Archives for 2007

DrMaster publishes one of the first manga that got my family hooked—Iron Wok Jan. They’re still going, with vol. 27 of that long-running series, plus vol. 5 of Junk and vol. 1 of a new series, Purgatory Kabuki, coming out this week.

This isn’t in the press release, but I heard at NYAF, and just verified at DrMaster’s site, that the early Iron Wok Jan books are on sale for $4.95 each, which suggests a gift idea for those with culinary leanings.

DrMASTER PUBLICATIONS TO RELEASE
JUNK VOL. 5, IRON WOK JAN VOL. 27, AND PURGATORY KABUKI VOL. 1

SAN JOSE, CA – December 12, 2007 – DrMaster has just announced the publication of Junk volume 5 by Kia Asamiya, Iron Wok Jan volume 27, the final volume of the popular series by author Shinji Saijyo, and Purgatory Kabuki volume 1 by Yasushi Suzuki.

Purgatory Kabuki v1
Purgatory Kabuki is a samurai action story set in the underworld or afterlife. For reasons unknown, Imanoturugi, a former samurai, is obsessed with leaving the afterlife. To die in battle is a samurai’s greatest honor. Yet, now Imanoturugi must claim 1000 swords from the fallen warriors who now share residence in the dark underworld. By these and these means alone, this highly skilled blades master will be allowed admittance back into the living world. But to what end? Upon what stone purpose does he sharpen his edge? The story borrows heavily from various Japanese legends and myths. A skillfully mixed bag of action, suspense, classic ukiyoe style art and intrigue definitely worth reading.

Junk v5
The advent of the third JUNK brings a new reign of terror to Tokyo as the white JUNK is overpowered by its superior technology. Meanwhile, Hiro goes to Okinawa to visit Ryoko, who is recuperating from the kidnapping incident. As they come to terms with each other, will Hiro find what he is missing in his life? Don’t miss this new installment of the series Junk!

Iron Wok Jan v27
After Jan reveals his unspeakable ingredient too sickening even to be mentioned, the ostriches go wild turning the competition arena upside down. But, not to worry, there is still one battle left. Who will come out victorious? Whet your appetites for the final volume of Iron Wok Jan! You don’t want to miss the tantalizing action of the final battle as the cooking battle saga of the two houses Akiyama and Gobancho closes its curtain after three generations.

Also included: A special alternate ending and Shinji Saijyo’s debut manga What Mysterious Fellows!!

Availability
The three titles are available for pre-order now, and will be shipped out on 14 December. Each one will be priced at $9.95. Visit www.drmasterbooks.com for more detailed series information.

About DrMaster Publications, Inc.:
From Japan we bring unique stories and characters, brought to life through suspenseful science fiction, relationship dramas, and side-splitting comedies. And from China, we have offerings rich in history and mystique, and titles with unmatched action and suspense. By brazenly going against the grain and laughing in the face of conformity, DrMaster Publications Inc. introduced something different to the legion of comic book fans whose cravings lie outside the superhero box. Choosing the path less traveled we have journeyed across the Pacific to bring US readers, the acclaimed works from Japan and China’s biggest and brightest!

Each of our books is like a glimpse into a new realm as seen through the eyes of the authors and artists. You don’t just read a DrMaster book—it jolts you to life, as you are propelled through the pages. Please click here for a list of our current and upcoming titles. And feel free to tour the site. Regular updates will follow as our line of “masterful” comic series expands.

About DGN Productions International:
DGN Productions (Digital Graphic Novel Productions) is a newly-formed production company and studio made up of industry veterans within the comics and video game industries. Through strategic licensing of key comic book titles and the use of recognized industry professionals within the fields of animation and video game development, DGN Pro. Intl. is dedicated to producing cutting-edge video games, comics and animated features adapted from some the biggest and brightest in Hong Kong, Japanese and Korean comic book properties. DGN Productions Intl. was founded June 2004 and is based in Fremont, California.

