From Avril to academia

Tokyopop blogger Andre has the scoop: Del Rey has two global titles in the works, The Reformed, by Christopher Hart, and Avril Lavigne’s Make 5 Wishes. Katherine Dacey-Tsuei has an early reaction at PopCultureShock.

David Welsh discusses the YALSA list and the Wal-Mart fiasco in his latest Flipped column and checks out this week’s comics at Precocious Curmudgeon.

Stephanie Foulse writes about Mechademia, the first academic journal of anime and manga, in her Tokyopop column. Elsewhere on the site, ChunHyang72 posts her weekly Tokyopop Round-Up of all the good stuff you might have missed. And she has posted her first top ten list, Ten Great Manwha.

Ed Chavez continues his 2006 Year in Review articles with a look at CMX.

Go!Comi has details up about their portfolio reviews at NYCC. Tina Anderson is not impressed.

A Japanese chain is planning on opening manga rental stores in Japan.

At Anime on DVD, Patricia Beard likes the vampire manga Sequence, but is unhappy that the series was not completed. Connie of Slightly Biased Manga checks out vol. 11 of Video Girl Ai and vol. 8 of Tsubasa. Active Anime’s Davey C. Jones reviews vol. 1 of Gacha Gacha: The Next Revolution and Christopher Seaman reads a new light novel, vol. 2 of Scrapped Princess. Lyle reviews The Gentlemen’s Alliance, a new series in Shojo Beat. Julie at Mangmaniaccafe gives a solid B to vol. 2 of After School Nightmare. Jog has a lengthy discussion of Mushishi. And there’s plenty of yuri goodness at Okazu, where Erica Friedman reviews vol. 7, part 2, of Yuri Hime.

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Comments

  1. ChunHyang72 says

    The Beat just published the full text of Del Rey’s PR describing Make 5 Wishes. The premise sounds awful and derivative. I have a hard time believing the Fruits Basket and Nana crowd will find much to like (besides, perhaps, the artwork).

  2. Hmm, I don’t have a problem with the Avril Lavigne manga. I mean if it sucks I’ll be just another sucky manga. Big deal. But is she a manga fan herself? If she’s doing it like Cortney Love where she was a fan first, then I think it’s kinda cool. If this brings in new manga readers who otherwise wouldn’t have read a comic book before this, then I’m really all for it. Plus, who knows, it may turn out to be okay. And aren’t we still in the “OEL manga rah rah rah” mode where any non-Japanese making manga gets free props? Why all the hate for a manga sight unseen? I mean unless we raise the bar where all manga are judged on the same merits, OEL/Global or not, then it’s all “ata boy” or “you go girl” for me for any “global” manga out there.

  3. Why all the hate for a manga sight unseen?

    I think it was the cover that did it.

  4. ChunHyang72 says

    And aren’t we still in the “OEL manga rah rah rah” mode where any non-Japanese making manga gets free props? Why all the hate for a manga sight unseen? I mean unless we raise the bar where all manga are judged on the same merits, OEL/Global or not, then it’s all “ata boy” or “you go girl” for me for any “global” manga out there.

    Um, no. If you read the best stuff in Tokyopop’s catalog, it stands up to licensed titles. 12 Days, for example, has some lovely artwork, a decidedly adult story, and real appeal for readers wishing that there was more josei available in translation. I found June Kim’s work as appealing as any of the Erica Sakurazawa titles that Tokyopop has licensed.

  5. Yeah, my friend Jessica is all like, They’re looking at portfolios!!eleventy-one. I was like, girl…please. It just looks like your typical ‘let us review your art-clean-up-skills so you can join our teams editorial department’.

    I’m sure GoComi! is great company, but as a writer of original work, I don’t see the lure of spending cash to get to NYCC, just to have someone ‘crit’ my work drawn by an artist, in her portfolio. They’re just licensor’s of Japanese comics, until they show me otherwise. 0_0.

  6. Tina, our portfolio reviews have nothing to do with looking for cleanup/layout people. We have a great layout team and we’re very happy with them.

  7. It just looks like your typical ‘let us review your art-clean-up-skills so you can join our teams editorial department’.

    Hey David Wise, why are you looking at portfolios? Sorry, but I’ve seen this so many times in BL licensor scene ok, so I’m not rolling my eyes just to knock you down. It’s frustrating when storytellers get their hopes up in thinking someone might want to publish their manga-style work and so when calls go out like this, they spend money they often don’t have, in order to secure funds to get to a show for a ‘review’. :/

Trackbacks

  1. […] Avril Lavigne to enter the manga market* Tuesday January 30, 2007, 10:02 am Make 5 WishesI’m not sure whether this trumps the KISS comics, but it might: From MangaBlog’s Brigid Alverson comes word that Del Rey will release the OEL manga Avril Lavigne’s Make 5 Wishes in April. […]