More manga than ever before

Comicsnob’s Matt Blind publishes this week’s watch list and makes some recommendations.

Christopher Butcher has two interesting articles up at Comics212 that touch on manga’s place in the overall comics world. The first is his observation that this week’s shipment at The Beguiling, the comics store he manages, included more manga than non-manga. There are some caveats to this (he counts a comic with several variant covers as a single title, which seems reasonable to me), but it’s significant nonetheless. The second post is a review of The Best American Comics 2007. While he acknowledges that the selections are pretty good, Butcher points out that they also aren’t very representative of the comics world as a whole, omitting not only manga but webcomics and “anything with a whif of genre about it,” and he gives his own list of the best graphic novels of 2006 as a welcome alternative.

Erica Friedman files her con report on MangaNEXT at Okazu. And a local paper uses MangaNEXT as a hook for a manga-101 type article, although the intro is a little odd, holding up Haruhi Suzumiya as “one of the hottest manga characters in America.” Huh?

At the MangaCast, Ed Chavez talks about his plans for the site, including a weekly in-depth look at Morning magazine. And then he links to a mess o’previews.

Tiamat’s Disciple introduces the characters in CLAMP’s Legal Drug.

This Daily Yomiuri article about the daughter of gag cartoonist Fujio Akatsuka managing his works now that he is ill highlights what must be an interesting family. (Via ComiPress.)

Junko Mizuno will be visiting Kidrobot collectibles stores in LA today and in New York on Thursday.

The comics site Newsarama, which mostly covers the sorts of comics I never read but occasionally has a nice in-depth interview with a manga creator, has been bought by Imaginova, which describes itself rather generically as “a leading digital and commerce company.” Johanna and her commenters have a little fun with it at Comics Worth Reading.

Reviews: At Sporadic Sequential, John Jakala takes a first look at the new horror series Presents and where it fits into the American market. Dave Ferraro finds nothing to like about vol. 1 of Here is Greenwood at Comics-and-more. Nick reads vol. 1 of Q-Ko-Chanctive at Hobotaku. At Active Anime, Holly Ellingwood reviews Lovers Flat, Manic Love, and vol. 1 of Dark Moon Diary, and Scott Campbell gets an advance look at vol. 2 of MPD Psycho. Julie checks out Spring Fever at the Manga Maniac Cafe. Ferdinand’s slugline for his review of Manga: The Complete Guide at Prospero’s Manga says it all: “Words fail me. Just buy it.”

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  1. […] [Scene] Erica Friedman reports her impressions of last weekend’s MangaNEXT convention in New Jersey. (Link via Brigid Alverson.) […]