SDCC: Viz, Broccoli, and the Eisners

The Eisner Awards were presented last night at SDCC, and despite a number of nominations in a variety of categories, the only manga to win an award was in the Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Japan category, which was obviously all manga. That honor went to Taiyo Mastumoto’s Tekkonkinkreet, so congratulations to the folks at Viz for breaking the usual format and taking a risk on that title. While it was disappointing not to see any recognition for manga in other categories, the fact that both Japanese and global manga were nominated in a number of other categories is a good start, at least. For those who want to feel like they were there, Heidi MacDonald liveblogged the ceremony at The Beat.

Yesterday’s big manga news is that Viz will be publishing 20th Century Boys and Pluto, both by Monster creator Naoki Urasawa. Fans have been anticipating these series for a long time, but the word was that Urasawa wanted his work published in chronological order in the U.S. He must have changed his mind, because both series are set to debut in February 2009. Other new titles, according to ANN, are Dogs, by Shirow Miwa; Ikigami (Death Paper), by Motoro Mase; and a slew of VizKids titles: The Legend of Zelda (yes based on the game), BakeGyamon: Backwards Game, Dinosaur Hour, Leave it to PET, and Happy Happy Clover. Gia liveblogged the Viz panel, which included lots of info about upcoming books that are already on the schedule. Deb Aoki has Japanese cover images and more info on plots, and at Japanator, God Len has the 20th Century Boys trailer and lots of enthusiasm.

Viz also held a Shonen Jump panel, and Stan Lee dropped in to promote his comic Ultimo, which he is creating in collaboration with Japanese artist Hiroyuki Tatei. New titles include Wāq Wāq, Nora, and Tegami-bachi (Letter Bee). I like ANN’s description of that last one:

Tegami-bachi centers on a boy who has become a Letter Bee, a courier who delivers special messages between the different areas of a land in perpetual night, all while fending off armored insects.

Sounds like a winner! Once again, Gia liveblogs and gets lots of extra details.

There were no new announcements at the Broccoli panel, but Gia captures some interesting analysis of the manga market, as well as the company president’s comment that “one of their better-selling recent titles (My Dearest Devil Princess) was panned by reviewers.”

Timothy Callahan has nice coverage of Chip Kidd’s Bat-Manga presentation for Comic Book Resources.

Lori Henderson has the view from the floor, which is a very different perspective than the rest of the bloggers out there.

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