Many thanks to reader Krista, who got shots of Del Rey’s manga X-Men (the shoujo one featuring Kitty Pryde) and Wolverine (the shounen one) at her Flickr account. Here are direct links to the individual shots: the Beast, Ice Man and Night Crawler (♥), and Kitty Pryde for X-Men. For Wolverine we have Vincent, Tamara, Logan, and more Logan.

But yeah, see what I meant about the Beast?

My favorite thing I bought at the con: a Gurren Lagann jacket. (My favorite free swag? Tie between Del Rey’s Fairy Tail slap bracelet and Vertical’s Blackjack syringe/pen.)

Okay folks, here it is– all of the new manga/anime licenses and announcements that were made at New York Comic Con (that I picked up, and I may even have some things listed as new that aren’t, so feel free to correct me if so).

801 Media
- Licensed Ze by Yuki Shimizu.
- Licensed Koi wa Aserazu by Mio Tennohji.

Bandai Entertainment:
- Licensed Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
- Licensed Gundam 00.
- Licensed Ghost Slayers Ayakashi manga by Yaeko Ninagawa.

CMX:
- Licensed Classical Medley by Sanae Kana.
- Licensed Astral Project by Marginal.
- Licensed Suihelibe! by Naomi Azuma.
- Licensed Fire Investigator Nanase by author Izo Hashimoto and illustrator Tomoshiya Ishikawa (thanks to Nebs for the creator names).
- Licensed Jihai by Toshimi Nigoshi.
- Licensed Venus Capriccio by Mai Nishikata.

Del Rey Manga:
- Licensed Gakuen Prince by Jun Yuzuki.
- Licensed Samurai 7 by Mizutaka Zuhou, inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s movie.
- Licensed Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei by Kouji Kumeta (!)
- Licensed The Case of the Dragon Slayer novel by Kadano Kouhei.

Digital Manga Publishing:
- Licensed Swallowing the Earth by Osamu Tezuka.

FUNimation:
- No new announcements.

TOKYOPOP
- Licensed the Kyo Kara Maoh! light novels by author Tomo Takabayashi and artist Temari Matsumoto.

VIZ Media:
- Will publish Stan Lee and Hiroyuki Takei’s lovechild ULTIMO, presumably in Shonen Jump; details not released.
- Releasing the Hunter x Hunter anime in season box sets.
- Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z are both going to be released in VIZBIG format.
- They’re releasing a new Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo series.
- Black Lagoon is confirmed; first volume due in August.

Yen Press:
- Licensed The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya manga; will also release the novels jointly with Little, Brown Young Adults.
- Licensed Soul Eater by Atsuki Ohkubo; will run in Yen+.
- Licensed Nabari no Ou by Yuki Kamatan; will run in Yen+.
- Licensed Higurashi no Naku Koro ni by Karin Suzuragi and 07th Expansion; will run in Yen+.
- Licensed Bamboo Blade by Masahiro Tohtsuka; will run in Yen+.
- Licensed Sumomomo Momomo by Shinobu Ohtaka; will run in Yen+.
- Licensed man hua Wild Animals by (?); will run in Yen+.
- Yen+’s first issue is coming out July 29th and will be 460 pages; cover price is $8.99 and a 12-issue (1-year) subscription will be $49.97.

Once again, if I missed anything/got something wrong, please feel free to correct in the comments or via e-mail :)

Moon Phase reports that Yozakura Quartet, by Suzuhito Yasuda, is being adapted into an anime. The series follows a group of teenagers with various abilities (mind-reading, kotodama*, etc) who essentially run a city on their own. Or at least protect it from demons and anything else that gets in the way.

The manga is being released by Del Rey, if you want to get an advance peek at what the series is like. I reviewed it for Newtype USA at one point; it was a fun, slightly-goofy, slightly-serious, slightly-actiontastic series. If you want a very small peek at what the anime will look like, check out Yasuda-sensei’s blog.

The American Library Association has released its list of Great Graphic Novels for 2008, and ADV, TOKYOPOP, Del Rey, Go! Comi, CMX, VIZ, Dark Horse, Vertical, and Digital Manga Publishing all took home prizes this year.

For Del Rey it was Pumpkin Scissors 1, Alive 1 and 2, and Mushishi 1 and 2 (natch).

TOKYOPOP got honors for King of Thorn 1 and 2, VIZ’s Love*Com 1 and Kekkaishi 7 and 8 are mentioned, and ADV’s Yotsuba& volume 4.

