Entrance to the New York Comic Con exhibit floor.

For the 10th year in a row, New York Comic Con (NYCC) brought magic to the dour halls of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center from October 8–12, complete with an animatronic dinosaur and wandering unicorns who would hold your place in a panel line (a very New York concept). There were a few things that stood out, though: Manga was all over the place, the major publishers are courting girl readers, and Faith Erin Hicks is having a big year.

Star Wars and Super Hero Girls at the Random House booth.

Let's start with the girls' stuff. DC announced its Super Hero Girls initiative last spring and rolled it out at NYCC, with a booth on the exhibit floor where fans could see the action figures and sample chapters of the first “Super Hero Girls” chapter book, which will be published by Random House. A series of animated shorts also debuted online last week, and a Super Hero Girls graphic novel by Shea Fontana is in the works. Marvel, in partnership with Disney-Hyperion, is going the prose route with a Captain Marvel young adult novel to be written by Newbery Honor-winning author Shannon Hale and her husband Dean Hale, with whom she collaborated on Rapunzel's Revenge (Bloomsbury, 2008). The novel will feature Carol Danvers, the popular female Captain Marvel. This is just the latest in a series of YA novels about female characters; another book, Black Widow: Forever Red by Margaret Stohl, comes out this week. There were no new announcements about “Lumberjanes” (Boom! Studios), the hugely popular comic by creators Shannon Watters, Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, and Brooke Allen about girls having supernatural adventures at summer camp. However, it's worth noting that there was a long line for the Lumberjanes panel, moderated by Raina Telgemeier, at which writer Watters and artist Allen discussed their work, their inspirations, and the importance of having an all ages, LGBT-friendly comic with an all-girl cast. There was more manga at this year's NYCC than in recent years, reflecting the resurgence in popularity of Japanese properties. Naruto, the best-selling manga series that just concluded with volume 72, was everywhere, thanks the presence of its creator, Masashi Kishimoto. The one-volume sequel, Naruto: The Seventh Hokage and the Scarlet Spring (Viz Media), was released digitally last week and will be available in print next year. Appearing before an audience of 2,200 people in the Javits Center's Main Stage, Kishimoto seemed surprised at the popularity of Naruto in the United States, and in fact, he said he was afraid that the manga would be canceled after the first 10 chapters. He first realized it was popular overseas, he shared, when he started getting fan mail in other languages—and when he saw photos of cosplayers all over the world dressed as his characters. He jokingly apologized to the cosplayers in the audience for drawing Naruto in a headband, saying he hoped it wasn't chafing them (nobody seemed to mind), and later in the panel, he used a cosplayer as a model for a drawing, sheepishly admitting that it had been a while since he had drawn the character. In addition to the panel, Kishimoto made several other live appearances, and the film Boruto: The Naruto Movie had its North American premiere at the convention. The other blockbuster manga property in the country, Attack on Titan, had its moment as well, with the announcement that publisher Kodansha Comics is putting together an Attack on Titan anthology featuring short stories by American creators, including Scott Snyder, Gail Simone, Faith Erin Hicks, Kate Leth, and the Batgirl (DC Comics) team of Brenden Fletcher, Cameron Stewart, and Babs Tarr. The book will be full color, about 250 pages, and sized like an American comic (i.e., larger than manga) and is due out in Fall 2016. Kodansha Comics has already published a number of Attack on Titan spin-offs, and it announced another one at the publisher's panel: Spoof on Titan, a parody of the manga series. Their other new license announcement was the one-volume manga I Am Space Dandy, based on the Space Dandy anime, and they also are moving Noragami: Stray God to a monthly release schedule because of its popularity. Space Dandy must be a hot property, because Yen Press announced it had licensed a different manga based on that anime, this one simply titled Space Dandy. Other new titles from Yen included Dimension W, a science fiction story by Yuji Iwahara, the creator of Cat Paradise and King of Thorn, and both the novel and manga adaptations of the movie The Boy and the Beast. Viz's new title announcements included two sports series, the volleyball manga Haikyu!! and Kuroko's Basketball; the Kuroko's Basketball anime is already available on Crunchyroll. Also in the offing: The Shonen Jump series Black Clover, the shoujo fantasy series Yona of the Dawn, and a manga adaptation of the Capcom video game, Monster Hunter.

