The annual MoCCA festival, a fund-raiser for the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art in New York, is not a comic convention; it's more like a craft show. Marvel and DC aren't there, and nobody is pushing a movie or a video game. It's simply table after table of small publishers and individual creators, all eager to show you their latest creations. At MoCCA, small is beautiful.

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While attendees loved the pleasantly uncrowded atmosphere of the first C2E2, which took place last year, that extra elbow room translated into fewer sales for exhibitors. Whether because of that or because of the economy, the publishers' section of the exhibit floor seemed less sparsely populated this year, although Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Archaia, and Diamond Comics Distributors all had large booths. By the end of the weekend, though, most people were smiling. The show drew 34,000 attendees, according to Publishers Weekly, and they were all ready to buy some comics.

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Comics ratings: So useful in theory, so complicated in real life. It certainly is handy that the publishers put that age rating on the back, but what does it mean? Who decides what a 13-year-old can see that a 12-year-old can't? And which 13-year-olds are they talking about, anyway?

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It was déjà vu all over again at New York Anime Festival 2009. After a year of gloomy news in the anime and manga industry, the mood among publishers seemed cautiously upbeat. Four of the five manga publishers at the convention announced new licenses and initiatives, but almost all the new projects relied on familiar creators or crossovers with other media.

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