FanimeCon Adds Carl Gustav Horn, Gilles Poitras, Jonathan Osborne, Keith Burgess, Ric Meyers, and Ryan Gavigan to Guests of Honor List for 2010

San Jose, CA (April 7th, 2010) - FanimeCon is proud to announce manga editor Carl Gustav Horn, author Gilles Poitras, voice actor Jonathan Osborne, anime talent Keith Burgess, martial arts professor Ric Meyers, and personality Ryan Gavigan as Guests of Honor at FanimeCon 2010, which is being held over Memorial Day weekend, May 28th to May 31st, at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center. Representing over half a century of experience in anime, manga, martial arts, and related fields, these experts offer FanimeCon attendees a wide variety of programs, from educational to entertaining.

Carl Gustav Horn is an editor at Dark Horse Comics, where he works on the CLAMP "Mangettes" project and graphic novels such as Clover, Neon Genesis Evangelion: The Shinji Ikari Raising Project, The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, and Oh My Goddess! He has also contributed his expertise to the American anime DVD releases of Patlabor 2, Gunbuster, Gunbuster 2, Jin-Roh, Royal Space Force, Appleseed Ex Machina, and Lupin III: The Fuma Conspiracy, and he provided commentaries about his field to Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times, WIRED, and the Nihon Keizai Shimbun.

Author and librarian Gilles Poitras wrote Anime Essentials, the book on "Every Thing a Fan Needs to Know" about Japanese popular culture, as well as The Anime Companion, The Anime Companion 2, and articles in Otaku USA and (previously) Newtype USA. He has given presentations about anime at Pixar Animation Studios, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, the Smithsonian, and various libraries and conventions.

Voice actor Jonathan Osborne is known as the "Man of 1000 Deaths" for his expertise in performing dying characters in anime such as Fist of the North Star, Akira, The Big O, Cowboy Bebop, and many more. Other roles include Masahashi in Paranoia Agent, George in NieA_7, William Morris in Gundam 0083:Stardust Memory, as well as Broggy, Gaimon, and Shojo in One Piece.

Keith Burgess has a range of skills that include voice acting, script writing, art, and graphics design. His voice roles include parts in the Street Fighter Alpha and Neon Genesis Evangelion movies, Dead Leaves, Ikki Tousen, Karas, and Virus Buster Serge. He also worked on the English scripts for Noein, Rayearth, Read or Die, and Tokko.

Ric Meyers has been inducted into five worldwide martial art halls of fame for his expertise in the study of martial arts. He has inspired and appeared in martial arts film documentaries for the Discovery Network, A&E, Bravo, and Starz Encore, and he has worked as a martial arts film consultant for major companies such as DreamWorks, Sony, Columbia, and Tristar. Additionally, he has supplied material for more than 400 international martial art movie DVDs and holds both an International Chinese Martial Arts Championship Gold Medal and a USA Wushu Kung Fu Federation National Championship Gold Medal.

Ryan Gavigan is the host of Anime Hell, a "sort of a visual disk-jockey kind of thing" containing "short clips of bits from Japanese cartoons, commercials, movie trailers, educational films, short animated films, pop culture detrius, bleeps, blunders, and practical jokes." The quick-paced and free-flowing show has propagated to many conventions and is dedicated to "celebrating, archiving, and popularizing the bizarre and hilarious bits of human pop culture".

All six guests are seasoned veterans of FanimeCon and have been entertaining, educating, and inspiring attendees for several years.

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About FanimeCon - FanimeCon is Northern California's largest matsuri ("celebration") of anime, manga, and related arts and cultures. Held annually over Memorial Day Weekend, FanimeCon entertained over 15,000 people in 2009. FanimeCon is "By Fans, For Fans" and is run entirely by volunteers who love putting together a weekend full of activities and events that feature anime, manga, cosplay, music, video/tabletop gaming, guests from around the world and much, much more! FanimeCon 2010 will be held from May 28th to May 31st in Downtown San Jose. To learn more and find out what's in store, please visit http://www.fanime.com

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