This week’s PWCW features an overview of NYAF, plus articles on the Marvel/Del Rey announcement, what folks were doing on the exhibit floor, and Bandai’s acquisition of Code Geass licenses. And don’t miss Kai-Ming’s interview with Faust editor Katsushi Ota and my profile of the Lime Studios duo, David Boller and Mary Hildebrandt.

Major new blog announcement: Veteran editor Jake Forbes has a new blog that focuses on Return to Labyrinth but also covers lots of other cool stuff, like the choose-your-own-adventure books (he’s made his own blog version)—check it out!

David Welsh interviews Eijiro Shimata of Kodansha about Morning 2‘s international manga competition. If you’re preparing an entry, don’t forget, the deadline is December 31.

Newsarama talks to Marvel VP Ruwan Jayatilleke about the manga X-Men and Wolverine series announced at NYAF. And James Jakala, who was thinking about superhero/manga mashups a while ago, reacts to the news. Manganews reacts as well.

MangaCast picks the best of this week’s new manga.

ComiPress spots another win for Team Manga: New York Magazine includes two manga, Apollo’s Song and Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms, in its Best Comics of 2007 list.

John T posts a very manga-oriented gift guide at Mecha Mecha Media.

A company called eigoMANGA is getting together with a subscription service to provide global manga magazines to schools.

Reviews: Here’s a new one: Indonesian blogger huamulan03 has a detailed review of Tachibana Higuchi’s Swan Lake. At the Manga Maniac Cafe, Julie checks out vol. 7 of Sugar Sugar Rune, vol. 6 of Beauty Pop, vol. 1 of Megami Deluxe, and vol. 6 of ES Eternal Sabbath. Tangognat takes a quick look at Crossroad and The Devil Within, two series that handle similar themes in very different ways. About Heroes posts brief reviews of recent titles, from Emma to Gon. At the MangaCast, Aliera is not impressed with Pop Travel Japan: Essential Otaku Guide but is a little more kindly disposed toward Calling You; meanwhile, MangaManiac reads vol. 1 of Prince Charming. Michael May has a lengthy review of MW at Blog@Newsarama. Jiji reviews vol. 1 of Pick of the Litter at Manganews. Greg Burgas reads Jiro Taniguchi’s The Ice Wanderer at Comic Book Resources.

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.

Udon isn’t a company that I see too often, perhaps because I’m not into games at all. Still, I’m disappointed that I missed their panel, the last one at NYAF, because I’m curious about what they do, and their manhwa sounds interesting. Apparently they announced some game-related manga at NYAF; details after the cut.

EW MANGA! NEW MANHWA! NEW STREET FIGHTER COMICS!
UDON announces new titles from their 2008 publishing line up

Toronto, ON – Dec 10, 2007 – This past weekend at the 2007 New York Anime Festival UDON Entertainment unveiled a swath of exciting announcements to a room full of thrilled anime and comic book fans. Just in time for Street Fighter’s 20th anniversary (highlighted by the all-new Street Fighter IV video game and the upcoming live action movie), UDON plans to release three pulse-pounding Street Fighter comic book series in 2008.

First up, Street Fighter II Turbo will be a 12 issue maxi-series continuing the core story of UDON’s Street Fighter universe. Featuring the dynamic and energetic artwork of Chamba (Sinbad: Rogue of Mars), this latest arc pits the World Warriors against each other in an epic tournament-style slugfest.

Secondly, artist Omar Dogan (Sakura, Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles) follows up his run on the popular Sakura mini-series with Street Fighter Legends: Chun-Li. This new 4 issue mini-series focuses on a young Chun-Li, revealing how she grew up to become the world’s most famous female fighter.

Finally, Joe Ng (Red Sonya: Sonya Goes East, Transformers, G.I. Joe VS Transformers) brings his skilled line work to the pages of Street Fighter III: New Generation. This 6-issue series will not only explore the new characters introduced in the Street Fighter III video games, it will also show fans for the first time what classic characters like Guile, Sakura and others are up to during the SF3 era!

