Archives for February 2009

Lots of questions have popped up about Diamond’s decision to stop carrying over 1,000 Viz items, mostly manga. I pitched a few at Viz spokeswoman Evelyn Dubocq and got some answers:

MangaBlog: Are these volumes going out of print?

Evelyn Dubocq: No.

MB: What other retail channels will carry them?

ED: Simon & Schuster, AAA Anime, Baker & Taylor, Ingram among others

MB: Some of these series, such as Bastard and Prince of Tennis, are still ongoing. Do you plan to continue releasing new volumes of these?

ED: There are no plans at this time for discontinuing these series

So there you have it. The series are still available in bookstores and other sales channels, and none are slated to be cut. I’m guessing that these titles sell better in those venues than in comics stores, and that’s the reason for the de-listing. Ev wouldn’t comment on why Diamond took this step, referring me to them for info on their business decisions, which is reasonable enough. I’ll give that a shot tomorrow.

At Comics212, Christopher Butcher has posted a list of over 1,000 items, all from Viz, that Diamond will no longer be carrying. I have asked the Viz folks for some clarification of what this means from their end, and when they come through I’ll post what they have to say. In the meantime, two observations: 1. These are mostly old series that ended over a year ago and may not be picking up new readers, and 2. The books will still be available through other channels, such as bookstores and Amazon. I searched for a handful of these on Amazon today and most were listed as in stock. Diamond distributes to comics stores, but who goes to a comics store to buy Boys Over Flowers or Inu Yasha anyway? At Savage Critics, Brian Hibbs makes a different point: He says the books aren’t selling anyway. Simon Jones has some additional thoughts and questions at the Icarus blog (possibly NSFW). At The Comics Reporter, Tom Spurgeon looks at the larger implications of all Diamond’s recent moves, while David Welsh makes some general comments and takes a long, hard look at the causes and possible effects of the manga slump.

Erica Friedman puts a different spin on the business news at Okazu, looking at five things that niche companies (including Viz!) are doing right. And then she rounds up the week’s yuri news for us.

At Manga Recon, Erin Finnegan turns in a thorough report on the ICv2 Graphic Novel Conference (part 1, part 2), with lots of good facts, figures, and quotes.

One of the most fun things I did at NYCC was participate in a bloggers’ roundtable (literally!) with Scott VonSchilling of Anime Almanac, Alain and Kate (a.k.a. Hisui and Narutaki) of Reverse Thieves, and Greg (who doesn’t seem to have a website), hosted by Evan Minto of Ani-Gamers. The resulting lively discussion is now online for your listening pleasure, and I highly recommend it; this was a smart bunch of folks who know their anime and manga (and other comics as well).

Deb Aoki files her Viz and Yen Press panel reports from NYCC, with a lot of the details that didn’t get mentioned in the first rush of reporting. (At right: The cover of Natsume Ono’s Not Simple, one of the new titles Viz announced at NYCC.)

The MangaCast team skim the cream of last week’s new manga. Also, Ed Chavez takes a look at the lineup, with art, for the alt-manga anthology AX.

At Japanator, God Len looks at this week’s new releases.

And if you need to make room for those new releases, Kate Dacey has some suggestions for selling your manga on E-Bay at Precocious Curmudgeon.

Lissa Pattillo takes a peek at DMP’s new cover designs at Kuriousity.

The Eastern Edge translates parts two and three of Quick Japan’s interview with Naoki Urasawa.

Congratulations to Danielle Leigh on the first anniversary of her Manga Before Flowers column at Comic Book Resources.

At Advanced Media Network, Serdar Yegulalp has an in-depth interview with Camellia Nieh, the translator of Black Jack, MW, and the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex novels, with lots of shop talk and interesting insights into the process. Fun stuff. (Hat tip: John Thomas.)

Udon will publish a newly translated edition of Silent Mobus, including three volumes that were previously unreleased in English translation.

The Dreaming creator Queenie Chan will supply the manga for a “hybrid manga/advice book,” The Boy’s Book of Positive Quotations.

Scratching your head over why everyone is making such a fuss over Yotsuba&!? At Anime Vice, Gia explains it all to you in this short video made in Hawaii, apparently just to make the rest of us jealous.

Lori Henderson discusses Calibre, a cross-platform e-book manager, at Manga Xanadu.

News from Japan: Canned Dogs has some interesting magazine news: A report on the demographics of the top three shonen magazines, and word that the delay in release of Dragon 9 has left some empty space in Famitsu magazine. ANN notes that Oishinbo is back from hiatus, and Gia reports that D.Gray-Man will be back in the March issue of weekly Shonen Jump, after creator Katsura Hoshino took a break due to health problems. Also, Naoki Urasawa is such a great creator, even his characters can draw their own manga. Ed posts last week’s doujin rankings at MangaCast.

