The Hooded Utilitarian is sponsoring a roundtable on marketing manga to adults this week, titled Komikusu (Japanese for “comics); Noah Berlatsky posted a brief introduction yesterday, and Erica Friedman refined the argument she made earlier at Okazu about a sustainable market that includes scanlations. Today, I offered some marketing tips and Kate Dacey adds some common-sense ideas of her own. Stay tuned, because Noah has a lot more planned for this week—and be sure to read the comments threads!
Melinda Beasi keeps us up to date on the latest Manga Manhwa Moveable Feast posts and hosts Erica Friedman’s review of The Color of Heaven. Over at her own site, Tangognat revisits her original reviews.
Scanlation wars update: While it looks like the publishers have won the initial skirmish with the pirates, Deb Aoki has a thorough article at About.com this morning that explains that it’s not so simple. As blogger Kimi-chan explained a few days ago, both MangaFox and AnimeA claim that they have removed manga at the publishers’ request, but in fact they only blocked the links from the home page. If you find the manga via Google or if you already have it bookmarked, it may still be available. Deb had mixed results trying this herself, and it seems that as news of it spread, the admins at those sites started moving more aggressively to take down the series. This is similar to what happened a few months ago, when some internet vigilantes tried to shut the sites down by alerting Google to the fact that they run mature manga (a violation of the Google Adsense terms of service). The sites removed the links but savvy readers could still find the manga.
David Welsh and Brad Rice check out this week’s new releases.
Gottsu-Iiyan posts the first part of his translation of an interview with Takehiko Inoue and Eiichiro Oda at The Eastern Edge.
News from Japan: The baseball manga Major is coming to an end.
Reviews
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 9 of 20th Century Boys (The Comic Book Bin)
Andre on vol. 2 of The Battle of Genryu (Kuriousity)
Julie Opipari on The Clique (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Rob McMonigal on vol. 3 of Dororo (Panel Patter)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 5 of Gatcha Gacha (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Zack Davisson on Kitaro’s Heaven and Hell (Japan Reviewed)
Miriam Gibson on vol. 1 of Kobato (Manga Life)
Laura on vol. 1 of Library Wars (Heart of Manga)
Becky Fullan on Suggestive Eyes (Manga Jouhou)
Emily on Watashi ni xx Shinsai! (Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page)