Day 2 of NYCC started off with Vertical’s Moyoco Anno panel. For those unaware, this is the artist behind Sakuran, as well as Happy Mania, Sugar Sugar Rune and Flowers & Bees. Josei is still struggling to find a voice over here in NA, so it was nice to see Anno-san tell us about her career. She notes her uncle is also a manga artist, and she wanted to draw from a very young age. She also learned about the nuts and bolts of the business from him. She started submitting to magazines at 15, and was published at 17. Mostly teenage romance, which was what she knew – the boyfriend in her first story was based off of her own.

She moved away from shoujo as it felt too unrealistic and no one really made mistakes or screwed up. Josei gives you more leeway in that regard. Ed noted her characters tended to dress fashionably, but Anno noted that’s because they cared about it. If she had a slob she’d dress them as a slob. She’s also written seinen manga for men, such as Flowers and Bees. She tries to make it less internal as men tend to get bored more easily and don’t like the emotional monologues. When asked about future licenses, she mentioned Jelly Beans and Love Master X, two of her earlier titles, as well as her current series, Ochibisan.

Question and Answer period discussed her work habits, inspirations for the lead in Happy Mania (she was quick to note it wasn’t based on her own experience). She was asked about researching Sakuran, and noted that her husband (that’s Hideki Anno, in case you were unaware) got her a book of poetry about customers at a teahouse that she found inspiring. I asked her about writing flawed characters but making them lovable, using Happy Mania as an example. She notes she made sure to give the heroine a more down-to-earth best friend to help ground that.

After this, I went to the premiere of the Rose of Versailles anime, and we saw episode 1. My favorite moment was probably, after Oscar’s father declares stridently he will raise her as a boy, seeing all the townspeople ask about the beautiful girl Oscar who was raised as a boy. Clearly hiding her gender is not something that needs to happen quite yet. Also, that big fight between Oscar and Andre was so subtextual you needed a smoke afterwards.

After the screening, scholar Susan Napier discussed the show as well as the manga, and noted its influence on so many Japanese girls – and boys, who would steal their sister’s manga and read it. Oscar was a unique heroine at the time, and paved the way for series like Sailor Moon and Utena. The manga also has yuri subtext, as well as a scene with a couple in a bed – still mostly forbidden when it first ran.

I got to Kodansha about 2 minutes late, but managed to see most of their big announcements. A Sailor Moon art book is due out in 2013. Japan is putting together this one with material from some of the previous artbooks, along with new art. It’s coming out in different countries, each of which will have country-specific art. Including North America. There’s also a box set collecting Sailor Moon 1-6 for those who haven’t gotten it yet. (Due to differing paper stock, they can’t offer it as a box only.) I also asked about the two short story volumes – Dallas said they will be releasing them after the series proper finishes. So rest assured Minako will be farting soon.

Fairy Tail is getting a speedup, it’s going monthly in print starting with V. 24, and faster in digital form, so it can catch up with Japan.

Then we got the new licenses. No. 6 is the first, a shoujo/josei manga from Kodansha’s Aria, which has some interesting alternative titles for young women. It’s a sci-fi dystopia with lots of conspiracy and thriller elements. Sankarea, a zombie romantic comedy from Bessatsu Shonen Magazine was also announced. I don’t know much about it, but it apparently has a cute if disturbing pillow plushie out in Japan already. And – at last – there is Vinland Saga, a seinen title from the author of Planetes that runs in Afternoon. Fans have been begging for this for years.

Kodansha also noted that Air Gear is going to get omnibused starting in May, with three to a volume. Lastly, for those who were wondering about the reissue of Battle Angel Alita Last Order (which moved from Shueisha to Kodansha, and this from Viz), it will have some new content for every volume as well.

JManga was next up, and Robert Newman had plenty of giveaways that kept the audience excited – even screaming. Luckily, he also had plenty of new things to talk about. JManga 7 has debuted, with 40 volumes available and 80 by the end of the year. It will have new chapters before the volumes come out for some selected titles, and they are trying to make it as un region-locked as possible.

They announced four more Del Rey license rescues, which they note they will finish. My Heavenly Hockey Club, Gakuen Prince, Fairy Navigator Runa, and Yozakura Quartet. I was pleased to see Gakuen Prince, as I wonder just how low it can go after the first three volumes.

A new title from Shodensha, Omae ga Sekai o Kowashitai nara, which will be released translated as If You Wanna Destroy the World. It debuted in Sony Magazine’s Kimi to Boku, but was picked up by Shodensha and moved to their Feel Young josei magazine.

