No, I'm not there. But Manga Recon's own Katherine Dacey is! She's covering the con and so far has two con reports focusing on the anime/manga news that's been coming from the NYCC.

Manga Recon at NYCC '08: Day 1

Manga Recon at NYCC '08: Day 2

Yep, she braved the chaos of Saturday, where they reportedly had some crowd control issues and had to shut down hallways due to over crowding, to bring you the latest from the floor of the con. Ultimo, Yen Press, Del Rey, Bandai, Dark Horse and more. She's got it all. Make with the clickee!

As for me..? I'm here and going over the various blogs/forums/news sites and snagging the bits that appeal to me.

And for me..  this is the first thing that I got really excited about. It was announced last year that Del Rey would be teaming up with Marvel Comics to produce a pair of two volume OEL/OGL/Graphic Novels based upon the popular X-Men and Wolverine franchises. It was also announced that Antony Johnston, one of my favorite comic writers, would be writing the Wolverine books but no artist had been selected. Well.. that's changed.

Del Rey has announced the final creative team for Wolverine! The short version.. Antony (Wasteland, Dead Space) Johnston will write, and Wilson (Battle of the Planets, Tomb Raider) Tortosa will be handling the art chorse. You can see some of Tortosa's art on his Deviantart page, but please note that the Wolverine pages there ARE NOT from the Wolverine book he's working on. They were submission pieces he created whole cloth and not representative of the final product. And of course you cand find more about Antony Johnston by visiting his site.

Other big news...

Tokyopop's launching a full color line of graphic novels. They're not limiting it to Japan or Korea either. The launch titles, Orange, Pixie and Luuna hail from China and France. Yeah.. Tokyopop's publishing bande-dessen, who'd have thought it..? Due to the full color nature of the publications, the books will be carrying a slightly steeper price tag, but all still come in at under $15 a pop. They do seem a tad thin though, none of them break 130 pages. Hrm.. still, definitely an interesting and unexpected announcement. It'll be interesting to see how they fair and what other books TP releases through this endevour.

Another tidbit that came out of NYCC is that Viz is getting into the OEL/OGL/OGN business! They're looking for American creators and.. uhh.. that's about all there is about this for now actually.

The other major item that caught my eye, was Yen Press announcing a new manga magazine. The first issue is slated to hit stands towards the end of July, with all the series inside appearing their first before making their way to the now standard digest sized collections. Titles include Soul Eater, Bamboo Blade, Nabari no O and more. It's not really a move I was expecting anyone to make again, just about every manga magazine, outside of Viz's, has failed and ended up being axed. For a publisher like Yen Press to take a shot at it..? Sounds a bit risky. Best of luck to them though! It'd be nice if this resulted in more manga magazines coming out in the US buuuut... I'm not holding my breath.

No anime news caught my eye at all.

Some interesting announcements and new items though. Hopefully some more announcements will be made as the summer con season progresses. I'm still hoping that DH has some interesting titles to announce, or good news about Eden at least.

Manga and anime wise I think that's about it from the con. There's still a Tokyopop panel that's being held today at some point, but nothing from that has started to leak out yet soo... if there's anything that catches my eye from it I'll mention it during the week.