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Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

September 29, 2008 by MJ 15 Comments

NYAF in brief

I’m finally home from NYAF! I had a very nice time, both visiting with old friends and at the con. Everyone else has already reported on the manga industry news and so on, so I’ll just talk about my personal experiences.

Many thanks to dear friends, Laura, Gavin, & James for making time to catch up with me at early hours of the morning, and to my dearest EA, little (or not so little!) Moo, and Malcolm, for putting up with me all weekend. I was also lucky enough to meet a couple of people I’ve become acquainted with through this blog. Here is my report (in order of appearance):

Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane: Friendly, fun, professional. I was very happy to spend time with her at a number of panels over the weekend!

Ed Sizemore: Kind, generous, BEST SHOES EVER. I wish I’d had the opportunity to chat with him more!

Overall, I really enjoyed this con. It was smallish, and with the exception of Saturday, felt actually kind of intimate, which is maybe not profitable if you’re running a con, I don’t know, but certainly enjoyable as an attendee.

I’ve heard talk of all the companies/publishers who did not attend, but the ones who did are my favorites anyway, so I didn’t feel particularly sad about it. The Vertical, Del Rey, and Yen Press panels made me proud to be a manga fan (I should mention here that I scored a copy of the not-quite-released first volume of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya manga by basically looking pathetic), and the sparsely-attended “State of the Manga Industry” panel (which Deb Aoki is writing up in full) was one of my favorites of the entire weekend. My husband teased me when I got home about not actually watching any anime at the anime convention, and it’s true. I really only pay attention to the manga business, because that’s what I most love, but I felt that I was in good company this weekend. I was especially pleased with comments that Ali Kokmen made at the “State of the Manga Industry” regarding the future of OEL manga (or whatever you want to call it, and believe me, that became a topic all on its own) and its creators. If I wasn’t already completely enamored of Del Rey, that would have done the trick right there.

In addition to the panels I already mentioned, I also really enjoyed the very informative “Art of Translation” panel (oh how I wish I’d been more consistent about writing down panelists’ names), and Disorganization XIII‘s fanfiction panel, which was surprisingly refreshing.

Saturday was so crowded, just being in the main convention hall made me want to curl up into a ball under the escalators, so I hid in panels all day to preserve my sanity. Friday and Sunday, though, were lovely, and I spent a lot of time grabbing up good deals on manga and checking out Artist’s Alley, where I bought some beautiful prints from artists Iris Chen and Alice Meichi.

I’d intended to write a lot more, but the day has been long and it is time for me to turn in. I’ll close by reiterating what great time I had, and add how pleased I am to inhabit a tiny corner of this world.

Goodnight!

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Filed Under: DAILY CHATTER, FEATURES Tagged With: anime, manga, nyaf

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Ed Sizemore says

    September 30, 2008 at 7:34 am

    Did you make the masquerade? They had Xxxholic and Tsubasa skits. I was amazed.

    Reply
    • Melinda Beasi says

      September 30, 2008 at 7:36 am

      Oh, I did not! Well, damn.

      Reply
      • Ed Sizemore says

        September 30, 2008 at 12:11 pm

        Hopefully, someone will post pictures. All the costumes were well done. There was a married couple that posed as Yuki and Watanuki. They were both tall and lean, so they really looked like the characters.

        I love the Del Rey panels. Ali makes sure everyone has fun.

        Reply
        • Melinda Beasi says

          September 30, 2008 at 1:40 pm

          I will look out for those photos. If you stumble on them, let me know!

          Heh, yeah, Ali Kokmen was one of my favorite panelists at the entire con.

          Oh! By the way, I did end up finding a copy of volume 1 of Cardcaptor Sakura to give to my host’s daughter! I was so pleased to find it! Of course, she’s going to have a fun time trying to hunt down the rest if she ends up liking it. Heh.

          Reply
          • Ed Sizemore says

            October 1, 2008 at 7:22 am

            ANN has some cosplay pictures up. I wish they were of better quality, but you can get an idea of the costumes. They do have the couple I mentioned.

            Reply
            • Melinda Beasi says

              October 1, 2008 at 9:04 am

              Oh, thanks! I will go look for that!

              Reply
  2. jansong@livejournal.com says

    September 30, 2008 at 8:31 am

    Thanks for the report.
    xoxo

    Reply
    • Melinda Beasi says

      September 30, 2008 at 1:40 pm

      I’ll try to stop by sometime this week so you can get a more detailed report! :)

      Reply
      • jansong@livejournal says

        September 30, 2008 at 2:20 pm

        Oh, good. Of course we want a people report, too. :)

        Reply
        • Melinda Beasi says

          September 30, 2008 at 2:26 pm

          Ah, I’ll give you the short version of that here! You know I’d planned to meet Laura on Saturday, but was happily surprised to get Gavin too! I probably haven’t seen him in at least ten years, we figured out. The two of them together were a lot of fun, like always. We talked politics mostly, with a brief foray into mortgages and home repairs, at which point it became obvious how old we all have gotten. Heh. Laura had a job reading for Jay Binder’s office that she had to run off to after a couple of hours, but Gavin walked me over to the con (and even briefly considered attending), where we jabbered on for another hour at least before I finally went in. Good times. They both seem well! Breakfast with James was great too—we talked a lot about career and depression. Heh. He was really tired (had two hours sleep the night before), but in better spirits than I expected, and it was really good to see him.

          EA is so happy, and it was a joy to see her like that. I really enjoyed myself at their house with the five dogs and two cats! Moo is going to be awesome one day, and I hope EA survives to enjoy it. Hee. It was really a great trip. And it was nice to spend a lot of time with people who really love me and believe in me, you know?

          Reply
          • jansong@livejournal says

            September 30, 2008 at 3:22 pm

            Thanks so so much for the quick update on everyone. And it was just what I was hoping it would be for you!
            Hopefully that will give you the cushion of support you need to get through the next few months, however they go.
            Oodles of love!
            Mom

            Reply
  3. Royvia says

    September 13, 2019 at 10:17 am

    Great post.

    Reply
  4. Fredro says

    September 23, 2019 at 5:50 am

    Nice post!

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. MangaBlog » Blog Archive » More NYAF reports says:
    October 1, 2008 at 8:07 am

    […] Melinda Beasi was at the Javits as well. […]

    Reply
  2. More NYAF reports | Pukui.com says:
    October 8, 2008 at 12:01 am

    […] M­elinda B­eas­i w­as at­ t­he Javi­t­s as w­ell. […]

    Reply


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