Nation's Largest Convention Announces January Winners

Anaheim, California (February 4, 2008) ‹ Anime fans can win fantastic prizes the month of February from such amazing companies like Gaia Online by just registering for the nation¹s largest Anime/Manga convention! Anime Expo® 2007 will be held from July 3-6, 2008 at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, CA. More information can be found on the website www.anime-expo.org.

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A Fujiko F. Fujio exhibition called "The Infinite Dream - Fujio F. Fujiko" will take place at the Suginami Animation Museum from February 26th to May 25th. The exhibition will include photos, original manuscripts and panels of explanation.

Source: MJ

Takehiko Inoue, creator of Slam Dunk, Vagabond and REAL, visited the newly opened Kinokuniya bookstore in New York City on November 19, 2007 to draw a special wall art.

An interview with Takehiko Inoue was recently published in Shueisha's Jump Square magazine.

Below is a brief translation of the interview:

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The big (and free) exhibition looming on the horizon is MANHUA! CHINA COMICS NOW, from March 7th to April 11th at the London College of Communication, SE1. It's been a fantastic opportunity for me as curator to research this culture and work with some excellent experts to source both major mainstream hits and cult and underground alternatives, from mainland China as well as from Hong Kong and Taiwan. Details are on the site and much more info and images will follow soon:

http://www.paulgravett.com/events/manhua/manhua.htm

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From Channel NewsAsia comes an article titled "China eyes French comic book festival as springboard to Europe" that looks at how China is trying to break into the European graphic novel market through the Angoulême International Comics Festival and compete with established Japanese manga:

With their own national pavilion set up in city hall, a large Chinese delegation boasted of 11 million euros (US$16 million) worth of deals in the fields of comics and animated cartoons.

The late mangaka Shotaro Ishinomori has entered the Guinness Book of World Records on January 23rd for being "the mangaka with the world's largest number of published books (manga)."

Shotaro Ishinomori, who passed away on January 28, 1998 of heart failure, is the creator of popular works such as Cyborg 009 and Kamen Rider. In his career, Ishinomori has published over 770 titles, which amounts to over 500 volumes of manga. Last year, Kadokawa Shoten announced the Ishinomori Shotaro Complete Comic Works, a republication of all of Shinomori's works in 12 separate issues.

Source: Nikkan Sports

McGill University will be hosting an academic conference titled "TranscultureELLE: How Girls Cross Cultures" from from 1/25 - 1/26, which will look at "transculturalism associated with shōjo cultures." Go here for more information.

The Yaoi Press blog has announced that both Yaoi Press and Yaoi Jamboree will be exhibiting at the Phoenix Comicon that's taking place this weekend:

We're at booth #6. We're signing up 'Yaoi Boys' to take part in the skits, improv, and Bishounen Wheel at Yaoi Jamboree (more info here). There's a free raffle for a $40 computer game at our booth, and of course there will be hundreds of yaoi titles to browse including all the Yaoi Press titles currently in print.

San Francisco, CA, January 22, 2008 - VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry's most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, has provided details on an array of hot animated properties it plans to showcase at the 2008 National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) Conference and Exhibition, taking place January 28-31 in Las Vegas, NV. VIZ Media will operate from Suites 7904 and 7906 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel, where the conference will be held.

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Nominees for this year's Angoulême International Comics Festival have been announced, and Precocious Curmudgeon has a list of the nominees for the manga category:

Sélection Officielle:

• Amer Beton – Integrale (Tekkonkinkreet), by Taiyo Matsumoto, published by Tonkam
• Death Note, by Takeshi Obata and Tsugumi Ohba, published by Kana

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