Some more shoujo from Shueisha! In addition to the previously announced Pride and Crazy for You, they announced My Sweet Dragon, a 7+-volume shoujo series from Betsuma, about a priestess’s daughter who awakens a sleeping dragon – or dragon boy, at least. There’s also Yasuko to Kenji, another Betsuma series about a feuding brother and sister and their intertwining love affairs.

Robert Newman from JManga then put up a quick ‘and also these!’ slide, but only mentioned a few. One I noticed was Teekyu, an Earth Star title I’d mentioned in my license request last week. The biggie was probably Aoi Hana (Sweet Blue Flowers), a yuri title that many have been waiting for that runs in Ohta Shuppan’s Manga Erotics F. Neko Ramen and Elemental Gelade are both license rescues. There was also a few titles Robert just showed, which looked to me to be various BL and yuri one-shots.

Robert discussed the Manga Translation Battle, which is now closed, and noted how popular it was. He then called for questions. Kadokawa’s titles were asked about, and Robert admitted they were there for informational purposes only – there aren’t any to purchase as of yet. My favorite question was about why they shouldn’t just go to Onemanga. I suppose you have to admire the gall. The answer was essentially “because that’s stealing”, only far more polite.

A break to recharge, and then off to Yen Press. Yen had a few issues before they even began. Due to various snafus, their panel was last minute. As a result, they were on the open-air unbound stage, and thus competing with some very loud competition. The panel also conflicted with Shonen Jump Alpha, so I only caught the first 10 minutes. Luckily, their announcements were all at the front, and I thank them for tolerating me taking off so fast.

Among the Japanese acquisitions were Doubt (which had previously been busted via an Amazon solicit), a horror/thriller with rabbit masks. It will be released in 2 omnibuses. Madoka Magica did incredibly well for them, one of the best sellers of the year, so they’ve managed to get the two spinoff sequels, Kazumi Magica and Oriko Magica, both of which ran in Houbunsha’s Manga Time Kirara Forward. Speaking of Houbunsha, they’ve announced the 2 remaining K-On! volumes, one dealing with Yui and friends in college, the other with Azusa’s new band in high school. Seeing that Alice in the Country of Hearts did well, they also found another Wonderland-style manga from Ichijinsha’s josei magazine Comic Zero-Sum. This is called Are You Alice?, and stars a young boy who ends up taking the name of Alice and getting embroiled in assassinations.

They’re doing a Soul Eater artbook, which will also have some B-Ichi stuff in it, and will have all the color pages from Gangan’s magazine chapters. They also noted the Collector’s Edition hardcovers of High School of the Dead were so popular they’re finishing the series, with help from Japan and also featuring some artbook-like extras. Lastly, they announced Square Enix was partnering with them to release titles digitally outside of SE’s own page, and so we can look forward to that soon.

I then booked over to the Shonen Jump Alpha panel, which had a long line, so it was likely for the best. The only new announcements were what we already knew about, Takamagahara and Cross Manage. That said, the BIG news was they are finally going day/date with Japan, and once that happens we should see more new titles. So don’t give up all hope, Medaka Box fans! They also discussed their digital starter packs, the 2013 Yearbook which goes out to subscribers this December, and some Yu-Gi-Oh cards.

I had mentioned I was gong to ask Katsura-san about why he’s so fixated on asses. Turns out I didn’t need to – once introduced, the panel brought it up constantly, and even said Dragon Ball’s creator Toriyama said he was famous for them. I was really starting to burn out at this point, so my notes are sparser. But I was impressed with his telling potential manga artists not to read manga, as it might make them too influenced. He also suggested reading manga they hate! He was asked about writing for shonen, and talked about Jump’s known obsession with the popularity rankings in the magazine. With seinen titles like Zetman, he doesn’t have to worry about that so much. He doesn’t use his own experience for his romance manga, but just tries to imagine how real teenagers would think. The panel also had heard that he was a fan of Western Comics, but this wasn’t true – he just watches the movie adaptations!

And then I staggered to the hotel to type this all up. Tomorrow is a very small day, but stay tuned to see what Viz Media has to say.

Today was, frankly, an exhausting day at NYCC, so let’s go right to the details of said day.

Started off with the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund panel. They’re actually doing a 2nd panel on Sunday (which I can’t make), but this was their general panel giving a history of comic censorship and litigation in North America. It went through the topics one would expect – Seduction of the Innocent, Bill Gaines’ testimony, R. Crumb and the underground movement – but Charles Brownstein is an excellent speaker and made it all seem fresh. Because it was pro-artist, history sometimes downplays the disaster that Gaines’ testimony ended up being. As the years have gone by, litigators have gone from arresting retailers, to artists, and now to readers such as Ryan Matheson – who will be at NYCC this Sunday to tell his story.