Reviews

Everyone’s talking about Monster, and be warned, both these links include spoilers, because the end of the book is a big part of the discussion. Christopher Butcher has some thoughts on the ending and the series as a whole at Comics212; Lissa Pattillo reviews the entire series at Kuriousity. I reviewed the last volume for the final issue of Comic Foundry, so you’ll have to wait for that to come out to see what I thought. Looking ahead, Jog takes a look at Naoki Urasawa’s two new (to the U.S.) series, 20th Century Boys and Pluto, at The Savage Critics. Carlo Santos also kicks off his latest Right Turn Only!! column with a look at vol. 1 of 20th Century Boys.

At his blog Madinkbeard, Derik Badman analyzes two pages of Mushishi. The Manga Recon team turns in another set of pithy Manga Minis. Other reviews of note:

James Fleenor on vol. 2 of .hack//XXXX (Anime Sentinel)
A Library Girl on vol. 4 of After School Nightmare (A Library Girl’s Familiar Diversions)
Connie on vols. 24 and 25 of Berserk (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 3 of B.O.D.Y. (Slightly Biased Manga)
Justin Colussy-Estes on vol. 1 of Golgo 13 (Comics Village)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 3 of Hero Heel (The Comic Book Bin)
Julie on vol. 8 of High School Debut (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Connie on vol. 10 of Hoshin Engi (Slightly Biased Manga)
Snow Wildsmith on Hot Steamy Glasses (Manga Jouhou)
Connie on vol. 7 of Human Club (Slightly Biased Manga)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 16 of Kekkaishi (The Comic Book Bin)
Erica Friedman on Kitsune to Atori (Okazu)
Connie on vol. 8 of Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (Slightly Biased Manga)
Carlo Santos on vol. 8 of Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (ANN)
Kris on L’Etoile Solitaire (Manic About Manga)
Lissa Pattill on vol. 2 of Love Recipe (Kuriousity)
AstroNerdBoy on The Manga Guide to Databases (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Leroy Douresseaux on Millennium Darling 2006 (The Comic Book Bin)
Julie on vol. 3 of Monkey High! (Slightly Biased Manga)
Rio McCarthy on vol. 1 of Nora: The Last Chronicle of Devildom (Japanator)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 3 of Nora: The Last Chronicle of Devildom (The Comic Book Bin)
Lissa Pattillo on Object of Desire (Kuriousity)
Dave Ferraro on Orange (Comics-and-More)
Michelle Smith on vols. 2 and 3 of The Palette of 12 Secret Colors (soliloquy in blue)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 6 of Parasyte (Comics Worth Reading)
Tangognat on vol. 1 of Phantom Dream (Tangognat)
Connie on vol. 2 of Pluto (Slightly Biased Manga)
Cynthia on Red Blinds the Foolish (Boys Next Door)
Julie on vol. 3 of Silver Diamond (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Julie on Sweet Regard (MangaCast)
Kris on Time Lag (Manic About Manga)
Cynthia on vol. 1 of Tomcats (Boys Next Door)
Dan Polley on vol. 3 of Toto (Comics Village)
Cynthia on Tricky Prince (Boys Next Door)
Michelle Smith on vol. 3 of Two Will Come (soliloquy in blue)
Connie on vol. 2 of Vagabond, Vizbig edition (Slightly Biased Manga)
Kris on Wagamama Kitchen (Manic About Manga)

Here’s your must-read for the weekend: Christoph Mark interviews Naoki Urasawa and his editor, Takashi Nagasaki, about their collaboration on Billy Bat. Great quote:

“People often think he’s the pitcher and I’m the catcher, but in our discussions for this story, I was the pitcher, he was the batter,” Nagasaki explains.

There’s plenty of interesting background, so go, read. (Image of the Billy Bat cover swiped from ANN.)

Tina Anderson, who was planning on submitting a comic for Viz’s original comics line, says that it has been put on hold and also that Marc Weidenbaum, who spearheaded the line in addition to being top editor for Shonen Jump and Shojo Beat, is no longer with the company. (Via Kuriousity.)

At Rocket Bomber, Matt Blind brings us the latest online sales numbers for the week ending Feb. 8: rankings summary, new releases and pre-orders, emerging trends report, and top 500.

The Manga Recon team has a roundtable discussion of their manga creator dream teams.

At Kuriousity, the very curious Lissa Pattillo has found some new Blu listings on Amazon. Ed Chavez posts the Japanese covers at MangaCast. Ed has covers of the new Yen Press titles and updates on Fanfare/Ponent Mon and Bandai—now there’s an odd couple—as well.

