Not dead, only sleeping?

Kai-Ming Cha and Erin Finnegan cover Otakon in this week’s PWCW, and I talk to Tokyopop marketing director Marco Pavia about those cancellation lists that are making the rounds of the internets; Marco says the lists don’t mean anything as things are still in flux. Chris Butcher responds by posting a list of books that won’t be published this fall. This isn’t necessarily a contradiction, as Marco’s whole point is that many of these books will be rescheduled once rights are negotiated. In the PWCW article I also talked to him about some of the new titles due out soon and the trend toward thicker volumes, which is quite obvious this month. (Image is of the Otakon mascots.)

Kai-Ming neatly summarizes the issues raised by the yaoi boom in an article for the San Francisco Chronicle, which is obviously aimed at folks who don’t read a lot of manga.

The Comics Structuralist takes a look at trends in global manga publishing.

David Welsh has some tough decisions to make regarding this week’s new comics. At The Yaoi Review, Sakura Kiss is looking forward to some August yaoi releases.

I missed this last week, but better late than never: Benjamin Ong Pang Kean interviews the creators of the Ghostbusters manga for Newsarama.

ICv2 has more on Vertical’s hardcover editions of Black Jack, which will include stories that weren’t in the paperbacks.

New to the blogroll: Shoujo Only Breaks Your Heart, a review blog devoted to untranslated shoujo manga, by an Australian student and confessed manga addict. You’ll find titles here you wouldn’t find anywhere else (because they are only out in Japanese) so it’s well worth a click.

Manga pundit Jason Thompson will be speaking at the opening of the exhibit Manga & Anime: An Exhibition of Popular Cartoon Art at the Napa Valley Museum on Friday.

News from Japan: Fist of the North Star is marking its 25th birthday with a wedding. And more and more manga is coming to Japanese cell phones.

Reviews: Kate Dacey told me that she would be reviewing vols. 1 and 2 of Cat-Eyed Boy for PopCultureShock, and I was a big nervous that our reviews would repeat each other. As it turns out, Kate is more charitable than I plan to be. Deb Aoki reads vol. 1 of Real at About.com. I picked it up this weekend and it looks awesome. Ed Sizemore has a thoughtful review of vol. 1 of S.S. Astro at Comics Worth Reading. Carlo Santos reviews vol. 5 of Alive, Theron Martin reads vol. 1 of Black Lagoon, and Casey Brienza reviews vol. 1 of Ultimate Venus and the novel Death Note: Another Note at ANN. Dan Polley checks out vol. 16 of The Wallflower at Comics Village. Connie reviews vol. 13 of Iron Wok Jan and vol. 1 of V.B. Rose at Slightly Biased Manga. Tangognat takes a quick look at vol. 4 of High School Debut and vol. 13 of Skip Beat. Emily reviews Isshoni Ofuro at Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page. While you’re there, check out the poll on the right-hand side asking what sort of manga you’d like to see reviewed there. At Prospero’s Manga, Ferdinand enjoys vol. 1 of Jyu-Oh-Sei almost as much as I did. Dave Ferraro checks out vol. 1 of Passion at Comics-and-More. Julie is not too impressed by vol. 2 of Nephilim at the Manga Maniac Cafe. Tiamat’s Disciple takes a look at vols. 1 and 2 of Mobile Police Patlabor and vols. 1-9 of Full Metal Panic. At The Comic Book Bin, Leroy Douresseaux cracks open the September Shonen Jump and critiques the new Stan Lee comic, Ultimo.

Did you enjoy this article? Consider supporting us.

Comments

  1. The implication I get from the Tokyopop article is that “we aren’t cancelling, we are just slowing our release schedule by 50%” (to over-simplify it). I like the double-size volumes idea, but if your target audience includes tween and teens, is making them wait twice as long for subsequent titles really a realistic plan?

Trackbacks

  1. […] Tokyopop’s canceled OEL series. Hmm. (Brigid Alverson talks more about the Tokyopop lists in her entry today, but I admit I’m still confused.) […]