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Baltimore's Otakon to Host Felipe Smith, Peter Beagle

Otakon has announced on Thursday that manga artist/creator Felipe Smith and award-winning fantasy author Peter S. Beagle will attend the July 30-August 1 convention in Baltimore.

Smith is one of the few successful non-Japanese manga artists working in Japan today. After winning second place in Tokyopop's 2004 Rising Stars of Manga contest, he went on to publish the three-volume series MBQ. In 2008, he began serializing Peepo Choo in Morning 2, a manga magazine published by Kodansha in Japan. Vertical is publishing the first volume of Peepo Choo in the United States this month.

Beagle is the author of The Last Unicorn, one of America's classic fantasy tales. The Japanese studio Topcraft animated the novel for Rankin/Bass in 1982, and the film's staff later became pivotal members of Studio Ghibli (Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away). Beagle has also written The Folk of the Air, The Innkeeper's song, The Line Between, We Never Talk about My Brother and a number of other novels. He also wrote the scripts for the animated versions of The Last Unicorn and Lord of the Rings, as well as the episode “Sarek” from Star Trek: the Next Generation.

Otakon 2010 will be held at the Baltimore Convention Center. The event will also hosts other guests such as voice actor/sound director Yūji Mitsuya, MADHOUSE studio founder and producer Masao Maruyama, An Café's bassist kanon, hip-hop group Home Made Kazoku, voice actress Maile Flanagan, and director Koji Masunari.

Update: More background information added.