Archives for July 2009

Lori Henderson attended the women in manga panel at SDCC and got some interesting insights, but overall she feels the con has become too crowded to be worthwhile. Lorena Nava Ruggero writes about the Best and Worst Manga panel, and Lissa Pattillo files her report on the Del Rey panel.

During the Yen Press panel, one panelist stated flat out that scanlations hurt the manga industry. Tiamat’s Disciple articulates the opposite point of view.

Back at Good Comics for Kids, Lori Henderson lists this week’s new all-ages comics and manga.

Erica Friedman checks in with the latest from Yuri Network News, and she also comments on the continuing conversation about women and comics—and urges us to buy the T-shirt!

Ed Sizemore reports on his experiences at Otakon (part 1, part 2) at Comics Worth Reading, and Scott VonSchilling reports on the highlights at The Anime Almanac. Grant Goodman checks in with part 2 of his con report at Manga Recon.

Completely OT, but fun to look at: A set of trade cards, published around 1900, that show what life will be like in the 21st century: Balloon rides to the North Pole, personal airplanes, roofed cities. Well worth a click. (Via one of my favorite non-comics blogs, Weekend Stubble.)

Reviews: Noting “It’s a great time to be a grown-up (manga fan),” Christopher Butcher reviews the new stories posted at Viz’s Sig-IKKI website. I gave some quick first impressions of Tokyopop’s new releases in the What Are You Reading? column at Robot 6.

Melinda Beasi on vol. 1 of Afterschool Nightmare (Comics Should Be Good)
Connie on vol. 1 of Angelic Runes (Manga Recon)
Connie on Anywhere But Here (Slightly Biased Manga)
Julie on vol. 1 of Bloody Kiss (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Lorena Nava Ruggero on vol. 4 of Emma (i heart manga)
Andrew Cunningham on vol. 7 of Faust (Japanese edition) (The Eastern Standard)
Lorena Nava Ruggero on vol. 2 of Goong (i heart manga)
Shannon Fay on vol. 1 of Ikigami – The Ultimate Limit (Kuriousity)
Michelle Smith on vols. 1 and 2 of Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit (Soliloquy in Blue)
Julie on In Odd We Trust (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Connie on vols. 25, 26, and 27 of Iron Wok Jan (Slightly Biased Manga)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 1 of Key Princess Story: Eternal Alice Rondo (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Sesho on vol. 36 of Naruto (Sesho’s Anime and Manga Reviews)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 23 of Negima (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Danielle Leigh on On Bended Knee and Unsophisticated and Rude (Comics Should Be Good)
Michelle Smith on vol. 1 of Pig Bride (Soliloquy in Blue)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 4 of Pluto (Comics Worth Reading)
Connie on vol. 5 of Real (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 6 of Sand Chronicles (Slightly Biased Manga)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 8 of Spiral: The Bonds of Reasoning (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Julie on vol. 2 of Steal Moon (MangaCast)
Michelle Smith on vol. 1 of A Strange and Mystifying Story (Soliloquy in Blue)
Billy Aguiar on Tail of the Moon, Prequel: The Other Hanzo(u) (Prospero’s Manga)
Diana Dang on vol. 1 of Tokyo Boys and Girls (Stop, Drop, and Read)
Melinda Beasi on Toxic Planet (There it is, Plain as Daylight)
Connie on vol. 4 of Vagabond (VIZBIG edition) (Slightly Biased Manga)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 2 of Wild Animals (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Erica Friedman on vol. 3 of Zombie-Loan (Okazu)

CMX: Here’s the list of new titles, via Lissa Pattillo, who attended the panel:

Nyankoi!, by Sato Fujisawa
Shisso Holiday, by Otsuichi/Hiro Kiyohara
The Phantom Guesthouse, by Nari Kusawkawa
Tableau Gate, by Rika Suzuki
51 Ways to Save Her, by Usaramu Furuya

ANN has cover art and genre information. Click on either post to see a list of other manga that were officially announced for the first time at SDCC but were already revealed through other channels. ANN has a writeup of the panel discussion by Evan Miller, and Gia Manry liveblogged it for Anime Vice.

