I still have some NYCC panels to write up, and the posts are trickling in from other sources as well. The Comics Reporter has a long list of links, but I’ll probably post a more manga-centric version at the end of the week. In the meantime, Ed has audio of the buyers’ panel and the ratings panel at the ICv2 Graphic Novel Conference. At the Broccoli Books blog, Shizuki Yamashita gives her impressions. Go!Comi has photos. And Vertical’s Anne Ishii is interviewed in this video.
A French scanlation group turns up its nose at Off*Beat because it’s not Japanese. Manganews interviews creator Jen Lee Quick in response.
The MangaCast crew combs through the new manga list so you don’t have to. And David Welsh licks his pencil and goes through the latest Previews.
In the absence of much information, ICv2 speculates a bit about the Yen/PIKA acquisition.
This should be pretty cool: Netcomics will be featuring Yaoi Press titles on their site, which means they will be available as very reasonably priced webcomics.
A new month, a new Sequential Tart. This month they take on gender bending, and you know what that means: Manga!! A new issue of The Comics Journal is out as well, and Dirk whets our appetite with an excerpt of their interview with Yoshihiro Tatsumi, creator of The Push Man and Abandon the Old in Tokyo.
The New York Times discovers cosplay. (Registration may be required.) (Via Yaoi Suki.)
Please do not sneer at the following news item: Tokyopop will be publishing High School Musical and Hannah Montana cine-manga. Yes, I know, they’re not real manga, but given how people reacted to the news that sales of one volume of Naruto topped 100,000, it behooves us to be humble when faced with the Avatar cine-manga, which sold over 500,000 copies. Improbable as it seems to grownups, High School Musical may be even hotter. So think of it this way: Little kids are subsidizing the high prestige/low sales titles like Dragon Head. And now you know why the Scholastic rep was one of the most listened-to speakers at the ICv2 Graphic Novel Conference.
Chris Sims thumbs through the latest Previews and has this reaction to Make 5 Wishes:
Okay, so from what I can understand from the solicitation here, Avril Lavigne’s Make Five Wishes concerns everyone’s favorite insultingly faux-punk Canadian pop tart appearing via mystical powers to her fans and inspiring them to believe in themselves and achieve their goals. Which essentially means that it’s the exact same comic as Mr. T and the T-Force, except with Avril Lavigne.
If she fights Space Dinosaurs in volume 2, I will be on ’til the break of dawn.
If you need to shake that off, check this out: Beaucoup Kevin has Junko Mizuno videos.
At One Potato Two, Satsuma would like to see Oishinbo translated someday.
At Okazu, Erica notes the passing of a yuri supporter.
Job Board: A friend of Jason Thompson is looking for an artist for a graphic novel. Also, creators take note: Yaoi Press is changing their payment system, from flat page rates to royalties.
Reviews: Mangamaniaccafe checks out vol. 1 of Juvenile Orion and vol. 3 of Tail of the Moon. At Slightly Biased Manga, Connie checks out vol. 1 of To Terra and volumes 1, 2, and 3 of W Juliet. The Library Journal reviews vol. 1 of E’S (scroll down; via the Broccoli blog.) Prospero’s Manga enjoys vol. 1 of Divalicious and vol. 1 of Innocent Bird, and update us on vol. 3 of Kuro Gane. At Active Anime, Holly Ellingwood gets her hands on vol. 10 of Death Note, and also finds time to review vol. 1 of Backstage Prince, vol. 4 of Kami Kaze, vol. 6 of La Esperanca, and vol. 4 of Loveless, while Christopher Seaman checks out vol. 2 of Banya—The Explosive Deliveryman. At Okazu, Erica Friedman enjoys vol. 2 of Read or Dream.
Jen makes a good point in her interview, her manga is not one of which the author is Japanese but American, so her point of view is not foreign to us here in the US. Which is a good and bad thing depending on how you look at it. A manga reader may seek the familiar while some prefer the “exotic”-ness of a true manga/manwha.
(Outside the US, her manga may very well be “exotic” but let’s face it — the French are… whoops got to go to work!)