Boosting a collider one comic at a time

Image courtesy of Keisuke Mori, ILC Fan Club 2008

Boosting a collider one comic at a time

Comiket—short for Comic Market—is the world's largest comic convention. Held in Tokyo, it draws more than half a million people from all over the world to buy and selldoujinshi—self-published manga and graphic novels. Some of these artists and writers have become so famous that people wait in line for three hours to buy their work.

Getting a ticket to exhibit at Comiket isn't easy, either; sometimes there are six applicants for every slot.

“I was pretty surprised to get a table,” says Masao Fujino, a student at the University of Tokyo Graduate School for Law and Politics. He and other fans of the proposed International Linear Collider came to sell their own doujinshipromoting the project.

One, called The Scientist's Viewpoint, featured physicists' reviews of science fiction novels. “The scientists have made serious explanations, not just criticizing them as impossible or ridiculous things,” Fujino says. “I think this makes our publication very attractive.” The ILC supporters expected to sell about 20 copies but wound up selling 150: “I am surprised to see a lot of people interested in accelerator and fundamental physics,” Fujino said.

A second publication was titled Kasokuki de Go! or Let's go with the accelerator! It used comics, essays, and other formats to analyze the personalities of ILC scientists, based on their responses to a questionnaire. “We can feel the sense of closeness to the scientists this way,” Shino Kojima, one of the founders of the ILC fan club, says.

In both cases, the fans were happy just to recover the costs of printing their books. “The deadline for the next Comiket is this coming Wednesday, and we are going to prepare the application,” Fujino says. “We will be here on December 30th if we can get the tickets again.”

Rika Takahashi