The theme of Friday’s NYCC was lines, lines, and more lines. Usually one can avoid lines by room camping, provided you don’t mind sitting through some things you didn’t expect to see. Not this year. Between Marvel Comics and Mythbusters, camping was out of the question. And so, the line.

After waiting in line for a while, they let us into the Viz panel, which is good as it was first panel of the day. It’s Viz’s 30th Anniversary, and as you’d expect was pretty big on hype, not underserved. There’s a wall of tribute art on the show floor from Japanese creators, and it’s a sight to see. They put out 342 volumes in 2015, not all of which were reviewed by me.

They did have some new announcements as well. Legend of Galactic Heroes had only had the first three novels licensed, with others dependent on sales. Well, sales were good enough that we’re now getting Volumes 4-6 of this series from Haikasoru! As a political space-opera, it’s a terrific page-turner.

After Hours had been announced just before the con. It was described as yuri, though they weren’t too quick to hype that, so I wonder. It’s about the modern nightclub scene, and two girls meeting and falling for each other. It runs in Hibana, which is the replacement for Ikki that Shogakukan started, so falls in the seinen genre.

Anonymous Noise is a Hakusensha title, so you know I’m excited. It runs in Hana to Yume, and is from the creator of Nosatsu Junkie (which Tokyopop put out some of) and Monochrome Kids. It’s about love and music, and has a lot of hype.

They also mentioned the Tokyo Ghoul Re books, but I think that too had previously been announced. The one title I had not heard of at the panel was Golden Kamuy, an award-winning series from Young Jump set during the Russo-Japanese war. It also features the Ainu, and looks really awesome. Oh yes, and we’re also getting the Boruto manga, but who’s really surprised about that?

The last two big announcements were a Pokemon artbook, which should appeal to fans of both Pokemon AND artbooks, and Vampire Knight Memories, the sort of prequel, sort of side story continuation of Vampire Knight which Hino-san returned to after Shuriken and Pleats sort of bombed. Still, I enjoyed the Vampire Knight aesthetic.

After this came the first big line, as I’d decided to go to Aniplex before the Spice & Wolf writer’s panel, but there was a giant Marvel panel prior to that, so wait in line it was. Aniplex reminds me (and humbles me a bit) at how much more fans at these events care about anime rather than manga – they were hyped, and cheered on even titles that cynical forum users have long abandoned, such as SAO or Asterisk War. It was very nice to see.

Speaking of SAO, the movie is being released in 25 different countries on February 18, and apparently that includes the US as well. The new announcement was a movie called I’ve Always Liked You, based off of a Honey Works music series. There’s also an anime version of March Comes in Like a Lion, which no doubt gives Honey and Clover fans hope that Viz will p;ick up the manga. In more in-your-face news, the supernatural hero story Occultic Nine features a girl with breasts so large she could easily have appeared in Eiken. It was then followed by the trailer for the 2nd Kizumonogatari movie, which could have done the same thing, but Hanekawa’s appearances were kept to a minimum.

Yen Press didn’t have a panel this year, but they did have Isuna Hasekura, author of Spice & Wolf, and his editor. I somewhat shamefacedly admit I haven’t read it – it began pre Yen On and I never picked it up, then when I realized it might interest me it was already too long. And the 1000-page omnibus seems a bit too crippling to me. It’s also incomplete, as Kurt announced the license of two new series – one is a direct sequel following Lawrence and Holo, and then other is about their daughter. Both will be multi-volume.

Hasekura proved to be a quiet but confident speaker. He says he got the idea while researching the Crusades, and became fascinated with the idea of medieval commerce. He was also reading the mythology of The Golden Bough, and also Sakuran, Moyoco Anno’s manga about an oiran. This combo led him to what became Spice & Wolf. He thought of Holo while reading a scene from Sakuran, and wanted to write his “own version” of that character.

Lawrence is a foil for Holo, who’s good at running scams and manipulating people. Hasekura-san says he’s not as good at reading people as Lawrence is, so the writing took awhile. As for why Europe and not Japan, I think he finds European History more exciting – it’s the era of dragons! I was very amused when he was asked how he researched the period – he went to the University Library. See? Libraries are important!

The character of Holo also helped him show off the old gods vs. new technology, and how he wanted Holo to be this sort of sad (but cute!) girl who is faced with obsolescence. He later admitted that he thinks the light novel artist gets this dichotomy better – the manga artist’s Holo is more excited and energetic. As for where he learned about economic theory, it was self-teaching – he didn’t take it at university. He just reads a lot. In fact, when he tried stock trading, it went badly – this was at the time of Lehman Bros.!