Dark Horse: 20th anniversary omnibus editions of two CLAMP series, Chobits and Cardcaptor Sakura, are in the works, Gia reports, with all eight volumes of Chobits squeezed into two fat new volumes. Magic Knight Rayearth will also get the omnibus treatment. All three were originally published in the U.S. by Tokyopop. Bamboo Dong has more at ANN, including the news that five CLAMP omnibuses are planned altogether (Clover was released last month) and that the new volumes will be edited by Carl Horn.

Del Rey: New titles:

Code:Breaker, by Akimine Kamijyō
Panic x Panic, by Mika Kawamura
Pink Innocent, by Kotori Momoyuki

Gia adds that Del Rey is developing a manga version of The Last Airbender, written by Dave Roman and illustrated by Nina Matsumoto (of Yokaiden fame). Also, CLAMP in America has been delayed from October to March. Carlo Santos reported on the panel as well for ANN.

Robot 6 liveblogged the Eisners, and congratulations are due to their parent site, CBR, on winning the award for best comics journalism. (I write a weekly column for Robot 6, although I’m sure that had nothing to do with it!) Dororo took the award for Best U.S. Edition of International Material (Japan), and it was the only manga to win, although several others were nominated. Heidi has the full list of nominees and winners at The Beat. Gia puts in her two cents at Anime Vice.

UPDATE: An alert commenter points out that a short OEL manga, “Murder He Wrote,” by Ian Boothby, Nina Matsumoto, and Andrew Pepoy, in The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror #14, took the award for best short story.

Lori Henderson shows off her swag and reports on Day 2 of SDCC, and Gia looks forward to the day ahead. Apparently there is big news coming at the Dark Horse panel.

Lissa Pattillo, Gia Manry, and Deb Aoki are breathlessly following the manga panels at SDCC. There don’t seem to be as many new license announcements as in previous years, but Yen Press steals the show with their acquisition of CLAMP’s Kobato. We learned about Black Butler earlier this week, but Yen unveiled a nine other titles as well:

Darker Than BLACK, by Bones, Tensai Okamura, Nokya, Arklight
Romeo x Juliet, adapted by COM, Gonzo, SPWT
Bunny Drop, by Yumi Unita
Sasameke, by Ryuji Gotsubo
Omamori Himari, by Milan Matra
My Girlfriend’s A Geek (Fujyoshi Kanojo), by Pentabu and Rize Shinba
Otome, by Yuuki Fujinari
Dragon Girl, by Toru Fujieda
Natsukashi Machi no Rozione, by Sumomo Yumeka

Meanwhile, Viz only had two new manga announcements, both at their Shonen Jump panel: Toriko, by Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro, and Bakuman, by Takeshi Obata and Tsugumi Ohba. Toriko sounds like another foodie manga, which should be cool; Bakuman is a manga about making manga.

UPDATE: Melinda Beasi is pleased.

Links

Viz Shonen Jump Panel (Deb Aoki)
Viz Shonen Jump panel liveblog (Gia at Anime Vice)
Viz Shonen Jump panel (Lissa Pattillo at Kuriousity)
Viz Anime and Manga panel liveblog (Gia at Anime Vice)
Viz Anime and Manga panel (Lissa Pattillo at Kuriousity)
Yen Press panel (Lissa Pattillo at Kuri-ousity)
I’ll add in more links as they are posted.

(For faster updates, follow Deb Aoki and Lissa Pattillo on Twitter. Then follow everyone they are following for some interesting conversations.)

The news from San Diego is that Dark Horse will be publishing Devil, by Torajirou Kishi; also, they are showing off art from the CLAMP Okimono Kimono fashion book at their booth. Lori Henderson visited a lot of the manga booths but noted CMX’s near-total absence from the DC area. Lissa Pattillo checked out the offerings at several publishers’ booths but didn’t get into the manga panels. Gia moderated the Best and Worst Manga panel, and she reports out on the results at Anime Vice.

