So Quentin Tarantino called Takashi Miike one of the world’s greatest living directors. So you’ve probably seen some of Miike’s films and perhaps have formed your own opinions. And so you may know of the long and fascinating American/Japanese cultural exchange inspired by the Western that stretches from Akira Kurosawa and Sergio Leone to Tampopo and Kill Bill.
Still, there’s no better argument to be desperately excited to see Miike’s new film, Sukiyaki Western Django, than the trailer:
The power of Dean Koontz is infinite: Not only is he one of the world’s bestselling authors, he can now claim to be one of its most popular manga-ka. Witness the astonishing success of his collaboration with artist Queenie Chan on In Odd We Trust, set in the universe of his Odd Thomas novels. And now Dean Koontz will be a special guest at San Diego Comic Con. Come meet him at his panel or at his autographing session!
Saturday, July 26th
11:45 a.m. - 12:45 p.m.
Ballroom 20
PANEL: Spotlight on Dean Koontz
Dean Koontz (In Odd We Trust) has had 48 novels on the New York Times bestseller lists, many in the number one position, and has been published in 36 languages. Find out more about what makes him tick in this talk and Q&A session.
* * *
1:00-3:00 p.m.
Autograph Area
SIGNING: Dean Koontz (In Odd We Trust)
***This is a limited signing; Line ticket drawing will be held in the autographing area at 10:30 a.m.***
We’re honored to bring manga superstar Hiro Mashima to San Diego Comic Con. Come meet the creator of Fairy Tail at his panel–and then get his autograph on an exclusive shikishi!
Friday, July 25th
2:30-3:30 p.m.
Del Rey Booth #1128
SIGNING: Hiro Mashima (Fairy Tail)
***This is a limited signing; autographing tickets can be obtained with purchase from Comic Cellar Booth #806***
Saturday, July 26th
2:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Room 10
PANEL: Del Rey Manga presents Hiro Mashima!
Join Hiro Mashima (Fairy Tail), Dallas Middaugh (Associate Publisher, Del Rey Manga), Mutsumi Miyazaki (Director of Licensing and Acquisitions, Del Rey Manga), for a conversation on Mashima-senseifs latest creation, Fairy Tail.
4:30-5:30 p.m.
Autographing Area
SIGNING: Hiro Mashima (Fairy Tail)
***This is a limited signing; autographing tickets can be obtained with purchase from Comic Cellar Booth #806***
It just wouldn’t be San Diego Comic Con without the hijinks and hilarity of the Del Rey Manga panel.
Come join us–as well as our colleagues from Del Rey and Villard–as we unveil our new releases for the next year, plus all the usual fun of our Q & A:
Thursday, July 24th
6:00-7:00 p.m.
Room 10
PANEL: It’s the Random House Publishing Group!
Join staffers from the Random House Publishing Group—including Betsy Mitchell (editor-in-chief, Del Rey), Dallas Middaugh (Associate Publisher, Del Rey Manga), Mutsumi Miyazaki (Director of Licensing and Acquisitions, Del Rey Manga), Chris Schluep (Senior Editor, RHPG), and Tricia Narwani (Editor, RHPG)—discuss upcoming titles from Del Rey, Del Rey Manga, Ballantine, and Villard Graphic Novels.
On the very day before San Diego–Tuesday, July 22nd–Del Rey Manga’s own original shojo series, Kasumi makes its debut.
Our sample copies just arrived today, and with such a feeling of accomplishment…and excitement. They look just beautiful! After having spent months looking at scripts, pencil sketches, and files for inked and toned artwork, it’s somehow dazzling to see these same images inside an actual book. I’ve heard some authors remark that the publication of their book doesn’t feel quite real until the book is in their hands; editors often feel the same way, too. Like Del Rey’s other original series, Kasumi was selected on its extraordinary merits–a book that was just so good we had to find a way to share it with everyone else.
And, thanks to manga’s new superheroine, Kasumi creator Surt Lim, we’re having a contest to celebrate Kasumi’s release. The prize: a super-kawaii custom hair clip–the very same clip that our heroine, Kasumi, wears in the manga. Stop by Del Rey Manga’s booth to play!
So the news is out: Kodansha has formed its U.S. office. This has been the subject of a LOT of speculation over the past couple of weeks, with people making all sorts of predictions based on very little information. And I suppose I really shouldn’t blame those speculators; all they had to go on were some anonymous comments out there on the internet.
Well, it’s business as usual at Del Rey Manga. We’re continuing to license manga from Kodansha, and as has been stated elsewhere, we’ve just about wrapped up our licenses for 2009 and are now starting to work on 2010. In a few weeks at the San Diego Comic-Con we’ll be announcing some of those new licenses, and we’ve got some really exciting new manga series planned. Then we’ll have a few more announcements at the New York Anime Festival in September… pretty much like we’ve always done. Also, we will continue to publish all of our manga. Kodansha has not pulled any licenses back from us.
2009 is a big year for us, since it will mark our fifth anniversary. More on that later, but suffice it to say that we plan to keep publishing manga for the foreseeable future.
Thank you to all our fans, past, present and future!
Okay, so here’s what I’ve got so far for the panel on Friday:
Talk about contracts.
Explain the Del Rey editorial structure.
Bring visual examples of Del Rey’s books.
Tell what Del Rey Manga wants.
Identify the current trends.
Okay, this is helpful stuff. I’ll throw a few more things in there - some specifics on how to pitch, and the merits of using an agent - and I think we’ll be good to go.