If you want a more apocalyptic take on economics, he’s also written World End Economica, which many in the audience cheered. But perhaps 17 whole volumes of Spice & Wolf was enough – he admits that he sometimes worried he would not get through the entire story due to a simple lack of mental energy, and found himself seriously praying to any god who would listen! He knew it was time to end it around Vol. 14, and began to use then last three volumes to move towards the ending that he’d already worked out by Vol. 2 or so.

He then moved on to his work habits, and he mentioned he can write in a home office, a restaurant, or a hired rental office – in fact, he has to move around as he gets bored easily! I laughed when he discussed how he became a writer – he mentioned ‘8th Grade Disease’, and I think was startled the audience, who had all seen Chuunibyou in various anime by now. He was asked about the definition of a light novel as compared to a normal one, and talked about how it lets you do things in a more varied and non-regimented way. In Japan, light novel readers can be as old as their early 30s! (This made me feel old, but hey, it’s not about me.)

The manga and anime adaptations were discussed. He seems to have let the creators do their own thing. He did discuss then manga artist liking big breasts, which is not his own preference (hence Holo’s flatness). He talked about the popularity of Spice & Wolf in Japan – it’s not really a series with fights or battles. Instead, the battles are intellectual. I was impressed to hear this was his first published series, though he did doujinshi before this (non-erotic, he hastens to add). Besides the S&W spinoffs, he’s also researching Mediterranean culture for a possible book, and working with a VR animation company.

Possibly the best first question I’ve ever heard at a Q&A – why was there no name for Lawrence’s horse? It’s sad but true, the horse has no name. He was asked if any of the anime seiyuu changed how he thought of the characters, and said Nora is a case where this happened. He mentioned how he liked Ben Bernanke, and thinks people are too mean to him. There are also other non-Hasekura economic books now, which makes him feel both pride and humility. It’s also worth noting that when he discussed how to get published, he said this was his first series, but it took him years to actually get a work accepted to be published.

He was asked about series he likes – it was hard to hear, but I think it was Hakumei to Mikoshi, a yokai series from Enterbrain’s fellows! Magazine. As for why a scantily-clad wolf girl was in a series about medieval economics, he admits that he just can’t imagine writing a slice-of-life book starring a girl like Holo. Lastly, he discussed religion in Spice & Wolf, which is loosely based on the Christian church, which like many other Japanese creators he got fascinated by through Evangelion.

After this came another long, long line, this one for the creator of Assassination Classroom, Yusei Matsui. This was in the big panel room, and rightly so – it was packed to the gills. We also had Matsui’s Jump editor come along, Murakoshi Shuu. Matsui was quite different from Hasekura, very extroverted and talkative. He was an assistant on the gag comedy Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, before getting his first big hit with the popular but sadly unlicensed Neuro manga. He loves New York – both the big buildings and the big blondes.

He grew up in a very strict household where he could not watch anime or read manga, but he still managed to get some excellent influences – JoJo, Parasyte, Dragon Ball, and soccer manga Captain Tsubasa. He never wanted to be a teacher, though he likes the idea of passing on his experience. Nor was Koro-sensei based on any teacher he had The idea of Assassination Classroom came when he envisioned what became the first three pages of the manga, with the students all trying to kill their teacher, and then tried to imagine what teacher could survive that… and what school would let a class do that.

He didn’t have too many issues with editorial, who are used to eccentric teacher manga from many, many other examples of the genre (I’m thinking GTO here). Simplicity was the goal here – both the basic idea of the assassinations, and Koro-sensei himself, who is an octopus drawn as a circle – very easy to draw, as there are no joints or hands. But he still loves to eat octopus! When asked about then secret to drawing a hit manga (as Neuro was also, in Jump terms, a huge hit), his response was “I won’t say!”, which got a big laugh.

We then saw him ink a sketch of Koro-sensei as the Statue of Liberty he had done earlier. While this happened, we got some questions for both his Japanese and American editors. Murakoshi-san was asked what he does as an editor, and in addition to shaping the story and researching (which he doesn’t have to do much, as Matsui is very good), he makes sure the series keeps its internal continuity, and oversees the merchandising of the series, including overseas. As for the US editor, she wants to make sure that the story is told well without people realizing they’re reading a translation.

Given the series is about a group of kids who try to kill their teacher, you’d think that controversy would have come up at some point, but neither the Japanese nor American editor noted any problems at all. The bigger problem over here is that some of the references and jokes are too Japanese – Jump manga here has a semi-unofficial policy against endnotes, so they have to find a good way to adapt it. As for life lessons learned from Koro-sensei, the idea that the journey is more important than the result came up, and I heartily agree.

The anime has already finished, while the manga is still (in North America) coming out, so there was a lot of “don’t spoil it” hemming and hawing – especially as the editor of the American version wants to not spoil herself! He worked very closely with the anime team to make sure that his vision was not compromised, and he advised them on how it should end. The ending was very important, which is likely why the anime rushed some of the middle episodes – they were not allowed to make up an ending like many other shonen titles.

