This year’s Comic Exhibition in Taipei will start on Aug. 15, featuring Taiwanese and Japanese graphic artists, voice actors, animation directors and light novelists, organizers said yesterday.
Twenty-two artists from Japan and 25 from Taiwan are scheduled to meet with fans at the fair, which will feature more than 430 booths and 80 publishers, the Chinese Animation and Comic Publishers Association said.
“The number of Taiwanese artists attending the fair this year has exceeded the number of Japanese artists for the first time, meaning an increasing number of fans are paying attention to original Taiwanese comics,” association secretary-general Roger Kao (高世椿) said.
In addition to comic books, the fair will showcase novels by writers including Yu Wo (御我) and Shui Chuan, Kao said.
This year, the fair will also include a special exhibition on Japanese manga artist Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece, the best-selling manga series in Japanese history, said Kuei Jung Exhibition officials, another organizer.
The special exhibition will also showcase products and 25 replica illustrations from the series, which has sold more than 280 million copies worldwide, according to Kuei Jung.
The annual event, now in its 14th year, will continue until Aug. 20 at the Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall 1.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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