At FanimeCon this weekend, Viz panelists announced that they would be publishing two film comics based on Studio Ghibli’s Arrietty the Borrower. The movie, which is loosely based on the British children’s novel The Borrowers, will be released in the UK this summer and in the U.S. next February; the books will debut in January 2012.
I took a look at this week’s new releases at MTV Geek.
Purists may blanch at the thought of manga being flipped to read left-to-right, but Ed Chavez revealed on Twitter yesterday that Usamaru Furuya, the creator of Lychee Light Club and Genkaku Picasso, has taken to drawing his manga twice, once in each orientation, in order to make it more attractive to potential overseas licensors.
Speaking of Ed Chavez, he is open to suggestions for manga that people would like to see Vertical license. Follow him on Twitter to see what books have been discussed already. The big publishers Vertical can license from include Kodansha, enterbrain, MediaFactory, Kadokawa, Hakusensha, and Akita Shoten.
Futuransky liveblogged the Ooku panel at Wiscon this past weekend. (Hat tip: Michelle Smith.) And coffeeandink took notes at the panel on Looking Beyond the Gender Binary in Anime and Manga (warning: Serious spoiler for After School Nightmare).
The folks at The Hooded Utilitarian are holding a poll to determine the best comics of all time. Manga readers, represent!
Del Rey confirms what Lissa Pattillo had suspected: The fanbook CLAMP in America has been cancelled.
Samurai Beat Radio interviewed Natusme Ono fans as they waited for her appearance at Kinokuniya bookstore in New York last month. (Via Manga Therapy.)
Life imitates art: Like a tortured soul coming back from the dead in one of their manga, Tokyopop lurched back to life long enough to send out a newsletter to its mailing list last week, but it wasn’t about their products—it was advertising another newsletter. I got one of these, so I know it’s true. And annoying.
New blog alert: At Brain vs. Book, Jocelyne Allen writes about lots of books, including lots of manga (in English and Japanese). And Kate Dacey has started a Manga Critic Tumblr to accompany her Manga Critic blog.
News from Japan: “Manga: An industry built on starving artists?” asks Matt Alt, rather provocatively, at CNN. Certainly the discrepancy between the top and the bottom is rather large. Rich Johnston remains unconvinced; at Bleeding Cool, he comments “I can think of a number of American comic book artists who would like to earn the average salary mentioned…” although that doesn’t really translate because the cost of living is considerably higher in Japan than the U.S. ANN lists the top-selling manga for the first half of the year by volume and by series.
Reviews: Ash Brown sums up a week’s worth of manga reading at Experiments in Manga. Lori Henderson and Alex Hoffman discuss Bakuman in their latest He Said She Said column at Manga Village.
Steve Bennett on vol. 1 of Ai Ore (ICv2)
Alex Hoffman on vols. 1-3 of Bunny Drop (Manga Widget)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 3 of Grand Guignol Orchestra (The Comic Book Bin)
Jocelyne Allen on I Am a Hero (Brain vs. Book)
Michelle Smith on vol. 2 of Kamisama Kiss (Soliloquy in Blue)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 3 of Kamisama Kiss (The Comic Book Bin)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 2 of The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi-Chan (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Ken Haley on vol. 1 of Moon vs. Blood (Sequential Ink)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 1 of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Jennifer LeBlanc on No One Loves Me (The Yaoi Review)
Anna on vol. 2 of Sakura Hime and vol. 10 of Sand Chronicles (Manga Report)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vols. 1 and 2 of The Story of Saiunkoku (Comics Worth Reading)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 1 of Tenjho Tenge (omnibus edition) (Kuriousity)
Ed Sizemore on vol. 5 of Toriko (and the Viz iPhone app) (Comics Worth Reading)
Lori Henderson on vols. 9 and 11 of Zombie Loan (Manga Xanadu)
I’m a little confused as to how twitter works. I clicked on the link to Vertical’s twitter expecting to be able to scroll down and view suggestions, but all I can see are Ed’s replies to suggestions. Clicking on someone’s name only takes me to their twitter feed and not that particular licensing request tweet. Any suggestions as to how I can view the license requests themselves?
Regards, a twitter n00b.
Wait so he Furuya redraws the entire page from scratch? Not just flipping it and touching up details (cars on wrong side of the road, books opening in reverse etc)?
That seems like a bit of a waste of time to me, time he could put to better use making new and interesting series!
To hikaru:
The best bet is to do a search on Twitter for @Vertical_Ed – this will show you comments addressed to him, including the license requests. Alternatively, to see the message that prompted a specific reply, you can click the little “dialog balloon” icon at the top right of a reply (this only shows on messages that are a rely to someone else’s message).