anime culture and such is like.


As for the prof/grad student who has had manga published maybe have said published artist explain HOW they got published.

Clarification - I was talking about academics who've published articles (in peer-reviewed journals) on anime/manga, not anime/manga itself. Stuff like: http://www.animeresearch.com/book_journal.html

I want you to Invited My buddy DJ Pandable(Panda)! Mike you definatly remember him from SugioCon and Everyone at Sugio would too. I wanna see DJ Ed and DJ Pandable Team up once again for us!

I agre with trying to expand on the american side of Anime. Alot of great things have started to happen now that the different genre's are mixing.

If I may add to the musical guest ideas, I'd like to mention a very talented and very kind anime and game musician named Michael Gluck, also known as "Piano Squall", who has so far performed well-received concerts at Tekkoshocon, Connecticon, two different Kunicons, and even Otakon.

PianoSquall.com

Hey, if he comes for free we'll have him!

Problem though... hotel has no piano, and those things are kind of hard to pack!

Oh he brings his own keyboard for concerts. XD

Like pretty much any con guest, he doesn't ask to be paid to come. Or are you including no help with hotel expenses for guests? If so then that might be pretty darn hard to pull off for almost any guest. o.o;;

At the present we are only paying for really important guests (not that everyone isn't important, but we mean like VA's and stuff). Our hotel is costing us a bundle, so until we know how much surplus we have (if any, oh God help us) we arn't spending ANY more than we have to, so we will not be helping fan-guests this year. Maybe if we do damn good (over 1000) we'll invite them all back and buy them rooms and a nice dinner next year! It's up to you guys to advertise to make that happen though! It's all about word of mouth! Either way, I'm interested in having him. One idea I would like to do is have the hall performers compete or something!

I have connections to Brian Ruh, I could drop a message to him in addition to your email. He actually lives in Indiana so a drive to columbus wouldn't be too far. Along those lines I'd really like to see these guys and in addition I'd really like to see Ben Ettinger from anipages daily.

Most cons only focus on the American side of anime, what really needs to be focused on is the Production side over in Japan. Most anime fans know jack shit about where their favorite medium comes from and the people involved in creating it. Eventually I'd like more japanese guests, but there is a resource issue with that.

As for suggestions for artists: I'd recommend two artists who are actually acclaimed outside of anime fandom but are very much influenced by Manga. They are Becky Cloonan (who did work on Demo and is working on East Coast Rising for Tokyopop) and Bryan Lee O'Mallery who did Lost at Sea and Scott Pilgrim.

Having Paul Pope talk about his experiences at Kondansha would be really cool, but that's a bit of a streach and pope isn't quite as much affliated with anime fandom as the two artists above. Boilet would be even cooler, since he's been ACTUALLY PUBLISHED in Japan but we need a French translator and we'd have to fly him in from either France or Japan (depending on where he's living now).

As for suggestions for musicians: Go with the Spoony Bards, they have talent, they play anime/videogame music and both Mike and I know the guy who heads them ;). I think they are the polar opposite of swek when it comes to covering this sort of music, they are low key, not full of themselves, professional, and talented. Though they tend to play with a more "classical sound" having flutes, unelectric gituars, piano etc.

I'm absolutly in love with Mike McFarland and he's such a sweety. He is the director for Fullmetal Alchemist and he did various voice roles as well. He was at Tekkoshocon for anyone who may have met him there.