While fans engaged in cosplay and went to J-Pop concerts, nearly all the major players in manga publishing were on hand to make announcements and talk to fans. Yen Press, DramaQueen, Viz Media, Udon Entertainment, ADV Manga all had projects to promote. The library presence at the show was reflected in a panel on collecting manga, and students from New York's SVA—some already with book deals—displayed their work.
Yen Press
Bestselling original manga creator Svetlana Chmakova (Dramacon), was on hand to discuss her new series, Nightschool, forthcoming from Yen Press. Nightschool is the story of young witches, vampires and werewolves who attend school at night after the normal students have gone home. Chmakova described the series as "Harry Potter Meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Assistant editor Tania Biswas discussed several new 4-koma, or four panel manga titles: Shoulder a Coffin, Kuro, a story based in Western fairy tales about a little girl who wears a coffin on her back; Sunshine Sketch, the story of a group of girls living together in a dorm; Suzunari!, the tale of a girl who meets her feline twin sister, and SS Astro: Ashaio Sogo Teachers Room, a comedy about what really goes on in the teachers' lounge. Yen Press will also be venturing into the yaoi, or boys' love, genre in late 2008 with three titles from Lily Hoshino: Love Quest, Mr. Flower Bride, Mr. Flower Groom.—L.H.
DramaQueen
Managing editor Tran Nguyen was on hand to assuage fans with news that the much anticipated boys love title Summit by Young Hee Lee will be released later this month.Likewise, Ya Neri’s beautiful boy series, Peter Panda, which will be a part of the company’s romance imprint, is scheduled to appear in early 2008. Nguyen’s goal is to get her company back on track from the recent delays and release eight books per month by the spring of 2008.—E.F.
Viz Media
While Viz was was not an exhibitor, its bookstore distributorS&S was on hand to hype Viz’s forthcoming titles. S&S’s senior sales associate, Nicole Beaulieu, gave the Viz Media presentation and showered the audience with giveaways. Viz Media didn’t have a booth, but screened many popular anime licenses such as Bleach and DeathNote. There were also screenings of live-action feature length films such as Ping Pong, based on the manga by Taiyo Matsumoto which the company released on DVD this past September in conjunction with his manga masterpiece, Tekkon Kinkreet. Live action feature films Nana and Honey and Clover were also screened. Viz also has the Honey and Clover anime license although no release date has been set. The Honey and Clover manga series will hit shelves in early spring 2008. Viz also announced that the Eyeshield 21 anime will begin streaming on Toonami Jetstream starting next week. —K.C.
Udon Entertainment
Udon’s Matt Moylan hosted an energy packed panel on Sunday that detailed the many faces of the Toronto based art studio and publisher. Udon’s 2008 will be dominated by everything from game designer Capcom; including four new artbooks for 2008 and Udon’s Capcom manga line will release the Onimusha: Twilight of Desire series from Yaguchi Takashi along with new property Devil Kings Basara from Shimotsuki Taiki. In 2008 Capcom will celebrate the 20th anniversary of its very popular Street Fighter video game series with a number of original projects, including a live action movie. Udon is compiling a 20th Anniversary Tribute Book in time for San Diego ComicCon 2008; and the house will offer three new comic book series. In addition Udon’s Korean Manhwa line will nearly triple in size in 2008. The line, which primarily consists of shojo properties from Korean comic publisher Haksan, will release of the first shoujo horror manhwa, Reading Club by Cho JuHee. In addition Evyione, an underwater fantasy; Dear Waltz by Yoon Jiun (creator of Cynical Orange), high school drama; The Daring Students' Association and Chronicles of the Grim Peddler round out their new titles for 08.—E.C.
ADV Manga
ADV had one of the largest publisher booths, selling both anime and manga. The main pushes were for the upcoming Devil May Cry anime which will be promoted with a DVD attached to the new Devil May Cry 4 video game for PS3 and X-Box. The new Azumanga Daioh Omnibusedition is their premiere manga release. ADV's Chris Oarr said they are looking at doing more releases in the omnibus format.—H.M.
Librarians At NYAF
"Young Adult librarianship has become really hot," Christian Zabriskie informed the crowd of the "An Introduction to Anime and Manga in Libraries" panel. Explicitly making the connection between youth literacy and the growing popularity of manga, the four librarian panelists related first-hand experience of how well manga works to serve reluctant and struggling readers. There were tips on how to best build a collection on a limited budget (a deep, not wide strategy is the key), and resources for checking on age-appropriateness of titles (www.noflyingnotights.com for reviews before a purchase and the age-old "flip-test" of scanning through the pages before you put anything on the shelf ).—T.S.
School of Visual Arts
SVA had a strong presence at the show. SVA prof Keith Mayerson had eleven students and former students, whose work was being shown to a number of publishers, including Tokyopop. Among the talent was Hilary Florido, who already has a contract with First Second, Yali Lin, who is under contract with Wiley to draw manga Shakespeare, and recent grad Laura Wilson. —L.M.
