The manga stars came out and their adoring fans followed. This year's San Diego Comic-Con drew some of the newest and hottest manga creators in Japan and set them down in San Diego to meet their American fans. Superstar manga-ka Tite Kubo, creator of Viz Media’s popular series Bleach, had two signings and a panel with lines snaking through the convention halls. Kubo's fans stood in line even after the panel started, waiting patiently just for a chance to see the famous creator. Del Rey Manga brought over Fairy Tail creator, Hiro Mashima, who also had two signings in a room full of fans and Mashima invited them to "rock out" and have fun during the panel.

Tite Kubo, creator of Bleach

Meanwhile, it was also big year for manga at the Will Eisner Comics Industry Awards held on Friday night of the convention to honor the best comics of the year and their creators. Viz’s Taiyo Matsumoto won an Eisner for Best U.S. Edition of International Material-Japan for Tekkokinkreet: Black & White, but manga creators were also honored with several nominations in categories such as Best Inker (Death Note’s Takeshi Obata) and Best Short Story (Fumiyo Kouno for “Town of Evening Calm”).

On the convention floor, it was difficult not to notice the absence of Tokyopop, which pulled out of the show at the last minute and whose high-profile booth was always a focal point for the manga crowd. But the surging crowds and high foot traffic translated into sales for those publishers who were on hand. Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Weekly Shonen Jump and the 5th Anniversary of Shonen Jump USA, Viz Media dominated the manga scene at Comic-Con and guests like Kubo and Viz’s jam-packed booth marked the the international popularity of Shueisha’s powerful Shonen Jump line. Kubo’s forty-five minute panel featured a video tour of his comic studio and a Q&A with his Viz Media editors, and he was also presented with an Inkpot Award (a special presentation that is part of the Eisner Awards) in honor of artistic talent.

In fact, the Viz booth was a blur of activities to promote the publication of Takehiko Inoue’s basketball manga series Slam Dunk (including an appearance by NBA star rookie Greg Oden) and Real, his wheelchair basketball saga. Viz has also expanded their catalog to target reader both young and old with new titles from Viz Signature, a line for mature readers, and VizKids, a line of titles for all ages. The Signature line will see two new titles from Naoki Urasawa, the creator of Monster: 20th Century Boys and Pluto. 20th Century Boys is an award-winning manga about a conspiracy among friends across four decades. A live action film is scheduled to premiere in Japan later this year. Pluto is an adaptation of a story arc from acclaimed manga master Osamu Tezuka’s legendary manga Astro Boy, which focuses on the idea of the world’s strongest robot. It will be produced with the aid of Tezuka’s son Tezka Macoto, Urasawa’s editor Takashi Nagasaki, and Tezuka Productions. On the other side of the age spectrum, VizKids is offering Mitsuhira Tamura’s ‘tween action series BakeGyamon, which also has a 51-episode anime series spin-off. Also coming with an anime tie-in is the shojo comic Happy Happy Clover, the story of bunny and her adventures in the woods.

Tor Books and Seven Seas had review copies of the much anticipated Afro Samurai manga available at their booth. At the Afro-Samurai panel, Spike TV’s head of animation Leo Chu was joined by actor Samuel Jackson, the voice of the character and the executive producer of the Afro Samurai animated film. The panel featured former Wu-Tang Clan member and hip hop star RZA and Afro Samurai creator Takashi Okazaki. It offered a presentation that included a preview of the feature-length animated film starring Jackson and Lucy Liu with a soundtrack by the RZA that will premier on Spike TV. Pages of Okazaki's manga were previewed along with the Afro Samurai video game, which will be released two days after the movie premiers in January 2009. Volume one of the manga will be published in September.

Yen Press was showing off Yen Plus, its new 460-page anthology featuring the first the color pages of the manga adaptation of James Patterson’s bestselling prose series Maximum Ride and Atsushi Ohkubo’s popular Soul Eater series, which has an anime series airing in Japan right now. Co-publishing director Kurt Hassler said the magazine, meant to duplicate the way manga is introduced to new readers in Japan, launched with 110,000 copies and also featured the first pages of Svetlana Chmakova’s original manga Nightschool. Yen Press co-director Rich Johnson confirmed that the press has an exclusive 2-year contract with Japanese entertainment powerhouse Square Enix to license their titles.

The press also announced the acquisition of the license for Cirque Du Freak by writer Darren Shan and artist Takahiro Arai (from Shogakukan), a manga adaptation of a bestselling prose novel series about a young vampire whojoins a freak show. Little Brown publishes all 12 of the novels in the U.S., and a live-action film adaptation from Universal Studios based on the novels will be released next year. Yen Press also announced a number of licenses from around the world including Sarasah Vol. 1 by Ryang Ruy, a Korean series about a murdered girl who gets a second chance in the afterlife; Step, a Chinese title by Yanshu Yu about a young orphan vampire; and Toxic Planet by David Ratte, a French strip comic about environmental pollution that will run first as a webcomic on the Yen Press website.

Among the smaller houses, Last Gasp publisher Colin Turner showcased Tokyo Zombie, a new manga license, as well as Town of Evening Calm by Fumiyo Kouno, which was nominated for two Eisners this year. Turner has also licensed Junko Mizuno's Fancy Gigilo Pelu, a three-volume manga series by the psychedelic manga creator that will be released in the spring of 2009. And Drawn and Quarterly’s Jamie Soloman said that D&Q is looking forward to publishing gekiga (dark, realistic manga) master Yoshihiro Tatsumi's 800-page autobiography in the spring of next year. “It's in the final stages,” said D&Q's Solomon.