Manga Maniac Cafe
For the Geek in all of us

Bean counter for a computer company in Metro Detroit by day, fanatic manga maniac/book addict by night, I have made it my mission to wade through piles and piles of books to save you, my gentle readers, from the sub-par reading material lining the book store shelves. In my tireless efforts to bring gems to your attention, and warn you off the stinkers, I surround myself with mountains of books. Literally.  My understanding Dean, finally ignoring the teetering stacks of books littering our home, has turned his attention to American pamphlet comics instead of complaining. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!

Seriously, though, I have always been a reader.  I remember pretending to be sick so I could stay home from school and read.  While I have always read books, I didn’t start reading comics when I entered college. I needed something short and easy to digest in between my dry, dreadfully boring accounting texts. Always an avid reader, comics fit the bill perfectly. I started with Ranma, and worked my way (backwards), to super hero comics. These were the days when Image Comics were flying high, and everywhere you turned in the comic store your eyes were assaulted by ridiculously proportioned humans packed into skin tight latex. I soon became discouraged with the comic world, and turned my back on it. Where were the comics that called out to me, a female reader? I wanted romance and angsty relationships; instead, I had undead, maggot riddled heroes like Spawn, or the constantly changing creative talent revolving through the X-Men titles.

Later, after ignoring books except for textbooks, along came TOKYOPOP, with their revolutionary (in the US, anyway) presentation of collected volumes, published, OMG, unflipped like their Japanese counterparts. The world, and my wallet, will never be the same. I rediscovered the excitement of prose novels, too, and have been enjoying YA and MG books, especially fantasies, paranormal romances, and my new favorite, books with zombies!  zOMG! I can’t get enough of them!

When I’m not working or reading pretty much anything with words, I pursue my other passion, horseback riding. Ever since I was a wee little one, I have dreamed of owning a horse, and in December of 2005, I was fortunate enough to make my dream into reality. I purchased an American Saddlebred, a 3 year old mare, Blondie. Since I had only been taking riding lessons for 6 months before I bought her, she was a little (ok, a lot) over my head. After a very shaky start, we make a pretty good team now.  And, to prove that I am brain-damaged, I now have a young Morgan mare, Elle, as well.  They are one of my greatest joys.  It’s very hard to be angry or upset about things that happen at work after visiting them at the barn.

In addition to the above, I also love to travel and anime and video games. DDR and ITG are my favorites, followed by RPG’s and turn based strategy games.  Ok, enough about boring me! If you have comments or questions, please email me at julie[at]mangamaniaccafe.com. I’d love to hear from you!