His favorite episode was the one with Kayano’s giant flan (it amused me that he was using the English loan-word Pudding, but the translator insisted on ‘flan’, as the Viz manga had it), which expanded the details on how a huge flan would be made. He was also asked which character he’s most like – he said Koro-sensei, as he too is weak to boobs. (For those hoping for less boob obsession from Japanese creators, this was clearly the wrong con.) Hed also mentioned a love of Powerpuff Girls!

And thus ended the panel, and my day, as I walked back and boggled at the amazingly long line to get into the Hammerstein Ballroom, which extended past my hotel. I’m hoping Saturday is less packed. (What am I SAYING?)

Another NYCC dawns. Another long run of panels in a row, long bathroom lines, walks along the show floor, and coming back to the hotel room exhausted only to realize you have to type up all your notes. Today was a lot of fun. What did I do? Well…

For starters, we had the Kodansha Panel, which thankfully proved fairly easy to get into. They had a giant pile of new licenses, so let’s break them down:
— Regarding my Reincarnation as a Slime, a title they say is not finalized, and I hope is made less awkward, is another ‘based on a fantasy RPG light novel’. Like many recent licenses of that nature, this is more of a parody of the genre. It runs in Shonen Sirius.
— Fairy Tail: Rhodonite, a spinoff which stars Gajeel, and has Levy on the cover of a volume, so I’m in. Gajevy ship tease, maybe?
— Love & Lies may be familiar for those who use the Mangabox app, as it runs there. It’s a “dystopian romance”.
— Lily Hoshino, who did character design for Mawaru Penguindrum, has a shoujo title from Nakayoshi called Kigurumi Defense Squad, a somewhat ridiculous magical girl parody featuring pretty boys dressed as amusement park-style mascots. Seems like great fun.
— Also looking fun is Kiss Me At the Stroke of Midnight, a Betsufure title about a girl who secretly loves sappy stories. The facial expressions of the girl are the prime reason to buy this.
— Possibly the title that most excites me, Frau Faust. It’s by the author of The Ancient Magus’ Bride, and runs in Itan, a josei fantasy magazine. Badass female scholars, yes please!
— Wake Up, Sleeping Beauty is one of two Dessert licenses, and is a supernatural romance, because I hear those do well.
— Waiting For Spring also runs in Dessert. Seems to involve basketball hotties, and has been called cute by those in the know.
— Ahogaru – Clueless Girl is a rare 4koma license by Kodansha, as they admitted they rarely find them funny (I sense a swipe at Seitokai Yakuindomo here). This one makes them laugh, though. It’s in Weekly Shonen Magazine, and involves… well, a clueless girl and her friends trying to save her from herself.
— Lastly, we have Land of the Lustrous, a fantasy series from Afternoon that deals with a race of gemstones, but is not much like Steven Universe at all. It’s won multiple awards.

I note that all four main manga genres were licensed here – yay!

After that came other news. A Silent Voice has a live-action film out in Japan soon. Princess Jellyfish is performing MUCH better than expected, and they could not be happier. They quickly went over the previously announced titles coming out this fall, including works by the creators of Soul Eater and Shaman King. Appleseed Alpha is delayed to June 2017, but as consolation will be hardcover. And the Akira and Ghost in the Shell del.uxe reprints look first rate.

This took up most of the panel, so sadly the Kodansha editor that came over did not get as much time to talk as planned, but he made the most of what he had. He works in the seinen genre, which he readily admits does not sell as well here. He’s edited Inoue Takehiko’s Vagabond, which comes out via Viz here but is a Kodansha series in Japan, and he talked very amusingly about Inoue-san’s workplace habits and how they brainstorm. He’s also edited Anno Moyoco, and talked about Sakuran (licensed here by Vertical) and Hataraki Man (sadly unlicensed). She apparently is known for tearing up her rough sketches when she gets different ideas, which can be frustrating. We also saw some rough sketches of Inuyashiki, but the panel had to end there.

After that, I ran into Erica Friedman, who was only going to be at the con today, so I hung out with her for a bit. I wanted to get back to the panels to get in early enough to make the Attack on Titan Anthology panel. As with most years, this meant I room camped into a panel where I had no idea what it was but it ended up being a big surprise. In this case, it was The Future of Comics in New Realities, a panel hosted by Madefire, a motion comics app that has turned a lot of heads.

