Anime Central 2001

ACen 2001: Fanboy Entertainment

C.B. Beluski hosted the Fanboy Entertainment Industry Panel and discussed his plans for his company as well as future goals and ambitions.

Although two weeks late, the highly-anticipated Essence will be out on Wednesday. The delay was due to adding 9 color pictures chosen by the artist himself specifically for this release.

Sidekicks Volume 4, Fanboy's highly popular original comic series, is finally slated to be out soon. Problems with coloring have hampered this title since last year.

As for models, Leen and Dark models should be available in the near future. Both models will be 12" and include a base. Dark's wingspan is going to be enormous, folding out three times from its packaged form. Leen, meanwhile, will have a Water Dragon base that will fit around her form. In addition, a 12" resin statue of Ling Ling and Lang Lang should be available later this year.

Unfortunately, Fanboy is undergoing some restructuring. C.B. stated that Fanboy Entertainment will be "scaling back" and will focus on different aspects of fandom. Fanboy will continue to work with manga artists to bring manga to America, but expect to see more original manga. Scaling back means that no more T-Shirts or prints will be created.

C.B. hinted that a tight manga market as one reason for this change of operation; why buy something domestic if you already own the imported version? More people will buy something original than something that they already own.

In addition, licensing fees for some titles have more than tripled since last year and others have substantially increased. This factor also played a part in Fanboy's changing face.

For non-Fanboy related news, Kia Asamiya will be doing cover art for four issues of The Titans, and would like to do more Batman manga in the future.