Time to cleanse the brain with a few other things.
At Yaoi 911, Alex asks if the world is ready for color manga. Because he’s doing one.
I am writing stories I’ve wanted to see my whole life. I am choosing to work with artists whose art rocks my world. And the book I’m going to publish is going to be big and it’s going to printed CMYK, because I’m dying to see the boys kissing in full, glorious COLOR.
But there are practical and philosophical issues. Be sure to read the comments for lots of good discussion.
Pata critiques the Toronto Star article that claimed that even nerds look down on anime and manga fans. After consulting the Geek Hierarchy Chart he concludes that the article, at the very least, grossly overstates the case. And anyway, he points out, we’re all getting older, and soon the new kids will be coming along with something we don’t even understand, and then we all die. Thanks for cheering us up, Pata!
Plenty of reviews up today, just in time for the weekend. Newsarama devotes more than a minute to three titles I like, Crimson Hero, Fool’s Gold, and Monster.
At Blogfonte, Mitch doesn’t like Drifting Classroom. He finds the art very stiff, a comment I’ve heard from others. And:
The panel design suggests that the impression is intentional – very rigid, confined, ruled, patterned. Except when something violent or disturbing happens, then the gutters disappear, the panels fill up the whole of the page, and blood & violence is lovingly, delicately inflicted upon Umezu’s doll-people, who suddenly come alive with fear, pain and horror.
On the other hand, here’s a gem from Matthew Alexander’s review of Aoi House:
My one complaint was the lack of nipples when this title has a 16+ rating. If the book is going to use cheesy steam covering only two or three small spots on naked females, then I think the 16+ rating may be a little high.
Got that? Less gore, more nipples. Sounds like a winning marketing plan to me.
I posted this over in AnimeonDVD’s message board, but I’ll put it here as well…
“There is a reason why the series is rated Aoi House “Older Teen (16+).” It has a lot to do with the fact that TOKYOPOP’s Boys of Summer was rated too low and was pulled from store shelves due to its content. Since Aoi House is one of Seven Seas’ most popular original titles (due to the webmanga, theme song, and it being in Newtype USA), we couldn’t risk it getting pulled. So, we rated it Older Teen (16+) instead of Teen. The nudity is meant to be comparable to something you’d see in Love Hina or Negima.”
Corrected:
I posted this over in AnimeonDVD’s message board, but I’ll put it here as well…
“There is a reason why the series is rated “Older Teen (16+).” It has a lot to do with the fact that TOKYOPOP’s Boys of Summer was rated too low and was pulled from store shelves due to its content. Since Aoi House is one of Seven Seas’ most popular original titles (due to the webmanga, theme song, and it being in Newtype USA), we couldn’t risk it getting pulled. So, we rated it Older Teen (16+) instead of Teen. The nudity is meant to be comparable to something you’d see in Love Hina or Negima.”