Yaoi Con Day 1

As I was walking to the Yaoi Con hotel, I saw a car with this license plate

It says “Ashi Nyo.” Maybe a Di Gi Charat fan? Or maybe it means something else in a different language.

As we were setting up, freelancer Brian called to let us know he arrived. He was reporting on behalf of MangaCast. And I guess he was one of the few reporters (or only?) who went to Yaoi Con, since everyone else was at NY Anime Fest. It felt strange not to see any of the usual press corp walking around to chat.

But then again, there weren’t a lot of the usual industry folks either. Or it wasn’t the same as the last few years.

For the vendors, I only recognized two people. Perhaps because I haven’t been in enough exhibitor’s hall this past year (I didn’t get to work the booth at most of the cons this year)? Or maybe the usual folks went to NY Anime Fest (I see a pattern here…)

It was nice to see cosplayer Yaya exhibiting for the first time at Yaoi Con. She was selling cat ears. Of course I realize at that point that I forgot to bring COSMODE USA to the event…

And for the industry side, Aurora Publishing’s Mika-san was there w/ her crew. She wasn’t in cosplay though! Maybe she wasn’t feeling well!? *laugh*

We were both sad to learn Digital Manga’s Rachel is no longer with them. And that TokyoPop’s Lillian wasn’t at the con this year.

There was a newcomer this year, though. Yaoi Generation is a new publisher & we got to meet president Thuy (she was right next to our booth). And me, being the osekkai person that I am, was telling her about printers, distributors, contracts, licensors and whatnot. If I were ever to be a consultant, I’d be poor since I give away a lot of info for free.

Oh, manga artist Nase Yamato came by the booth & so we chatted for a bit. She took some promo posters to give away to her readers in Japan. I realized I should have asked her for autographs on the same posters to give away to our readers in the US, but my mind was slow today. The 6-hour drive the previous day must have overloaded my brain or something.

Hmm, maybe this post should have gone on the Broccoli Books production blog. Eh, I’ll just add a link to this page.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 27th, 2008 at 10:56 pm and is filed under Convention.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.