On the panel was Christina Mancini, who’s in charge of Franchise Development at Fox; Ted Gagliano, who is also at Fox and is in charge of Post-Production; Nick Hooker, head of Frame Store visual effects; Matt Hooper from Oculus; and much to my surprise, Dave Gibbons, who was the artist on the old Doctor Who Weekly/Monthly comic strips back in the Tom Baker and Peter Davison days, and yes, also something called Watchmen, I guess. I did not get to ask him if he was nicknamed Funky Gibbons as a teen, which is probably for the best.

The panel talked about the impact virtual reality is having on creation, both in the comics medium and outside it. The use of comic narrative is as old as the hills (indeed, some hills contain cave paintings). It doesn’t have to be totally realistic, which allows it to be more powerful. And with VR, you can actually shift your perspective of the art away from a 2-D image. Indeed, with the arrival of comics on a tablet, the idea that print is a necessity is becoming a thing of the past. A comic artist doesn’t need $100 million to create their vision the way that, say, a visual effects studio might.

The other discussion of the panel was how to engage content that helps the brand of whatever Fox is merchandising. That’s what Christina is in charge of. I found this fascinating, coming from old-school fanfic writing which always had disclaimers out the wazoo and would never, ever be part of a corporate platform. But Fox is reaching out to find ways to make this work, and virtual reality can be a shared bonding experience. It can also be a tool for women and people of color to work in genres traditionally ruled by straight white men and sometimes co-opt them for other uses.

You’re also getting new, up-and-coming artists ho find that virtual reality is the best way to express themselves as craftsmen. Every new medium brings new ways to draw in both fans and creators – Gibbons talked about comic strips being used as a way to get readers to buy the newspapers, and they also mentioned Twitch TV’s recent marathon of Bob Ross, where the comments flying across the screen almost became an artform of their own – content commenting on content is a very new thing, and it uses new mediums such as concepts of virtual reality. It can be difficult – sometimes creators try to hard to be special or go above and beyond, when simpler ideas can be very effective by themselves. They then had an announcement that the Madefire App was going to have Motion Comics, the first ones to use virtual reality as a platform, with some nice panorama work.

After this came the Attack on Titan Anthology panel, with several of the creators involved. In addition to editors Ben Applegate and Janine Shaffer, we had Genevieve Valentine, Brendan Fletcher, and Jorge Corona, each of whom did excellent work in the Anthology itself. Most of them were drawn to the project through the anime, and Genevieve was drawn to the period before it began – the 100 years of peace they had before the Outer Wall was breached. For Brendan, this also conveniently came between the end of his team’s Batgirl run, and before they began a new project with Image; in fact, doing nice gory Titan art helped focus them on their new stuff as well.

This is not an anthology for the squeamish; in many ways, it’s even more brutal than the main series, and Ben joked about telling the writers and artists to kill more people in more horrible ways. One of then reasons people love AoT is that you’re never quite sure if the cast are safe or not. After discussing their love for the series, we got Q&A, and much to my amusement we had a guy who’d never even read or seen the series, but now wanted to pick it up! My favorite question was about the approval process from Japan, and Ben said they had no issues with the dramatic stories, but the comedic ones were more difficult, as Japan has a different relationship with violence and humor together. Ben apparently sent them Deadpool comics to show what it’s like here!

My final panel of the day was one on Marketing Yourself on Tumblr. Being fairly active in various Tumblr fandoms, I was quite curious about this. There were three Tumblr staffers there, as well as three creators – and this was very much a panel designed for the creator of content rather than the casual reblogger. Nick Tapalansky is a comic writer, Kendra Wells draws, and C.B. Cebulski not only is a talent scout for Marvel Comics (for which he uses Tumblr), but also has his own Tumblr foodie blog!

Microblogging is, of course, why most people use Tumblr. There are many ways a creator can both analyze their core audience and reach out to them. There’s Tumblr Analytics, which can tell you which posts are most popular. Suggested Artists and Tumblr Radar also help guide you to other, like-minded Tumblr blogs. You can also queue our posts so they don’t get spammed tol someone’s dash all at once (I am very bad at this, I will admit.)

Art theft was discussed, and it mentioned how copyright theft (someone took my art from another site I control and put it on Tumblr) is different from misattribution (someone took what I put on Tumblr, took my name off it and posted it as theirs). Tagging was discussed, and how monumentally important it is to gain readers and followers. You can use tags to ‘lure’ readers into your demographic, but don’t go overboard – that’s just spam. If you like site design, you can design your Tumblr site to look however you want. If you hate site design, use Mobile, where all sites look the same. You can have multiple Tumblr blogs linked to the same account, and art blogs are popular, along the lines of ‘Ask (Character XX)’. Most importantly, the best way to get popular on Tumblr is to do what you do – if you love your work, it will get noticed.

I had to leave early so missed the Q&A, but overall four very enjoyable panels, and I got to walk around the show floor when it wasn’t a madhouse (i.e., Saturday).