April seems to be a month of comic disaster in the Woodworks Office. Between the 20-something dragons running loose in this month's issue, they manage to fry one columnist's computer, torch Klimpen's fur, spirit one or two staff members from under our very noses, and start a small fire in the kitchen.

I hope you've been enjoying the ride so far. Submissions and offers of help have been literally pouring in the last couple of months; it's a little difficult to keep up! If I have not replied, please be patient. If you've been waiting too long (over a month), it is possible that your mail got lost in the pile or maybe I plain forgot! Just shoot me another and we'll talk.

This month, our three otakus are back with an insightful article on the World of Manga. Megan Larson comments on the sudden revival of the fantasy genre on the big screen, and Sylvia Leung talks to Christopher Berkeley of Sony Animation. We have more articles on how to survive the Elfwood rules and community, with a special focus on the new Moderator system. Read, learn and don't get voted off the island.

Last words? "Weekends do not exist" and visit this:

Until the next quarter, keep those imaginations ticking!

When I was younger, I played a Swedish role playing game called Mutant. It was set in future, where people were mutated, the cities were dark, rainy and huge - and were a few, big Mega corporations ruled the world. Not a fun place to live.

What sometimes worry me are those mega corporations. (Well, I frankly don't worry too much about mutants or dark, rainy cities) I think that we're slowly going there; more and more companies join together and force other smaller ones out of the market. Yesterday, there was an announcement of the merge of Telia and Sonera - the two biggest telecom operators and Sweden and Finland. This week, a friend of mine bought an xbox, a game console by Microsoft - deliberately sponsored with $150 per box by the same company to drive Sony and Nintendo out of the market. Then we have the patents. Once the companies go big, they stop others from entering the market by using shared patents, like Nokia-Ericsson-Motorola.

Anyway, I recently quit my old job at one of these Megacorps to work as a computer consultant for a while. Not the best times to do this, I can admit, but I have joined a nice new company with 13 other very skilled guys. Combine this new job with the fact that I have just moved to a new apartment, and there's no wonder why I haven't had any time to work on Elfwood recently. Ok, Frankly, I have had some time - but no power or inspiration - the Ticket system took a lot of stamina to complete. Now, when it's running smoothly I must have some time to take a step back from Elfwood and breathe a little.

I have a long list of features and problems that I will implement some day. The new feature that I really want the most, is some way for the moderators to mark new art or stories as 'cool pick of the day'. These cool picks would then be featured on the main Elfwood page as thumbnails or links.

Take care!