SDCC08: Broccoli Looks at the Market
Broccoli had a smaller booth this year, and as a result there was not enough space for characters' goods. At the Broccoli panel, Shizuki Yamashita, director at Broccoli International, said that U.S. manga titles grew faster than the distribution channels could handle and complained of a lack of venues in the U.S. to preview titles, unlike the Japanese market. “Overall sales of manga are growing every year, but the problem is the median sales number is going down,” Shizuki said. He added that companies are holding off to find out “what would work in the U.S.” Broccoli titles like Juvenile Orion sold exceptionally well for Broccoli, and it continues to be a good seller because of positive reviews online, he said. Shizuki acknowledged that titles without anime attached are harder to sell, but that PGW has been a good distributor for the company, getting them into libraries as well as stores. —E.F.

SDCC08: Yaoi Works for DMP
At a time when the Internet says the "boys love" genre (also known as BL or yaoi) may be slowing down, Southern California publisher Digital Manga Publishing (DMP) continues to prove the naysayers wrong. Sales for DMP have been strong, with most of their success coming from the 18+ demographic. Expanding on their co-branding partnership announced in 2007, this summer DMP launched a new imprint called Doki Doki. Starting in 2009, DMP, in conjunction with Japanese josei and BL publisher Shinshokan, plan to release all titles with the DMP/June and Doki Doki logos in their spines and back cover, along with a new trim design. Special interest market director Rachel Livingston said that the company is considering creating such lines for their two other co-branding partners, Taiyo Tosho and Oakla Shuppan, though she admits most Oakla titles already tend to go to their 801 Media imprint for explicit content, and they do not have plans to make any changes to that line. As of this weekend, DMP has announced eleven new properties for the Doki Doki line, including new 16+ titles from Mikiyo Tsuda (Princess Princess+), Makoto Tateno (Happy Boys), and Youka Niita (Otodama).

The publisher also announced eight new shojo and shonen properties. The shonen titles will be priced $9.99 and come in a smaller trim size. Livingston cited prices from competitors like Viz as low as $7.99 for shonen and $8.99 for shojo as a factor behind this move. Books will continue to have DMP's trademark dust jackets and in certain cases, as with their August release of Minoru Maruro's Knights, they will feature color plates. Asked about a recent copyright scandal revolving around manga-ka Youka Nitta, Livingston said that one title, The Prime Minister’s Secret Diplomacy, might be affected as Nitta has placed herself on hiatus following the scandal. —E.C.

SDCC08: Big Ambitions at Netcomics
According to Soyoung Jung, NetComics director of editoral/marketing, the Korean manhwa publisher had a smaller booth and no panels this year because NetComics’s president Heewoon Chung was unable to attend. Jung, who was dressed as a sexy nurse at the time along with a co-worker who wore a doctor's lab coat, said overall sales appeared to be down, probably "because of the economy.” Netcomics pushed the high school comedy Let's Be Perverts at the convention, which was a top seller last year at SDCC and continues to sell well this year. 0/6 and Click were other top sellers, along with Totally Captivated, a BL title now in its third printing. Totally Captivated initially appeared on online as a webcomic in Korea, as did 100% Perfect Girl and many of Netcomics's other titles.

Netcomics has signed a deal with Broccoli Books to make some Broccoli titles available online, although no release date has been set. Netcomics is also signing American artists to do the same. The company has 50,000 titles online and one million subscribers, and they are the number one online comics site in Korea. Yahoo Creative’s entire comic content is serviced by Netcomics, who built the platform for their site and Jung says that Netcomics has the ambitious goal of becoming the “YouTube or Google of online comics.” —E.F.

SDCC08: ‘Surrogates’ Sequel from Venditti
Writer Rob Venditti is working on a prequel, The Surrogates: Flesh and Bone, to The Surrogates, a Top Shelf graphic novel which is being filmed as a movie starring Bruce Willis. "I originally wanted three books, but had to see if the first work." The premise of Flesh and Bone is that surrogates (remote-controlled artificial life forms) are just beginning to enter society, but they are the province of the rich. Three well-off boys, taking their fathers' robot surrogates for a joy-ride, murder a homeless man. Their defense is that they thought the victim was a surrogate as well. Artist Brett Weldele has already drawn the first chapter. In addition to the prequel, he also plans book set after the events of The Surrogates. —L.M.

