Panelists, Sponsors Join ICv2 Confab
New panelists and sponsors have been added to the ICv2 Conference on Anime and Manga, which is being held in conjunction with the New York Anime Festivalat the Javits Center in New York City. The ICv2 Conference will be held Thursday December 6. For the panel "Marketing to the Otaku Generation," three panelists have been added, Cliff Annicelli, editor of Playthings Magazine; Liza Coppola, v-p sales and marketing at Viz Media; and Rich Johnson, co-publishing director at Yen Press. Elizabeth Kawasaki, the editorial director of Viz Media has been added to the panel "Girls—The Other Half of the Otaku Generation.” On the panel "Technology and the Otaku—the New Media Frontier" Peter Heumiller, v-p of Content Development for Comcast, and John Nee, v-p of business development at DC Comics, have been added. Also, Publisher's Weekly and Playthings magazine are now sponsors of the event along with Viz Media. More information about the conference, the panels, and other panelists who will be attending can be found at the New York Anime Festival website.
KCC, NYCC Join Forces
Kids Comic-con organizer Alex Simmons announced the KCC will team up with the New York Comic-con to help launch the Kid’s Comic-con Comics Awards, a new awards program to honor to the best in comics for kids. The finalists for the KCC Comics Awards will be named during the Kids Comic-Con, held at the Bronx Community College March 29, 2008. The winners of the first annual KCC Comics Awards will be announced on Kids Day at the New York Comic-con Sat. April 20. Simmons said announcing the winners during NYCC will help “us to promote kid-appropriate comics to as many people as we can.”
Yen Press Offers Boys Love
Yen Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, will publish its first BL (Boys Love) manga starting in the fall of 2008, with more titles coming out throughout 2009. Yen Press will release three BL titles by Mangaka Lily Hoshino, which were acquired from the Japanese publisher Houbunsha. The first title, Love Quest, will be released in October of 2008; the second book, Mr. Flower Bride, will be released in March of 2009, and the sequel to this book, Mr. Flower Groom, will be published in July of 2009. Each book will cost $12.99. More information about Yen Press can be found at their website.
Movie Screenings at NYAF
The New York Anime Festival has announced several premieres and previews which will be screened at the event. The screenings will include Adventures in Voice Acting, a documentary on the voice acting industry from Bang Zoom! Entertainment; a premiere of a new ANIPLEX anime, whose past projects include Fullmetal Alchemist, Rurouni Kenshin, and Blood +; a selection of previews from the Appleseed sequel, Appleseed: Ex Machina; the anime CATBLUE Dynamite; live action movies from Viz Pictures, Nana, Honey and Clover, and Lovely Complex; the One Piece movie, One Piece: Episode of Alabaster; and the movies Tsubasa and xxxHOLiC from the manga studio CLAMP. The New York Anime Festival will be held on December 7-9 at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City. More information about screenings at NYAF can be found at the events website.
Takehiko Inoue In NYC
Viz Media (http://www.viz.com/) announced the release of Takehiko Inoue's manga series REAL, focused on the world of wheelchair basketball. The announcement was made at the new Kinokuniya Bookstore in New York City during a special in-store event where (see PW The Beat) Inoue painted a mural of Takezu, the central character from his samurai series Vagabond. REAL will be released in July of 2008. Inoue's bestselling basketball manga series Slam Dunk will be released by Viz in the U.S. in September 2008. Viz is publishing Inoue's samurai series Vagabond. Viz will also publish two art books of Inoue's work: Sumi and Water. Sumi will feature Inoue's black and white pen and brush work, along with rough sketches from Vagabond and photos of Inoue's studio. Water will contain color work by Inoue only published in this book. Both art books will be released next year.
G4TV Reviews New Comics
G4TV's comics expert Blair Butler reviews a few new comics on Fresh Ink, its weekly online video comics segment. Butler takes a look at the new The Spirit published by DC comics, El Cazador published by Hyperion, Buffy the Vampire: The Long Way Home from Dark Horse, and Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born from Marvel.
