The booths were smaller and the exhibition floor a few manga publishers shy of last year's number, but the fans came out in force and manga houses at this year’s New York Comic-Con worked hard to put their best comics forward.
Dark Horse and Del Rey are both focusing on CLAMP, the superstar female manga collective, and the group’s 20 year anniversary. Dark Horse has their highly anticipated CLAMP Mangettes forthcoming in October of this year. Del Rey will also honor the all-women artist collaborative. The company will publish what may be the most comprehensive guidebook to the world of CLAMP available in English, Shannon K. Garrity’s CLAMP in America. The book was negotiated directly through CLAMP and will be the most definitive look at their work anywhere. Del Rey will follow that up with the release of CLAMP’s Tsubasa and xxxHolic artbooks—Album de Reproductions and World of xxxHolic.
Tokyopop was on hand, set up in a noticeably scaled down version of its former king-sized booth—with no space for Goth Lolita swingsets or frilly tea parties—but with plenty of OEL talent to show off. Although the company was not selling manga at its booth, several of their orignal manga (aka global or international) creators, including Amy Hadley (Fools Gold), REM (Vampire Kisses), Ken Faggio (writer for Tantric Stripfighter Trina), Svetlana Chmakova (Dramacon), Josh Elder (StarCraft: Frontline, writer) had panels, signings, and interviews. Tokyopop announced plans for a new, original manga starring the brown, fuzzy, snaggle-toothed Domo, the mascot of NHK, Japan's public television station. The manga will be available this fall. The writer and illustrator for the project has not yet been announced.
CMX didn't have much of a presence at the D.C. booth. During their panel, they formally announced three properties that had appeared in retail listings: The King of Debris, The Lapis Lazuli Crown, and Broken Blade.
Meanwhile, Yen Press came out of left field with the announcement that they had acquired the license for volume 6 of the popular Yotsuba&! series, which they plan to release in September. Yen Press is currently negotiating a possible licensing agreement for volumes 1-5 from ADV Manga, the original publisher of Yotsuba&.
Viz Media’s dominance of the current manga market is undeniable. Their Sunday morning panel at NYCC showcased their influence over the American manga scene as they rolled out new titles from a wide range of genres and art styles for an equally broad and still growing fanbase. Leading the charge is Viz’s blockbuster international flagship title Naruto. The teenaged ninja will attack bookshelves across America this year as Viz makes plans to release eleven volumes in a three month span. The move is an effort to catchup the current U.S. releases with those from their Japanese parent company Shueisha. 2009 releases of Naruto will feature “added value service” (a term Viz staff tossed around heavily on Thursday’s ICv2 event), in this case exclusive bookmarks and stickers featuring many of the popular characters from the hit series.
Viz also confirmed that the undisputed queen of manga, the creator of the classic series, Ranma ½ and Inuyasha, Rumiko Takahashi, will return to Viz later this year with a brand new series. Given their current leading position as the premiere manga source in the U.S., Viz is now looking to develop new audiences with content that may challenge American opinions towards manga. Eisner award winner Taiyo Matsumoto (Tekkinkinkreet) returns to the U.S. later this year with the release of Go Go Monster. Considered by many to be his manga opus, the 450-page-long coming-of-age story was entirely scripted and drawn by Matsumoto as a one shot outside of the traditional Japanese editing system. The Eisner-nominated Fumi Yoshinaga will have two josei (women’s) titles released in 2009. The period drama Ooku retells Edo Castle’s legendary hall of concubines from a gender reversal angle, where the Emperor is female and his concubines consist of Japan’s most beautiful men.
Vertical Inc., which specializes in contemporary Japanese fiction and nonfiction and classic manga, will continue to release titles by legendary manga-ka, Osamu Tezuka, in 2009. The third hardcover edition of Tezuka’s medical drama Black Jack will be available through Diamond in the coming month or so. By the end of 2009, Vertical should have close to ten of the 17 volumes of Black Jack published. With new investment on the way, the Vertical staff described a modest 2009 list focused on the craft books and Sudoku puzzle books that have done extremely well for them in years past. Vertical will also expand into the cookbook market with releases of Iron Chef Chen Kenichi’s Knockout Chinese and Kumiko Ibaraki’s The Worry-free Bakery and Kentaro Kobayashi’s Easy Japanese Cookingseries.
English independant manga publisher Fanfare Ponent Mon has secured dependable distribution through Midpoint Books and will return with 10 books this year including Jiro Taniguchi's A Distant Neighborhood, scheduled for September, and the long-awaited anthology work, Korea: As Viewed by 12 Creators, which will be published in December. The boutique nouvelle-manga publisher will also jumpstart The Times of Botchan by Taniguchi and Sekigawa, which has three volumes available.