SDCC08: Wright Shows Off ‘Spore’
Will Wright, game designer and creator of The Sims, made his first appearance at San Diego Comic-Con with a lively presentation that demonstrated Spore, a game that he has been developing for several years for Maxis and is scheduled for release in September. In his wide-ranging talk, he touched on the influence that otaku culture, space travel, aliens, robots and city planning have had on his conception of the game. Wright showed examples of user-generated content from the Spore Creature Creator software that has been released on the Spore website, and then demonstrated several levels of game play to a packed and enthusiastic audience. He talked about the perception of video games in contemporary culture: “When you have the comic book people looking down on you, you’re really at the bottom of the barrel.” Audience members received a comic book that was created with MashON’s Spore Comic Book Creator, software that can make comics using creatures and environments from the game.—J.C.

SDCC08:Mobile Comics, ClickWheel
Tim Demeter, editor in chief of ClickWheel, demonstrated the digital delivery model his company has developed for distributing comics content to mobile devices and personal computers. ClickWheel content is available in several formats through their website and the iTunes store, including a comic book player, a video format, PDFs, and a newly released format developed for the iPhone. While most of their content is free, some titles are available for a subscription fee.—J.C.

SDCC08: iPhone Format for Uclick
Pete Maresca and Jeff Webber of GoComics discussed the interfaces and formats (including a new format for the iPhone) they have developed for their digital delivery system of comics for mobile devices. Maresca stressed the advances they have made both in the range of content and options for viewing over the past 4 years. Jeremy Ross of Tokyopop showed how much the market for comics on mobile devices in Japan has expanded, from $20 million in 2005 to a projected $250 million in 2009.—J.C.

SDCC08: Black Panel Represents
At The Black Panel, African-American panelists like rapper Method Man and comics writer Dwayne McDuffie answered questions from fans about breaking into the comics, film and television industries. Reggie Hudlin, president of B.E.T. said, “The corporations control the big pipelines. You can make a living and get by, but the way to get noticed, you really have to do something incredible. As Melvin Van Peebles said, 'Trouble is opportunity in workclothes.'” Director Rusty Cundieff added,“There’s a lot of people I want to tell, 'Stop believing in yourself and find something else to do.'” —J.C.

SDCC08: Black Panther on B.E.T.
B.E.T. president Reggie Hudlin showed clips from two animated series that will debut on the network in February, Black Panther and Hannibal. Artwork in the Black Panther series, animated by LA studio Titmouse, is based on the work of John Romita Jr. and follows the storyline of the first 6 issues of Black Panther written by Hudlin. Hannibal will feature the voice of Vin Diesel. Both projects were spearheaded by panelist and senior vp B.E.T. Animation Denys Cowan.—J.C.

SDCC08: Eisner For Rutu Modan
Rutu Modan, winner of the 2008 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album for Exit Wounds,discussed the techniques she uses to create her work, the portrayal of women in comics, and the situation of comics and comics creators in Israel in a wide-ranging presentation. “Drawing gives you the ability to look at things very very slowly and find things you never noticed. Like how Tel Aviv is designed to look like a European city with all these trees.” —J.C.

SDCC08: Mondo Marvel
There were numerous announcements at the "Mondo Marvel" panel: writer Jeff Parker told fans that his Agents of Atlas title will be returning as an ongoing Marvel series; New Warriors scribe Kevin Grevioux will be writing Adam: Legend of the Blue Marvel, reviving a black superhero from the '60s whose costume hides his skin color; and Marvel will also be adapting a Philip K. Dick short story, “The Electric Ant,” into a comic by David Mack with covers by Paul Pope. Jesse Alexander, co-executive producer of the television show Heroes, will write a one-shot comic for Marvel called Shotgun Opera, featuring Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos. The one-shot comic will tie into the Captain America: White miniseries from Heroes and Marvel Comics writer Jeph Loeb.

Writer Mark Millar will be returning to Marvel's Ultimate books in 2009 after the upcoming Ultimatum crossover, which editor-in-chief Joe Quesada called "basically the end of the Ultimate Universe." Millar, who helped create the original Ultimate universe, will be writing a new and currently unnamed miniseries that will launch after the Ultimatum revamp. Marvel gave fans of the Orson Scott Card novel Ender's Game a peek at the first pages from their upcoming comic book adaptation, a six-issue miniseries from X-Force writer Christopher Yost and artist Pasqual Ferry, who previously collaborated with Card on the Ultimate Iron Man series.—L.H.

SDCC08: Barbara Does San Diego Comic-Con
Turns out PW’s ubiquitous blogger Barbara Vey was on hand for her very first Comic-Con. She arrived in San Diego absent her luggage (lost but eventually found); spent time walking the floor and teamed up with novelist Marjorie Liu at a local salon to correct a “horrible hair mishap” and returned to Comic-Con, blonde and happy. For lots more blogchat about Vey’s first trip to Comic-con check out the Beyond Her Book blog.