Beyond Street Fighter, UDON is diving back into other publishing projects in 2008. The studio will be expanding their successful Capcom Manga line with several new titles including Onimusha: Twilight of Desire and Devil Kings Basara. Fans can also look forward to more Capcom art books including Onimusha Dawn of Dreams: Official Complete Works and the Darkstalkers Graphic File.

In addition, UDON is also kicking its Korean Manhwa line into high gear with new titles including Daring Students’ Association, Dear Waltz, Reading Club, Evyione and Chronicles of the Grim Peddler.

Release dates and more detailed information will be forthcoming in future press releases, so stay tuned to the blog section of www.udonentertainment.com for all the latest UDON news!

So, the big announcement of NYAF was this: Del Rey is going to do manga based on Marvel characters, a shoujo version of X-Men and a shonen version of Wolverine. The X-Men title will be written by the husband-and-wife team of Dave Roman and Raina Telgemeier and illustrated by the Indonesian artist Anzu; Wolverine will be written by Antony Johnson. Each series will be two volumes, and the manga will be standard format: 200 pages, black and white interior, 5 x 7 1/2 trim size. The first X-Men manga will be published in spring 2009.

MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT AND DEL REY MANGA ANNOUNCE TWO NEW SERIES BASED ON X-MEN, WOLVERINE

NEW YORK, NY – December 9, 2007 – Marvel Entertainment and Del Rey Manga, an imprint of Ballantine Books at the Random House Publishing Group, announced today plans to publish two new manga series based on Marvel Entertainment’s highly popular X-Men series.

The manga, created with the cooperation and consultation of Marvel editors, will take the classic characters from the X-Men series and re-imagine them in a manga style. The first project, scripted by the husband-and-wife team of Raina Telgemeier (writer and illustrator of The Babysitter’s Club graphic novels) and Dave Roman (creator of the comic Agnes Quill), will focus specifically on the X-Men team. Indonesian artist Anzu will illustrate the two-volume series, which will go on sale in Spring 2009.

It’s the X-Men as you’ve never seen them before, with the storyline fashioned as a private school shôjo comedy. (Shôjo manga is aimed at girls and often covers popular subjects such as comedy, romance, and drama.) As the only girl in the all-boys School for Gifted Youngsters, Kitty Pryde, a mutant with phasing abilities, is torn between the popular Hellfire Club, led by flame-throwing mutant Pyro—and the school misfits, whom she eventually bands together as the X-Men.

A second manga series, to be published in Spring 2009, follows the adventures of Wolverine, a breakout member of the X-Men team known for his attitude and unbreakable adamantium claws.

Dallas Middaugh, associate publisher of Del Rey Manga, says, “The X-Men are some of the most well-known characters in the world, and it’s the strength of those characters-along with strong and unique storylines-that make the X-Men a perfect match for the manga form. It’s an amazing opportunity, and we’re eager to bring new interpretations to the fans through the prism of manga.”

The X-Men made their comics debut in The X-Men #1 in 1963 and have since become a mainstream pop culture phenomenon with the development of an animated television series, several video games and a blockbuster live-action film trilogy.

Ruwan Jayatilleke, Vice President of development of Marvel Entertainment, Inc., said “Del Rey Manga has been an innovative force in the manga landscape—-consistently growing the medium and breaking the boundaries of print. We have found a partner who will bring the X-Men and Wolverine into the fastest growing segment of graphic fiction, with superior storytelling and visual fireworks. Comic book fans and manga readers have much to look forward to.”

Manga, the Japanese term for comics, is a Japanese cultural phenomenon that accounts for nearly half of all the books and magazines sold in Japan. Read by men and women of all ages, manga covers a wide variety of themes including adventure, romance, fantasy, and more. Manga has experienced incredible growth in the US and Canadian graphic novel market in the past few years. According to industry source ICv2 manga sales reached between $170 million and $200 million in 2006.