In other news, David Welsh has officially annoyed me by writing:
Then ponder this recent entry on Del Rey’s weblog by publisher Dallas Middaugh stating that the company’s AnimeNEXT panel won’t feature any announcements, favoring a focus on the process of submitting work to Del Rey. (Of course, it’s entirely possible that Del Rey is saving its licensing announcements for the bigger publicity glare offered by the San Diego Comic-Con in July.)
Which refers to what I wrote in this post:
Let me say up front that I won’t be announcing any new acquisitions on that day (sorry, we’ve got all those announcements saved for San Diego Comic-con next month)
So, yes, David, that is entirely possible.
Ah, ignore me. I’m in a crabby mood today. I still love ya, man.
So here’s the deal: When AnimeNEXT starts up next Friday, June 20, yours truly will be there performing the comedy stylings of the Del Rey Manga panel. Let me say up front that I won’t be announcing any new acquisitions on that day (sorry, we’ve got all those announcements saved for San Diego Comic-con next month), but if you’ve ever attended one of my panels, you know I don’t usually lack for stories to tell.
But I’m going to take a slightly different tack in this panel, and I need some guidance. I’m going to spend a fair amount of time talking to people about what we look for in submissions, and try to offer some advice for how to break into this industry. What would help me most would be knowing exactly what it is you want to know. Do you want me to talk about the pitch? The contract? What’s selling, and what’s not? If you’re attending and there’s anything in particular that I can help you with, now is the time to tell me. That way I can be prepared next week.
If you’re going to be attending the panel - which is Friday at 5PM, by the way - post anything you want me to talk about in the comments on this blog, and I’ll do my best to fit your requests into my little talk.
I’m not known in my family for being an adventurous eater, although I’m better at it than some. Still, people change, and as I’ve grown older I’ve discovered a willingness to try new things that just wasn’t there before. So on this last trip I finally had some real Japanese sushi.
First, you need to understand that something like 20% of the world’s supply of fish come through the Tsukiji Market. (Or at least that’s what my boss told me. He has a tendency to exaggerate sometimes.) Regardless, that means that you can get some seriously fresh fish in Tokyo. Little did I know that on this trip, I was going to learn what fresh really meant.
Scott (the boss) and I went to a great sushi place in the hotel one night. It was fantastic, but we noticed that what we were receiving was pretty different from what the Japanese locals were eating. Unfortunately, we didn’t pick up on that until late in the meal, but Scott was really disappointed. So when our Japanese-speaking colleague (Mutsumi) joined us for dinner a couple of nights later, we went back for round two. And this time, Mutsumi explained that we wanted the Japanese course.
Lots of good food there. Sea urchin, tuna, squid, to name just a few. The squid was so fresh… well, the chef pikced up a piece of squid and looked at us and said “You want to know how fresh this is?” Then he slapped it down on the cutting board - and it squirmed. It was so fresh that the nerve endings were still working. The old me would have skipped over what turned out to be a tasty delicacy. And if the old me would have had trouble with that, he would probably have run screaming from the room with the next course.
The chef brought out three live shrimp. He lined them up - and then he sliced their heads off. He ripped off the carapace, cleaned off the meat, applied a little wasabi and rice, and slid them over to us. Still moving a little. And they were tasty.
A little later, they brought out the heads, which had been deep fried. Mm, shrimp brains!
I always worry that I’m going to embarrass myself in this blog… the more worldly among you may be laughing at my quaint country ways. But I’ve always been more of a meat-and-potatoes guy, so this was a big shift for me. A squirmy, delicious shift…
Speaking of things I don’t know, which I actually do a lot, and of which there are quite a few, the Rev. Paul L. Vasquez wrote a comment in yesterday’s blog post about the Sumo matches I saw last week. In it, he tries to explain why the cushions were thrown at the end of the match, but his explanation only left me more confused. I was only kidding when I said people did it because sitting seiza style was uncomfortable, but apparently it happens “when the yokozuna lose”.
Dude. From the post: My brain, Sumo wrestling, barely fill a thimble.
In fairness, I should point out that most sports leave me mystified, not just Sumo wrestling.
While most of last week was spent in a lot of long meetings, there was some time available to have fun and do a little touristing. And while it has never actually occurred to me to attend a Sumo match while in Japan, the opportunity presented itself in a big way: One of the executives at Kodansha asked us if we would like ringside seats. To which we could only say: Yes. Yes, we would.
Now, what I know about Sumo wrestling could fill a thimble with room left over for a shot of espresso. (I don’t even know if you’re supposed to capitalize the S in Sumo; it just seems more respectful, somehow.) The actual matches themselves are amazingly short - as little as 10 seconds, never more than about a minute. But the stuff that comes in between lasts for five to ten minutes. I imagine it would be like watching American football if you’ve never heard of the game before: You get that the ball has to go from end to end on the field, but all the time spent watching referees make hand signals and coaches yelling wouldn’t make much sense.
It’s tempting to make jokes about the outfits, but since any one of these guys could clearly crush me down small enough to fit in that thimble I mentioned, I’ll just point this out: Before the matches begin, the wrestlers march out in aprons emblazoned with the logo of whatever company is sponsoring them. Just like Nascar.
We even had a celebrity sighting. We saw a lot of pictures being taken in the audience in between matches, so I walked over to see what was up. Guess who it was? Don King! Not that my pictures are any proof. You’ll just have to take my word for it.
Everyone sat on cushions on the floor, which was excruciating for a gaijin like myself. But apparently even the locals felt this way, as when the final match ended, everyone picked up their cushions and hurled them across the stadium!
And then we left for sushi, but that’s a story for another time.