The Electric Ant zine blog is posting anything anyone can find on the upcoming AX anthology.

Reviews

Tangognat recommends some manga for an 11-year-old girl.

Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 1 of 20th Century Boys (The Comic Book Bin)
Connie on Bambi (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 23 of Berserk (Slightly Biased Manga)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 5 of Black God (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Robert Harris on vol. 9 of Hayate the Combat Butler (Mania.com)
Briana Lawrence on vol. 4 of Hell Girl (Mania.com)
Connie on vol. 1 of Kikaider Code 02 (Slightly Biased Manga)
Emily on Koi ja nai no da! (Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page)
Aspi on The Manga Guide to Databases (Blogcritics)
Julie on vol. 7 of Muhyo & Roji’s Bureau of Supernatural Investigation (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Lissa Pattillo on Necrataholic (Kuriousity)
Casey Brienza on vol. 1 of Otomen (ANN)
Michelle Smith on vol. 1 of The Palette of 12 Secret Colors (soliloquy in blue)
Billy Aguiar on vol. 1 of Pixie (Prospero’s Manga)
Jeremy Shepherd on The Reformed (Advanced Media Network)
Charles Tan on vol. 2 of Slam Dunk (Comics Village)
Michelle Smith on vols. 1 and 2 of Two Will Come (soliloquy in blue)
Connie on Where Has Love Gone? (Manga Recon)
Erin Jones on vol. 1 of Yonen Buzz: Plastic Chew (Mania.com)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 5 of Zombie Loan (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)

Del Rey announced at NYCC that they would be publishing King of RPGs, a shonen manga written by manga expert extraordinaire Jason Thompson and illustrated by Victor Hao. Jason gives the lowdown at his LJ and it already has its own website, with some nice concept art.

Speaking of NYCC, Deb Aoki posts the most thorough account I have seen so far of the Del Rey panel, along with a comprehensive report on the Seling Good Graphic Novels (& Manga) in a Bad Economy panel, which was one of the most worthwhile panels in the whole show (part 1, part 2)

At Fujoshi Librarian, Snow Wildsmith actually contacts DMP to check out some manga that are listed on Amazon.ca but not on Amazon.com or DMP’s own website. Turns out there’s a perfectly logical explanation.

The first volume of Becky Cloonan’s East Coast Rising garnered some nice reviews, but like many of the Tokyopop global manga projects it seems to have fallen into limbo. Cloonan, who has a number of other irons in the fire, updated impatient readers on the status of volume 2 yesterday, letting them know that she’s still working on it and waiting for things to work out with Tokyopop.

I’m a bit late with this, but Rocket Bomber has the numbers for online manga sales in the week ending Feb. 1: rankings summary, emerging trends, and new releases and pre-orders. Also, this info is now available as a newsletter!

Sequential lists the top 30 comics and graphic novels in Canada for the past week, and Naruto puts in a pretty respectable showing.

Fruits Basket translators Athena and Alethea Nibley discuss some of their most difficult translation challenges at Manga Life.

News from Japan: MangaCast brings us the weekly manga rankings from Taiyosha, and ANN has the Oricon chart. Legendary director Hayao Miyazaki will create a two-part series about airplane designer Jirō Horikoshi for Model Graphix magazine. The anime Sora Kake Girl is spawning two manga series in two different magazines. And Nodame Cantabile will be back in Kiss magazine in March, after manga-ka Tomoko Ninomiya’s hiatus to have a baby and recover from carpal tunnel syndrome.

Reviews

Joy Kim on vol. 10 of After School Nightmare (Manga Life)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 2 of Ballad of a Shinigami (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Julie on vol. 4 of Basilisk (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Julie on vol. 12 of Chibi-Vampire (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Julie on vol. 7 of Crimson Hero (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Andrew Wheeler on Disappearance Diary, Travel, and The Quest for the Missing Girl (ComicMix)
Tiamat’s Disciple on books 1 and 2 of Dog Eaters (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Cynthia on Double Trouble (Boys Next Door)
Cynthia on Future Lovers (Boys Next Door)
Kris on Gaba Kawa (Manic About Manga)
Erica Friedman on vol. 5 of Gunsmith Cats Burst (Okazu)
Kris on Heaven’s Will (Manic About Manga)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 2 of Higurashi When They Cry (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Julie on Hot Limit (MangaCast)
Emily on Kimi no Tonari de Seishunchu (Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page)
Erica Friedman on vol. 2 of Maka-Maka (Okazu)
Kris on vol. 1 of The Manzai Comics (Manic About Manga)
Julie on vol. 3 of Minima! (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vols. 1-7 of Mirai Nikki (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 6 of Moon Boy (Kuriousity)
Erica Friedman on vol. 2 of My-Hime (Okazu)
Julie on vol. 1 of The Name of the Flower (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Tangognat on vol. 1 of The Name of the Flower (Tangognat)
Julie on vol. 2 of Nightmare Inspector – Yumekui Kenbun (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Julie on vol. 1 of Oishinbo – A la Carte (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Eimly on Oretachi ni Ai wa Nai (Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page)
Rob Vollmar on Phoenix: Karma (Ramble On)
Matthew J. Brady on vol. 1 of Pluto (Warren Peace Sings the Blues)

Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 1 of Pluto (The Comic Book Bin)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 1 of Pumpkin Scissors (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane on vol. 1 of St. Dragon Girl (Manga Life)
Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane on vol. 4 of Sand Chronicles (Manga Life)
Alex Hoffman on vol. 1 of Shaman King (Comics Village)
Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane on vol. 15 of Tail of the Moon (Manga Life)
Casey Brienza on vol. 1 of Variante (Kethylia)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 6 of Yumekui Kenbun Nightmare Inspector (The Comic Book Bin)

It’s probably going to take me a couple of days to catch up with all my news alerts and RSS feeds; here’s the latest batch of news you can’t live without:

David Welsh picks the best of this week’s new comics at Precocious Curmudgeon.

The illustrations to Matthew Alexander’s interview with Simon Jones at Mania.com have been rendered SFW only by heavy application of warning stickers, but try to sneak a read anyway, because as always, Simon is one of the smartest commentators on the business of manga.

I haven’t been to Eastern Standard in a while, but Journalista sent me over there to look at this Yoshitaka ABe piece on moe and I ended up being distracted by Joe Iglesias’ post on the old manga magazine Mangajin.

At Manic About Manga, prolific reviewer Kris is looking for some new manga to read, preferably not yaoi. Check the comments for readers’ suggestions.

News from Japan: Ashita no Joe will be making a comeback in reprint form in the weekly Shukan Gandai, Kyodo News reports.

Reviews: I took a look at Akira Toriyama’s kids’ manga Cowa! and the Tokyopop manhua Orange this week for the Graphic Novel Reporter. The Manga Recon team turns in an eclectic set of Manga Minis on everything from Bakugan Battle Brawlers to Manga Sutra. Other reviews to check out:

Sadie Mattox on Absolute Boyfriend (Extremely Graphic)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 11 of Air Gear (Kuriousity)
Connie on vols. 4 and 5 of Basara (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vols. 21 and 22 of Berserk (Slightly Biased Manga)
Kris on vol. 1 of Blue Sheep Reverie (Manic About Manga)
Connie on vol. 3 of Captive Hearts (Slightly Biased Manga)
Melinda Beasi on Castle of Dreams (Manga Recon)
Connie C. on cm0 (Manga Recon)
Kris on Desire (Manic About Manga)
Connie on vols. 22 and 23 of Eyeshield 21 (Slightly Biased Manga)
Lori Henderson on vol. 2 of Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time (Comics Village)
Kris on vol. 3 of Hero Heel (Manic About Manga)
Julie on Hot Limit (MangaCast)
Dan Polley on vol. 2 of Kujibiki Unbalance (Comics Village)
Katherine Farmar on vol. 3 of Love Mode (Comics Village)
Kris on Love Quest (Manic About Manga)
Peter Gutierrez on vols. 1 and 2 of Me and the Devil Blues (Graphic Novel Reporter)
Kris on Necrataholic (Manic About Manga)
Connie on vol. 3 of Nora: The Last Chronicles of Devildom (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 10 of Oh My Goddess (Slightly Biased Manga)
Sam Kusek on vol. 14 of O-Parts Hunter (Manga Recon)
Billy Aguiar on vol. 1 of Orange Crows (Prospero’s Manga)
Greg McElhatton on vol. 1 of Pluto (Comic Book Resources)
Michelle Smith on vol. 1 of Pluto (Manga Recon)
Kris on Sea View (Manic About Manga)
Katherine Farmar on Seduce Me After the Show (Comics Village)
Kris on Tricky Prince (Manic About Manga)
Lori Henderson on Warriors: Tigerstar and Sasha, vol. 1: Into the Woods (Good Comics for Kids)
Kris on Where Has Love Gone? (Manic About Manga)
Melinda Beasi on Wild Adapter (there it is, plain as daylight)
Sam Kusek on X Diary (Manga Recon)
Eva on Zaregoto: Book 1: The Kubikiri Cycle (MangaCast)