About the Creators
Raina Telgemeier is best known for her work as the writer and illustrator of The Babysitter’s Club graphic novels. She received her BFA from the School of Visual Arts and has been nominated for numerous awards, including the Eisner, Ignatz, Cybil, and Web Cartoonists’ Choice awards.

Dave Roman currently works for Nickelodeon Magazine as an associate editor. The co-creator of the Harvey Award-nominated series Jax Epoch and the Quicken Forbidden and the Ignatz award-winning Teen Boat, he also pens his own webcomic, Astronaut Elementary. He is also the creator of the comic Agnes Quill.

Anzu, a manga artist based in Indonesia, will make her US manga art debut in April 2008 with the first volume of The Reformed, written by Chris Hart. She has contributed to Hart’s bestselling How to Draw Manga series.

Yen Press made quite a splash at NYAF. You couldn’t miss the huge Yen Press banner as you walked in, and the huge banner of Svetlana Chmakova’s Nightschool hanging in the main concourse. And then before anyone even had a panel, Yen kicked off the fest by announcing they had signed a deal with James Patterson, decribed by Yen co-publisher Kurt Hassler as “the best selling author in all the country.”

The first four books are 4-koma, four-panel cartoons, the same format as Azumanga Daioh:

Shoulder a Coffin, Kuro, by Satoko Kiyuduki. This manga is based on Western fairy tales and features a little girl who walks around with a coffin on her back. She is very philosophical, but she travels with a little man who is both the voice of reason and the voice of snark, according to assistant editor Tania Biswas. As with the original, color pages will be interspersed throughout the book.

Sunshine Sketch, by Ume Aoki, is known to anime fans as Hidomari’s Sketch. It’s about a group of girls in a dorm in an all-girl school—”It’s kind of like a harem manga without the guy,” Biswas explained. You can see a sample on its Wikipedia page.

Suzunari! by Shoko Iwami, is about a girl who finds a twin sister with cat ears on the street; she brings the new girl home, and her parents treat her like a member of the family. Hilarity ensues. You can take a peek at the cover of the Japanese edition on its Baka-updates page.

And finally, SS Astro: Ashaio Sogo Teachers Room takes a peek at what really goes on in the teachers lounge. Hilarity, apparently.

(Satsuma, who blogs at One Potato Two, is translating Shoulder a Coffin, Kuro and Sunshine Sketch, so she posted covers on her blog.)

Biswas also mentioned the three Lily Hoshino BL manga that Yen announced at Yaoicon: Love Quest, Mr. Flower Bride, and Mr. Flower Groom.

Then it was time to talk about Yen Plus, the manga anthology magazine that Yen will be releasing monthly beginning this summer. The magazine will contain a mix of original and licensed material, both manga and manhwa, and the headline story will be Nightschool, which Svet described as “Harry Potter meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” The idea is that vampires and other creatures go to school at night, in a regular public school that is transformed just for them. The main character, Alex, is a witch who has guardian demon spirits but also manages to be a surly teenager.

The anthology will also include two manhwa, Jack Frost, by Jin-Ho Ko, and Pig Bride, about an arranged marriage between a boy and a girl who hides her face behind a pig mask, by Kook-Hwa Huh and Su-Jin Kim.

And then there will be Maximum Ride, based on the James Patterson novels. “This is one of the best selling young adult novels in the country, there are film plans in works, we could not be more excited that this is going to be an anchor of the Yen Plus magazine,” Hassler said. It should also bring in new readers, as Patterson fans (like the five who showed up in Maximum Ride costumes at Hassler’s house this Halloween) pick up the magazine. Which they will, because Hassler says it will not just be in bookstores but also in mass-market stores like Target and Wal-Mart, at the allowance-friendly price of $8.99 for 460 pages.

One final note: Yen is taking over the Ice Kunion library, and co-publisher Rich Johnson said the books are arriving in the Hachette warehouse now and should be in stores shortly. The Yen Press logo will go on when the books are reprinted.