Deb Aoki takes a look at the first volume of Hetalia three ways, on the Zinio comics reader, on the comiXology reader, and in print, and finds that e-readers aren’t quite ready for unflipped manga. She also talks to comiXology CEO David Steinberger about his plans for publishing more manga via comiXology; while he’s rather coy, it’s hard to imagine that more manga aren’t in the offing.
ICv2 talks to Masaaki Shimuzu of Bitway, which will be bringng e-book manga to American readers.
The Japanese company Libre has confirmed that it has sent cease-and-desist notices to scanlation groups working in English.
Lori Henderson has a concise summary of the week’s manga news at Manga Xanadu. Erica Friedman posts the latest edition of Yuri Network News at Okazu.
Paul Gravett discusses how manga reinvented comics.
Daniella Orihuela-Gruber has a fascinating look at the many faces of prostitution in manga.
Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith show and discuss some action scenes from Blame and Banana Fish in their latest Let’s Get Visual discussion at Soliloquy in Blue.
This month’s Manga Moveable Feast has begun, and the book under consideration is After School Nightmare. Bookmark this post at Sean Gaffney’s blog, and he will link to all the reviews from there. At Comics Worth Reading, Johanna Draper Carlson reviews vol. 1 of After School Nightmare and vols. 1 and 2 of X-Day, another work by the same author.
David Welsh curated and collected a discussion of the alt-manga anthology AX on Twitter on Friday and Sunday nights.
Jason Thompson, writer of Manga: The Complete Guide and The King of RPGs, is the special guest for the What Are You Reading? feature at Robot 6.
Kate Dacey points out that this is Banned Books Week, and she provides some resources, at The Manga Critic.
Matthew Larking of The Japan Times Online visits a show of Shigeru Mizuki’s drawings of yokai in Kobe.
Reviews
Gabe LaMonica on The 14th Dalai Lama: A Manga Biography (CNN Belief Blog)
Connie on vol. 10 of 20th Century Boys (Slightly Biased Manga)
Deb Aoki on vol. 1 of 7 Billion Needles (About.com)
Carlo Santos on vol. 4 of Alice in the Country of Hearts (ANN)
Connie on vol. 5 of Black Bird (Slightly Biased Manga)
Cynthia on Cake (Boys Next Door)
Theron Martin on Chibi Vampire: Airmail (ANN)
Melinda Beasi on vols. 1 and 2 of Chi’s Sweet Home (Manga Bookshelf)
Cynthia on Cute Devil (Boys Next Door)
Connie on vol. 3 of Dokkoida?! (Slightly Biased Manga)
John Mitchell on A Drunken Dream and Other Stories (The North Adams Transcript)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 12 of Fairy Tail (The Comic Book Bin)
Connie on vol. 23 of Fullmetal Alchemist (Slightly Biased Manga)
Billy Aguiar on .hack//Legend of the Twilight, The Complete Collection (Prospero’s Manga)
Cynthia on How to Control a Sidecar (Boys Next Door)
James Fleenor on vols. 1 and 2 of Mikansei No. 1 (Anime Sentinel)
Edouardo Zacarias on vol. 27 of One Piece (Animanga Nation)
Shannon Fay on Your Love Sickness (Kuriousity)