Junko Mizuno
Comics A.M. | New York vs. San Diego; guilty plea in comics obscenity case
New York Comic Con
Conventions | John Giuffo does a compare-and-contrast between Comic-Con International and New York Comic Con. While San Diego has more Hollywood presence, NYCC has grown with stunning rapidity — it’s hard to believe that first event had just 25,000 people and shared the Javits Center with a travel convention; this year attendance was 116,000, gaining hard on San Diego’s 125,000. One key difference is that CCI spills out of the San Diego Convention Center into the surrounding neighborhood, which has restaurants and bars and parks, while the area around the Javits is pretty barren, limiting opportunities for parties or even a decent lunch, let alone the sort of outside activities that have sprung up in San Diego. [Forbes]
Legal | A Missouri man has pleaded guilty to federal obscenity charges stemming from comics depicting minors having sex with adults and other minors. The prosecutor has asked that he be sentenced to three years in federal prison without parole. [Anime News Network]
See Junko Mizuno’s original art for Cinderalla
Junko Mizuno is a manga artist whose art is pretty far off the mainstream, yet she shows up in a lot of interesting places—she even drew a Spider-Man story for Marvel’s Strange Tales series, and her Cinderalla (yes, that spelling is correct) was one of Martha Cornog’s picks for the best manga you’re not reading. Mizuno’s version of the Cinderella story is decidedly adult and about as far from Disney as you can get—except that it’s awfully cute (in a subversive sort of way).
Now, lucky West Coast manga fans can see all of Mizuno’s original art for Cinderalla in a special exhibit opening Saturday, and running through August 29, at the Gallery Nucleus in Alhambra, CA. (Warning: There’s a small image on that page that’s NSFW.) It looks like all the art is for sale, and there are limited-edition prints available as well.