Here’s your exclusive first look at art from Nina Matsumoto’s new manga, YOKAIDEN, taken from a sample book on display during Comic-Con.

         

Meet Hamachi and the yokai of YOKAIDEN. Cool, huh?

Have you ever suffered from the warm, mildly uncomfortable impulse to be generous and kind and help make the world a place? If so, we have an easy way for you to share your talents with the world and help make yours, mine, and our dreams all come true: Del Rey’s 1,000 Cranes Project.

Stop by the Del Rey or Del Rey Manga booth and make an origami crane. Don’t worry if you can’t even fold a t-shirt; we have instructions and pretty folding paper. This week, we’re trying to collect 1,000 cranes. This isn’t just a crazy scheme we cooked up: it’s legitimated by ancient Japanese legend, which says that if you fold 1,000 cranes, your wish will come true.

But if that’s just not enough encouragement, we’ll be awarding a special, top-secret prize to the folder of every 100th crane. Pictured here is the inimitable and inestimable Shirley Chan, who folded the 100th crane.

I’m really happy to see each and every cosplayer here at the show: we manga fans have to put on a show of force, numbers, and strength in the face of the vast numbers of LOTR, Star Wars, Lost, BSG, Zelda, Warcraft, etc. etc. etc. fans out there.

But we’d like to extend an especially warm welcome to all Del Rey Manga cosplayers. If you’re dressed as your favorite Del Rey Manga character, please stop by our booth and take part in our Fantastical First Annual Cosplay Contest. You could win a year’s supply of Del Rey Manga–that is, one copy of every book we publish for the next year! Visit us at our booth for details.

Today was the first day the show was open to the general public, and as soon as the doors opened, there was a running-of-the-bulls-in-Pamplona-level-intense stampede to the booths. Were people really that excited to get into the show? Well, with good reason they were; in the oft-repeated words of Ali, our marketing manager, “It’s Comic Con, baby! Can you smell the excitement?”

But the real reason for the footrace-to-the-death? Sure, everyone wants to see the panels and the exclusive previews of trailers, and get autographs, and buy really cool limited-edition vinyl toys from Japan (or is that just me?), but what everyone wants most of all is FREE STUFF. Here’s what I’ve scored so far: bookmarks for Fables, Sandman, and Y the Last Man–possibly my favorite non-manga series, a “Golden Compass” poster (from what’s easily the coolest booth at the show–even we don’t have a LIFE-SIZED POLAR BEAR), and, my favorite, a Tintin bag, containing (kyaa!) a Captain Haddock pencil.

But I don’t think it’s just bias that makes me claim that I think we have some of the coolest free stuff at the show: a sampler book with previews of 22 new series, gorgeous Princess Resurrection and Dragon Eye posters, and super-cool buttons, including the official Mahora Academy seal! If you’re here, stop by and grab some schwag.

As I blog about San Diego Comic over the next couple of days, I’m going to do my best to affect an air of world-weary detachment. After all, it’s not as if I haven’t been to conventions before. And I am here, after all, in a professional capacity, all set to do business on behalf of my employers. And it is in that capacity that I am reporting to you from the floor of the convention–and in best journalistic fashion I ought to strive for cool objectivity. However, to be perfectly honest and in actuality, I AM SO FREAKING EXCITED. Yeah, I’m an editor for Del Rey Manga, and but much longer than that, all my life, I’ve been a fan, and San Diego was created as a haven, retreat, and paradise for fans. This is my first year at San Diego, and I can’t wait to see and do everything at the show…so, ahem, I’ll have plenty of material for this blog, of course.