NYCC is over for another year, and life is slowly returning back to normal. Dee and I took the Acela back to Boston and wound down by hanging out with Kevin Church in the club car.
My overall impression is that manga was less prominent this year. Tokyopop, as always, set up their big booth and flew in lots of creators for signings and panels, but according to Gia’s writeup, their panel had only one new title announcement. Instead it sounds like a list of previously announced properties, plus the news about their new pilot program that will put global titles online for free.
And while Viz had their big Stan Lee crossover announcement, their panel was more low-key and they didn’t have a staffed booth at the con, just their manga lounge. Go!Comi and Broccoli weren’t there at all.
On a more cheerful note, Stephen Robson of Fanfare was there, beaming about the recent Eisner nomination for Jiro Taniguchi’s The Ice Wanderer, although he still faces distribution challenges. Vertical had a bigger booth than last year, and marketing director Stephen Vrattos told me that they sold all their advance copies of Dororo pretty quickly. Digital Manga seemed to be doing a brisk business, and the Speed Racer box set was the object of desire du jour.
Gia has a handy list of new title announcemnts up at her blog, as well as extensive coverage of all the panels. And ComiPress has the mother of all link posts, covering pretty much everything that has been written so far.
