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Fred Gallagher (born 1969) is an American illustrator who has become a full-time web cartoonist. He is best known as the artist and co-creator of Megatokyo (Gallagher now has full ownership of the property). He also goes by the name of Piro, the main character of Megatokyo, whom he has stated is an idealized version of himself when he was in college. He does not physically resemble his comic strip counterpart. He took this name from the name of the cat in the ren'ai game Kanon. His wife goes by the name Seraphim, a supporting character in Megatokyo. Her real name is Sarah. Gallagher resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He has traveled to Japan several times but, contrary to popular belief, is not fluent in Japanese.
Projects
The Fine Red Cat
The Fine Red Cat (1993) is a children's book by Jennifer Ann Gallagher, Fred Gallagher's sister. It is notable as the first published work Gallagher illustrated.Megatokyo
The webcomic Megatokyo started its run on August 14, 2000 in collaboration with Rodney Caston, who owned the domain and wrote most of the scripts for the first year and a half, while Gallagher was responsible for the artwork. Due to creative differences, Caston agreed to sell his share in the venture to Gallagher in May 2002. (See Megatokyo for further detail)
Megatokyo
Since Gallagher attained full control over the strip, it has now more reflected his vision, with an increasingly complex cast of characters, and a far slower pace than the original strips. The influence of Japanese manga and computer dating sims can be seen in both the character design, plotline and storytelling. While this has earned praise from some critics, it has also alienated some fans of the earlier strips, which were more comical, relying more on humor, slapstick, gags, and simpler storylines.
None of the Megatokyo strips are inked, but rather drawn in pencil, and scanned. Gallagher's attention to detail extends to the frames, which he hand-draws for each strip.
Fredart
A collection of Gallagher's works dating back several years. It includes development sketches from other projects, such as Warmth. Since Megatokyo began most of the content has been focused on characters from that project.Envelop(e)
A doujinshi work of Gallagher's from 1999. As he describes it:- Using the format of an illustrated story, 'envelop(e)' tells the story of how a misplaced envelope and love letter causes confusion between childhood friends who never really understood how much they meant to each other before.
Warmth
Warmth is a more serious love story on which Gallagher was working on before Megatokyo, but it was pushed into the background when Megatokyo became popular. He has stated many times that he has plans to begin it, though nothing has come of it yet. However, Gallagher has released a sample and many other drawings that include characters who will be featured in Warmth.Blurred
Blurred was a semi-erotic experimental art website, created by Gallagher in 1998 using the pen name "blurri." Gallagher later took it offline for personal reasons, but a discussion on February 2 2006 on 4chan started a coordinated attempt to discover the contents of this website. On June 8 2006, Gallagher again allowed public access to the "blurred" site, and mentioned it in his newspost on Megatokyo, in order to end the controversy.
Achievements
One of the most popular artists at United States anime conventions, he has appeared at Otakon every year from 2001 to 2005 (except for 2004), and also has appeared frequently at A-Kon, Sakura-Con, and Comic-Con International. Anime Central was the first anime convention Fred Gallagher did a panel for. He is also credited with being the first American manga artist to be a guest at Anime Expo Tokyo.
At conventions, Fred Gallagher hosts a panel based on the "Naze Nani Megatokyo" omake comic strips (an idea borrowed from an anime series, "Martian Successor Nadesico" -- it translates to "The Hows and Whys of Megatokyo"). The panel contained Gallagher and Rodney Caston (before Caston left the project due to their differences in creativity), and was also known to contain Dominic Nguyen. Gallagher has also attended anime conventions outside of the United States; he was Guest of Honour at Aya Again, an anime con located in Northampton, UK, at the start of November 2003.
Notes
See also
External links
- Fredart (Gallagher's personal art website)
- Megatokyo (online comic)
- list of conventions anime-cons.com
- Anime Convention Personality of the Week (March 92003)
Comic strip cartoonists | webcomic authors | People from Ann Arbor | Living people
Fred Gallagher | Fred Gallagher | Fred Gallagher | Fred Gallagher
"Fred Gallagher"