Chiho Saito is best known for being the creator and manga artist of Utena. Yasuhiro Nightow is best known for his most recent work, Trigun, and his work on the Samurai Spirits manga.
Panel Report
This panel was mostly about manga in general from an artist's
standpoint rather than eith of the two guests' series. Most questions
asked were regarding length of time needed to illustrate chapters to
doujinshi issues to who inspired them to become a manga artist.
Nightow said that he was learning as he listened, as Saito has been a
manga artist for close to fifteen years longer than him.
About doujinshi:
Saito stated that from a business perspective she can't publically come out in acceptance of it, as there are publishing and copyright issues, but on a personal level she doesn't really mind (all that much, at least).
Nightow said that he ocassionally enjoys reading doujinshi of his work as it shows him that his characters are popular enough to drive someone else to create a derivative work; sometimes he wishes he had come up with some of the ideas they use! His only worry is that they might get to be more popular than him... When asked about hentai doujinshi, he got a really puzzled look on his face and asked "You have seen hentai Trigun doujinshi?"
About using assistants:
Saito said she employs assistants as the rate of ¥1500 per hour; they help her do backgrounds after she has illustrated the characters.
Nightow said that he takes the more "masculine" approach, and pays his assistants ¥1000 a day; they do simple backgrounds mostly, but he stated that if it isn't a straight line he draws it. If the background is rocky or involves curves he does the background, as he doesn't trust another artist to draw anything but straight lines on his work.
