Early this month, the New York Anime Festival was held at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, with Nick Magazine's Dave Roman hosting
Avatar: The Last Airbender's panel.
The discussion revolved around the latest video game,
Avatar: The Burning Earth, the highlights of the second
Avatar magazine, and unaired episodes of the show's current season. There was also a “fake spoilers” segment, in which sketches made by writer/artist Johane Matte were presented as “what-if” scenarios. While the segment was intended to be “nothing more than entertainment and good fun,” there was some confusion among fans, which compelled Roman to clarify some things in his deviantArt site.
“Although it did start off with potentially real background images [the set up], MOST was fake,” Roman wrote on his site. “The scenes were all just silly ideas of mine or Johane's combined with a parody of Harry Potter, and stories that end with weddings or dance parties... It wasn't intended to be mean or to get back at anyone for anything.”
Roman also explained that they decided to include a “fake spoiler” section because the description the NY Anime Fest used to inform attendees of what they can expect from the
Avatar panel was a tad inaccurate. Apparently, Roman, who has been vigorously promoting the magazine for the past two years, told the NY Anime Fest that their panel would talk about the magazines and the mini-comics, but also devote some time to discussing “the show itself and speculate about the upcoming series finale.”
However, the NY Anime Fest ended up posting that Roman would be giving “hints about” the series finale, rather than just engaging the audience in a speculative discussion.
“My intention was speculation, not actual breaking news,” he explained. “And it made me nervous that people would see the description and assume that this panel was the place to get the scoop on the finale.
“As someone who tends to go out of his way to avoid spoilers, this was definitely not the case. But it did make me think a lot about what kinds of spoilers people wanted to see, and funny variations on that other famous series that just ended… [
Avatar: The Last Airbender producer] Bryan Konietzko had the good sense to point out that some of the joke images might be too subtle and confusing. So, we tried to make it even more over the top and silly. But perhaps they still weren't fake enough!”
Roman, however, said that while the “fake spoilers” segment was not intended to make up for their failure to provide information about the upcoming episodes' release dates or other things fans may be interested in, he did try to gather details prior to the NY Anime Fest, “but no one could confirm anything.”
“So for now, all we can do as fans is be patient and know that there's still plenty of great stuff to look forward to,” he said. “And like I said on the panel, better to appreciate the fun of having things to speculate on while we still can. Pretty soon we will know EVERYTHING, because the
Avatar series as we know it will be over.”
-Lisa Claustro, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Source: yaytime.deviantart.com
(Image Courtesy of yaytime.deviantart.com)