The new Comic Foundry is up with a nice article about Vertical Publishing, which publishes Japanese novels and children’s books in addition to classic manga like Tezuka’s Buddha. Here’s Vertical’s marketing director Anne Ishii on a much-anticipated upcoming release:
“This October we’re coming out with Ode To Kirihito, which is like Tezuka’s Elephant Man. It’s an 800-page adult graphic novel with themes of deformity and acceptance, Christian virtue and the eternal and internal battle of man vs. beast. I’m hoping this publication will nail the coffin shut on Tezuka’s moniker as the guy who wrote Astro Boy.”
ComiPress has a list of the top-selling Shonen Jump titles and shonen series in Japan. Interesting to note how many of them are licensed here, as opposed to the titles on the best-selling shoujo manga list. Of course, the Shonen Jump connection probably is a factor.
Newsarama has more details on Tokyopop’s two new lines of books for younger readers, Manga Chapters and Manga Readers.
This month’s Sequential Tart is up, with a great interview with Dirk Schweiger, the cartoonist behind the webcomic Moresukine, and a comprehensive discussion of the yaoi panel at NYCC.
Manga in your newspaper: Van Von Hunter will make its comics-page debut on July 9.
The sleuths at Anime on DVD found Digital Manga solicitations for volumes 1 and 2 of Day of Revolution and volumes 2 and 3 of Little Butterfly. Also, CPM is going forward with two DVDs, so all is not lost.
Here’s a press release about a new manga entitled “Cove, Pirate Mercenary,” by Austell Callwood, which will be released at Anime Mid-Atlantic conference in Richmond, Virginia, in July. Although it is an OEL manga, the book is bilingual in English and Japanese. The publisher is TenBu Productions.
The Japan Times has an article on Nerima, a town famous not only for its radishes but also for being the home of Rumiko Takahashi and the setting of Ranma 1/2.
