In other news…

I still have some NYAF material to post, but life goes on in the outside world, so I want to link to some other news as well.

Let’s start off with the blog equivalent of a bell and a kettle: I link fairly often to the Phillippines-based blog Otaku Champloo. Blogger Khursten and some of her friends have started a book club called Read or Die that encourages literacy by putting books (including manga!) into the hands of high school students and sponsoring a convention where readers and writers can meet each other. They are having a fund-raiser right now, so if you have a bit of extra cash rattling around in the bottom of your PayPal account, why not stop by and donate?

And actually, here’s a scoop that came from NYAF, sort of: Yaoi Suki talks to John O’Donnell about CPM/BeBeautiful. Yes, they’re still alive, and Libre hasn’t taken any action against them.

Jason Thompson discusses manga and his own webcomic, The Stiff, at Girlamatic.com

Neil Cohn has posted a paper analyzing the visual language of manga. After you read it, head to the TCJ Message Board for followup discussion, including a comic that made me chuckle. (Second link via Journalista.)

Everyone else has already covered this, but it seems there was a minor manga kerfuffle last week, when a boy picked up a copy of Absolute Boyfriend in a South Carolina Books-A-Million and saw a picture of a naked boy. (Actually, it was a nonexplicit drawing of a naked robot, but I doubt that would mollify the kid’s shocked mother.) BAM is moving their manga department farther away from the kids’ section in response. David Welsh has a good time with it, and check the comments for more. As the aunt of a second-grader, all I can say is, will they be shrinkwrapping Captain Underpants next?

On a more exalted note, Wiley is publishing manga editions of Shakespeare. These ones follow the text a little more closely than the Self Made Hero editions; check the link for some previews.

Attention aspiring artists: The deadline for Kodansha’s Morning International Competition is December 31. For inspiration, check out this year’s runners-up here and here.

Here’s a company that will apparently be selling manga online with an interesting model:

Members of AmieStreet.jp will collectively determine the price of all the music, anime and Manga, based on the AmieStreet.com model where all songs start free and increases in price as they increase in popularity. Members will also earn money to spend on more music, anime and Manga when they recommend content that subsequently rises in price, based on the AmieStreet.com REC (recommendation) system.

A Japanese company is putting Tezuka’s Phoenix (well, parts of it anyway) on the Nintendo DS.

Reviews: Here’s a good one to kick it off: Cristoph Mark reviews vols. 1-22 of 20th Century Boys and vols. 1-2 of 21st Century Boys for the Daily Yomiuri. At Completely Futile, Adam Stephanides recommends another series not yet available in English, Partner. At The Star of Malaysia, an anonymous reviewer likes Manga: The Complete Guide, Kurogane reviews vol. 1 of Spiral, and Kevin Tan checks out vol. 1 of Atelier Marie and Elie: Zarburg Alchemist. Joshua Habel has a few reservations about xxxHolic at The Stute. At Comics-and-More, Dave Ferraro enjoys MW. Charles Tan likes it as well.

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Comments

  1. Manga-inspired Shakespeare. “Inspired” is a bit long to paste on a standard paperback cover though. But I’ll imagine it there in spirit.

  2. Hey Tin, can’t wait to see your version of Hamlet.

  3. Thanks a lot for the plug Brigid! We appreciate it! :3