Kate Dacey, who participated in our roundtable on girls’ comics fandoms, contributes a few more thoughts at The Manga Critic. And at Heart of Manga, Laura talks about the difficulties of being a grownup who reads manga.

Michael Bitz writes about an after-school program in which students made manga.

Mystic Sheep Studios kicks of a series on women in comics with an appreciation of Amy Kim Kibuishi. (Via When Fangirls Attack.)

Reviews: At Comics Worth Reading, Johanna Draper Carlson reviews the first chapters on Viz’s Sigikki site. David Welsh does the same for the Shonen Sunday selections at Precocious Curmudgeon. Sesho devotes two podcasts (part 1, part 2) to Shonen Sunday. Sadie Mattox’s review of vol. 1 of 07-Ghost turns into a critique of shonen manga in general, which makes for interesting reading. Other reviews of note:

Lissa Pattillo on vol. 1 of Fairy Tail (Kuriousity)
Lorena Nava Ruggero on vol. 2 of Fullmetal Alchemist (i heart manga)
Julie on Millennium Prime Minister (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Billy Aguiar on vol. 1 of Rasetsu (Prospero’s Manga)
Sam Kusek on vol. 9 of Strawberry 100% (Manga Recon)
Emily on Sukitte lina yo. (Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page)
Lorena Nava Ruggero on vol. 2 of Swan (i heart manga)
Tangognat on vol. 2 of Tsubasa: Those with Wings and vol. 3 of Phantom Dream (Tangognat)
Shojo Flash on vol. 1 of V.B. Rose (Shojo Flash)
Erica Friedman on vol. 4 of Your and My Secret (Okazu)

Viz’s Shonen Sunday and IKKI sites have gone live, with plenty of free manga for your reading pleasure Thanks to Lorena and Ryan for noticing.

During our roundtable on girls’ fandom, we got into a bit of a rhubarb with Noah Berlatsky and Tom Crippen on the topic of shoujo manga, and Noah posts a thoughtful response at The Hooded Utilitarian, and Tangognat has a different take at her blog.

Also! You should totally order one of these Women Make Comics T-shirts from CafePress. These T-shirts were conceived, discussed, and designed over Twitter one day when a bunch of us got irritated with some horribly misogynistic article—I think it was the pre-SDCC coverage, actually. Anyway, Deb Aoki and Erica Friedman spearheaded the project, and the T-shirts were designed in jig time and are now available for your sartorial pleasure. Profits go to Friends of Lulu, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and the Cartoon Art Museum.

SDCC got under way last night, and Tim Sheehy reports on Preview Night at Japanator. Lissa Pattillo checks in as well, and she has photos. Deb Aoki has a manga-lover’s guide to the exhibit hall at About.com. Heidi visits the huddled masses at Camp Twilight.

At The Book Bark!, L. (no, not that one) rejects the theory that Twilight is cannibalizing manga sales and contemplates the value differential between manga and graphic novels.

Kate Dacey’s readers at The Manga Critic have picked the Best Continuing Series of 2009, and it’s Black Jack. Now Kate is celebrating with a little essay contest; the winner gets the first six volumes.

Reviews

Edward Zacharias on vol. 27 of Bleach (Animanga Nation)
Melinda Beasi on vol. 1 of Broken Blade (There it is, Plain as Daylight)
Scott Campbell on vol. 1 of Children of the Sea (Active Anime)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 5 of Croquis Pop (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Lorena Nava Ruggero on vol. 3 of Emma (i heart manga)
Rachel Bentham on vol. 2 of Hot Gimmick (VIZBIG edition) (Active Anime)
Oyceter on vols. 7-10 of Love*Com (Sakura of DOOM)
Emily on Reimei no Arcana (Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Blog)
Holly Ellingwood on A Strange and Mystifying Story (Active Anime)
Tiamat’s Disciple on Toxic Planet (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Julie on vol. 1 of Very! Very! Sweet (Manga Maniac Cafe)