Bad boys and Battle Vixens

Melinda Beasi explains why you should read xxxHoLiC, with words and pretty, pretty pictures.

ICv2 has a three-part interview with Paul Levitz, President and Publisher of DC Comics, much of which need not concern us here. However, he does discuss Flex manga in part three. Conspicuous by its absence is any mention of their manga imprint CMX.

Paul Gravett’s account of the Edinburgh International Book Festival includes ruminations on the various adaptations, manga and otherwise, of Shakespeare.

It’s been a while since we have had one of those stories about a parent going ballistic over a kid finding naughty manga in the library, so here you go. Be sure to watch the video, in which the Fox folks find yet another hidden danger for us to worry about; my favorite part is when the reporter explains earnestly that the book in question, Battle Vixens, “is actually animation.” (I note that another “news” video on the site at the moment is “Flasher Scorched by Bikini Barista.” Keep tracking down those tough stories, Fox guys!)

News from Japan: ANN reports that Futabasha has launched a free webcomic service that runs in its browser, rather than requiring the user to download comics reading software. Also, manga artist Keizo Tsukamoto has been recognized by Guinness for the longest career as an artist at the same magazine; Tsukamoto has been churning out cover art for the Weekly Manga Times since 1970, outlasting six editors-in-chief.

Reviews: Sabrina reviews vol. 1 of Ouran High School Host Club at Comics Village. Connie continues her vacation reading with a look at vol. 7 of Angel Sanctuary at Slightly Biased Manga. Sesho’s latest podcast takes on vol. 1 of Sola. At the Boys Next Door blog: Cynthia posts reviews of vol. 2 of Tea For Two, Sweet Admiration, vol. 10 of Love Mode, and Honeydew Syndrome. Johanna Draper Carlson checks out vols. 6, 7, and 8 of Love*Com and vol. 4 of High School Debut at Comics Worth Reading. Lori Henderson reads vol. 1 of The Mysterians online at the Tokyopop site. Erica Friedman has plenty to say about vols. 4 and 5 of Battle Club, another manga featured in the Fox segment above.

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Comments

  1. Really… The rating’s just a reminder. It’s like with video games. Parents still have the responsibility to stop their kids from reading whatever they do not feel is appropriate. Banning anyone under 18 from reading it is a little bit much, though I wouldn’t mind, say….the librarian asking the parent (if he’s there) to see if he’s fine with it. Monitor what your kids does, or, even better, teach him well enough so he stays away from stuff he’s not supposed to touch.

  2. Hey, that’s my library! I didn’t even know they had an adult section. Cool!

  3. It’s a 2 way thing, it’s up to both the staff and the parents to monitor what’s being taken out.

    If a 12 year old is wanting something clearly rated as 18+, then the staff should exercise that grey matter between their lug holes and say no. If the kids want it that badly tell them to come back with their parents.

    But it’s also upto the parents to check what their kids are reading, and to set and enforce rules. Relying on the state to raise your kids seems to be a common trait in the west these days, and it makes me sick. Parents aren’t active in their parenting, leaving it to schools and others. But when something goes wrong, or the kids do something the parents dont like, they raise blue murder over it.

    As for getting a lawyer involved, the only people who’d get anything from that would be the lawyers. A mistake happened, the staff should learn from it, and so should the parents, then move on.

    This is one of the reasons the UK libraries don’t carry alot of manga, they ran into similar problems early on. The end result was they decided it wasn’t worth the hassle of carrying them

  4. The librarian is not the parent, and is not responsible for saying no to what a patron wishes to check out. Whether the patron is 12 or 92. A 12-year-old should have a parent with them when they’re checking stuff out, and the parent can say no. It’s not about “exercising the gray matter between our lug holes”, it’s about the principles and basics tenets of librarianship. Sorry. If you don’t want your kids checking out certain books, and you can’t trust them to make a judgement on their own, go up to the desk with them.

  5. Maturity and not age is sometimes the question for what is appropriate. There’s the idea that the parent must trust the kid enough to let him go to the library and check out books himself, right? If the librarian denies the kid, there might be another parent coming up arguing about freedom and not doing her duties (as she IS a librarian)…

    Instead of this being a message for librarians out there to be careful, I think it’s a message that parents should be more vigilant. Wonder if the parent in question punished his child for check that book out in the first place?

  6. My library is all computerized, as I imagine many are. We have V-chips in TVs and video game consoles can be set not to play mature games.

    If there are materials labeled “adult” or “18+” it would be very simple to add that indication in the system, and then when a parent goes to the library for the first time to get thier child a card, they can set it so they are not able to borrow any “adult” or “18+” material. This way the librarian doesn’t have to play cop, and the parents don’t need to go with the child every time they want to check out books.