After this I had ‘Editors on Editing’ on my schedule, but I’d already covered a very similar panel yesterday. So I briefly dropped by to see Sir Terry Pratchett, who was promoting his new non-Discowrld book Dodger. Unfortunately, they’d put Terry at an open stage, with lots of other loud con activity going on around the hall. It led to severe volume problems unless you were right near him. I could only stay a few minutes, but Dodger sounds like a lot of fun – and reminds me I need to finish that reread of Oliver Twist.

Archie promised to be full up, so I ducked into the panel before it, which was on Digital Pricing. This was very much a North American comics discussion, with no mention of JManga or the manga publishing apps. They discussed trying to experiment further as the tech improves, with things like Motion Comics, etc. DRM was a large part of the discussion – people are very paranoid a lost license will mean their content will be removed and they’ll lose it, unlike print. The creators, you could tell, got what the audience was saying, but they aren’t giving in – DRM and Cloud is how they control piracy. “People like to own things” is not really enough of an argument to them. That said, the panel ended on an upbeat note as they talked about the next big challenges, discoverability and manageability. Indexing and sorting comics, as well as making sure people can find and acquire them with ease.

Archie then came barreling in, giving out its traditional free bag of publications. The real reason to go to these, however, is the panel itself – Archie knows how to put on a show, no matter who the publicity director is, and they also known how to make their enthusiasm contagious. On the panel were stalwarts John Goldwater, Victor Gorelick, and Dan Parent, as well as Michael Uslan, Batman producer and the mind behind the Archie Marries series that led to Life With Archie’s soap-opera magazine reboot.

Archie had a pile of stuff to talk about. The new Betty and Veronica artbook, which looks gorgeous. A line of Archie Cosmetics, out soon in Department stores and MAC stores. Best of Archie Book 2 is out (I bought that at the exhibit hall earlier), with more classic stories over all 6 decades of the show. Sadly, there’s more Super Duck in it as well. Archie Meets Glee is out next year, on the heels of Archie Meets KISS. They noted it was very easy to slot the Glee cast into the Archie mode. There’s an Archie Mobile Game due out soon, for phones and tablets, that sounds very much like your typical Japanese datesim (though no doubt squeaky clean). You go after Betty or Veronica, and your choices end up affecting how the other girl sees you. Should be out in the Spring.

It’s Sabrina’s 50th anniversary, and there’s a digital exclusive 50 Stories book out now at Archie’s digital site. They showed some test footage for a new Sabrina cartoon that’s in the works for Summer 2013, which is big on thrills and adventure. It’ll be on The Hub. Tania Del Rio’s manga-style Sabrina is getting collected into 4 graphic novels, the first of which will be out in February. Great news for those who loved her take on Sabrina.

At this point the announcements were coming even faster than I could type them. Kevin Keller will meet George Takei in his series. More Storybook Land Archie, with the gang as characters from nursery rhymes and other such literature. A new Josie comic is due in 2013. In Life with Archie, we’ll see Josie as well, and Kevin Keller will be running for Senate. Little Archie is getting a cartoon series. Married Life Book 3 will be out soon. They’re doing foreign editions of their digital apps – Archie in 13 different languages, including Chinese and Japanese, and also comics in Singapore. Even Hindi!

New Crusaders had a motion comic intro, and it’s very superhero-ish. There’s also a Sonic/Megaman crossover coming. To my surprise, this had never been attempted before. Q&A then occurred, with fans asking about the Jughead series (a reimagining of the series is coming next year), Katy Keene returning, Dilton getting a short series. Archie Marries Valerie will be getting a collection, of course – they noted it was the easiest of the three to write, and an audience member said their chemistry was “scorching”. Many happy Kevin fell in love – “He needs to get some” was called the takeaway quote of the panel. An interesting question about whether other countries would be unhappy with, say, Kevin. They note they can auto-detect countries and try to keep in mind any sensitive political/censorship issues. And, of course, someone asked about Jughead and romance. The panel merely laughed. As always, great fun was had by all.

After that long diversion, it was time to get back to manga, as it was Vertical’s panel. Ed walked us through the most recent announcements, then broke out the two premiere ones. Twin Knight is the sequel to Tezuka’s shoujo classic Princess Knight, though ironically it appeared 5 years before the rewritten PK that Vertical actually released – Tezuka redid his seminal series in 1963. Twin Knight ran in Kodansha’s Nakayoshi in 1958, and stars Sapphire’s twin children, who end up running into the same enemies and have to deal with the same gender-bending issues.