CMX wins for Emma, of course, volumes 1-5. Dark Horse took home one for the well-received shoujo manga Translucent, and Vertical’s prize is for To Terra 1-3. Digital Manga Publishing got awards for Flower of Life, by Fumi Yoshinaga (who is an amazing mangaka, best known for her BL– unfortunately for her non-BL titles like Flower or Antique Bakery, which are phenomenal).

I think Go! Comi wins for the actual number of books mentioned: Train+Train 1-3 and After School Nightmare 1-5, a total of 8 books (versus Del Rey and CMX who got 5 each).

And finally, the well-regarded manga Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms by Fuyimo Kouno also made the list.

Also of note: Mark Crilley’s extremely manga-inspired graphic novel series Miki made the list for three volumes, and the first volume of SoHee Park’s manhwa Goong gives some last-second acclaim to the defunct ICE Kunion.

Original source: ALA
Secondary source: Blog@Newsarama

So Manga Entertainment actually ended a little early so I’m hangin’ out before the Del Rey booth with KuronoK (who actually just scooted off to acquire an autograph or something). The Del Rey guys just arrived to set up. I feel kinda weird sitting next to a keyblade. (It’s really heavy. I would get so tired of carting it around. How do you do it, KuronoK?)

They’re handing out preview books with bits from Fairy Tail, Hell Girl, Aventura, and a couple of others, whee.

Oh hey, I think they’re live-blogging this panel. And so am I. The circle is complete.

Well, they’re liveblogging the con.

Alright, now we’re actually getting started. They’ve started out talking about Katsushi Ota, the Japanese editor of the prose and manga anthology Faust, which Del Rey is putting out in English soon. The anthology includes Kouga Yun (of Loveless), Takeshi Obata (of Death Note), CLAMP (of, uh, CLAMP), etc.

And now…announcements! But first, an ad for The Complete Guide to Manga.

They’re doing something a little funny with Fairy Tale– two volumes at a time. The first two volumes will go on sale on the same day in March.

More on Faust– it’s debuting in the summer. I also note that Fred Gallagher (the Megatokyo guy) is in it. Wait, really? He intended to have a story in Faust…but he had his baby a bit early so no Fredart in the first volume. Fred, late? SHOCKING!

The first real announcement, then, is xxxHOLiC: Another Holic, an xxxHOLiC light novel by NISIOISN (who also wrote VIZ’s Death Note: Another Note light novel). But it contains original art by CLAMP, so yay.

Another NISIOISIN novel: Zaregoto (illustrated by Take).

And now, finally, Del Rey Manga announces a manga! It’s Mao-chan, with concept and character designs by Love Hina’s Ken Akamatsu, though the manga itself is actually by Ran. Yeah, got me!

Kamichama Karin-Chu! The sequel to Kamichama Karin. I’m such a Koge Donbo whore! :D

Next up is Gankutsuoh, the manga adaptation of the amazingly visually rich Gonzo anime, which is an adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ Count of Monte Cristo. Sweet!

Papillon, by Peach Girl’s Miwa Ueda.

Kasumi, which is an OEL written by Surt Lim and drawn by Hirofumi Sugimoto. It actually reads right-to-left like a traditional manga. It’s about a girl who can be invisible for as long as she can hold her breath and other people with similar odd powers.

Dallas is answering a question about cultural notes and stuff, and he mentions that fans in the U.S. have overwhelmingly demonstrated that they prefer (for example) the original Japanese pop culture references rather than American pop culture substitutes.

He also notes that instead of releasing all of the company’s books on the same day each month (as many manga publishers do), they’re going to stagger them and put out a few books each week instead.

Parasyte is going to start coming out more frequently– every three months instead of every six months, apparently.

By the way, Faust is not a specific genre of fiction. Pretty much everything the Japanese editor thought was good will be in it.

They have more light novels that they’ll be doing, by the way. Look out, Seven Seas!

Apparently Publishers Weekly’s Calvin Reid is “the Oprah of comics.” Pass it on!

Seriously, I have to wonder - their SDCC blog on Active Anime kind of made sense, as a short promotional thing. But now Anime on DVD is hosting Del Rey’s OFFICIAL forums?

Call me crazy, but it seems like a manga publisher that’s part of Del Rey should be pretty capable of hosting their own forums…and blogs. I mean, it’s obviously not all that complicated, since even I’ve managed.

My only guesses are a) maybe they’re having trouble getting traffic to their site and are banking on the pre-established traffic to AA and AoD? Or b) I did notice that all of the Del Rey sub-sites have the same basic layout. Maybe Del Rey is being very inflexible or something.

Still, it seems kind of silly…