Yo-Kai Watch is a new Pokemonlike game/anime/toy/manga franchise that was heavily featured at NYCC. The first volume of the manga (published by Viz) will be out in November.

There's one more Japanese import that was prominent at NYCC: Yo-Kai Watch, a game/anime/toy/manga franchise that is just starting to make a splash in the States: The anime debuted on Disney XD last week, and the Nintendo 3DS video game and the first volume of the manga (published by Viz) will be out in November. There's a strong collecting aspect to it, with an app for cataloging and researching individual Yo-kai and a set of collectible character coins. Manga readers will know already that yokai are traditional spirits. In Yo-Kai Watch, they are benign and mischievous, and while the whole thing sounds a lot like Pokemon, the emphasis is on friendship and puzzle-solving rather than battles. Although she wasn't there in person, Faith Erin Hicks was all over the news. In addition to her contribution to the Attack on Titan anthology, Kodansha announced that she would write and draw a four-panel gag comic that will go in volume seven of Vinland Saga, and Dark Horse had some really big news: She will write the first volume of their YA “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” series, titled Buffy: The High School Years—Freaks and Geeks. Can’t wait? The first issue of Hicks's “Lumberjanes” comic, Lumberjanes: Beyond Bay Leaf #1 is out this week. Librarians are always an important presence at NYCC, and this year was no exception. The American Library Association (ALA) had a booth on the floor, and the ALA and the Nassau County Library Association sponsored a number of events, including panels and a networking session. Ariel Birdoff, outreach librarian at the New York Public Library, took part in a panel on bringing cosplay to libraries, and she said the room was almost full, with most of the attendees librarians or educators. "People seemed to be interested in and enthusiastic about the topic, and there were some good questions asked at the end," said Birdoff, who was cosplaying as Ripley from Lumberjanes. Marissa Lieberman, children's librarian at the East Orange (NJ) Public Library, was on the cosplay panel as well, and she also attended another panel on comics about people with disabilities. "Both panels were packed and had a line of people waiting outside the door about an hour before each of their start times," she said. "Both panels were well attended by librarians and library staff, but there seemed to be people from the general public as well." In addition, Lieberman went to the librarian meetup. "As with the panels, the room was surprisingly packed with librarians eager to network and connect with one another about their love of comics, anime, science fiction, and all things 'nerdy,'" she shared. Birdoff worked at the ALA booth on the floor for a while. "The people in the booth and the people who stopped by were mostly friendly and happy to say nice things about books, libraries, and librarians," she said. "Of course, we still got a few questions about whether we think libraries are on the decline because of the Internet.... and we politely told them that libraries are just as utilized and just as important today as they ever were." Here's a quick roundup of other announcements and observations from NYCC 2015:

• This probably won't come as news to most people, but with a new movie due out in December, Star Wars is huge, with tie-in books at both the Random House and the Disney booths.

• DC announced some new writers and artists for the "Yearbook" story arc of Gotham Academy, including Dustin Nguyen (Li'l Gotham), David Petersen (Mouse Guard), and Hope Larson (Chiggers, A Wrinkle in Time).

• Dark Horse announced a series of standalone graphic novels based on the movie How to Train Your Dragon.

• Dark Horse will also publish a print edition of Anne Szabla's webcomic Bird Boy, an adventure tale in a style the creator says was heavily influenced by Native American art.

• Art Baltazar and Franco, the kings of the cute superhero comic, are back with a new comic series featuring their character Action Cat.

• Archie Comics has just published a nice 75th anniversary collection featuring 75 comics, one from each year, with introductions by Archie himself.

• The Papercutz folks were showing off their “Dennis the Menace” collection, a handsome volume of comics from the 1950s through the 1970s.

• Creators David Gallaher and Steve Ellis were also at the Papercutz booth signing posters of The Only Living Boy, their webcomic that Papercutz is bringing to print in 2016.

• Lion Forge was featuring special, oversize collections of their Madballs comic, based on the 1980s toys.

Editor, cartoonist, and illustrator Hazel Newlevant with "Madballs" from Lion Forge.