Ed’s other new license is a far more adult tome, this one from famed josei publisher Shodensha. Helter Skelter is an award-winning work from the magazine Feel Young, written by Kyoko Okazaki. This was a popular license request, and fans talked it up enough that Vertical went out and got it. A harrowing look at the fashion industry and what steps the heroine will take to crawl to the top of it, this is a mature work that is a “very Vertical” sort of release.

Some other details were provided about titles previously mentioned. Paradise Kiss 2 and 3 will have additional color pages. Flowers of Evil is doing better than they expected, Ed called it a “sleeper hit”, and noted its 7th volume just came out recently. It also has an anime out soon. Ed noted that Limit is the sort of shoujo work you don’t see picked up here too often, very much a thriller/horror piece. Gundam the Origin had the audience very excited – Ed noted the creator removed a lot of the dumb comedy and slapstick from the story, leaving it as a tense serious mecha piece. The books will be hardcover and gorgeous, but also limited – no reprints, get them right away. 11 volumes total. Wolfsmund is apparently a retelling of the William Tell legend, and the artist was previously an assistant on both Emma and Berserk. I jokingly asked if the series combined the two, but Ed said it felt like it did! The artist has Mori’s sense of impeccable research.

After this came Q&A. I asked about digital manga, they’re working on it. They want to do something other than an app like the other publishers. They also said that some of their novels are out digitally.

After a quick bite for dinner, I went to JManga’s author spotlight panel, which featured the artist of SoreMachi, Masakazu Ishiguro, and the editor at Young King OURS, Masahiro Ohno. This was a very relaxed, laid back panel and both guests were in a great mood. There were also many giveaways (the audience was quite loud). SoreMachi has 9 volumes on JManga, with the 10th due out soon. Ishiguro also does art for other writers. I was interested to hear that he enjoys series, but found that he excelled at short story format when he replaced other artists who were unable to meet deadlines. One of his Short Story collections, Present for Me, also just hit JManga. He then did some live art, a picture of Kon-senpai from SoreMachi, which impressed me with its speed.

Q&A began with some questions from Robert. We were all amused to hear that Ishiguro-san did a lot of his art while soaking in the bath, which led to a few bath-related questions. I asked Ohno about how they view the NA market – Shonen Gahosha has a lot of licenses over here through a variety of publishers. He said they do think of the Japanese audience first and foremost, but he’s interested in seeing what other countries’ artists could provide – you can submit some art to info@jmanga.com and they’ll forward it to him. And he’s another in a long line of popular manga artists who grew up loving Fujiko Fujio and Doraemon.

The last panel of the day I attended was Udon’s, which was moderated by Comics212’s Chris Butcher, who is their marketing director. I was intrigued to hear that Udon does a lot of stuff totally unrelated to artbooks and Capcom, which they dub “creative services”. Art for Sucker Punch, advertizing art for Inception, World of Warcraft artwork. They work closely with companies to comb through the old vaults looking for content. They’re doing that with Namco right now. They also use their Deviantart page heavily (under UdonCrew), and the audience seemed enthused about this.

The Evangelion artbooks got a lot of positive attention, as did the Read or Die artbook, which I’ll definitely be taking a look at. The Haruhi-ism artbook apparently had some extra colors used in Japan – moren than the usual 4-color – and so they’re taking the time to use that color as well over here, noting the vibrancy jumps out at you. Speaking of Haruhi, they announced two more artbooks here at NYCC. Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter are, as you might guess, themed along seasons, and deal with anime-style art as seen in Newtype and such (whereas Haruhi-ism is devoted to Ito’s artwork). Those will be out in Spring/Autumn 2013.

They also announced a Growlancer artbook, which should appeal to Plastic Nipple… um, sorry, Plastic Little fans, as it’s by Urushihara. They do note that this is a PG-13 title, and not adult like some of the artist’s other works. There were 3 Vocaloid character-specific artbooks announced, which provides some rare official merchandizing for that media empire. Lastly, they’re teaming up with Blizzard for a World of Warcraft tribute book – similar to the Street Fighter ones – which will solicit artwork from artists to include. They’re expecting thousands of submissions. The dates are 11-1 – 1/15, if folks are interested.

And then I had to duck out, so apologies to Chris and company. Tomorrow will have even more news! Can I possibly survive? Well, yes, but to do so I will need sleep, which I will now go and do.