Doing the manga math

Copyright infringement does NOT pay: A group of 11 artists, including Go Nagai and Takehiko Inoue, successfully sued two men for copyright infringement after the men uploaded some of the artists’ manga to the internet. A Tokyo court awarded the artists 20.32 million yen (about $178,000). ANN reports on the case and provides an interesting bit of math:

The ruling calculated the compensation by taking 35% of the average 300-yen (US$2.60) price of the volumes’ e-book versions and multiplying that by the number of times the files were browsed for a total of 18.8 million yen (US$165,000). Ten of the plaintiffs were awarded an additional 200,000 yen (US$2,000) each for costs, and the 11th plaintiff was awarded an additional 320,000 yen (US$2,800) for costs.

At the French blog du9, Xavier Guilbert interviews Bambi artist Kaneko Atsushi.

David Welsh lists his top five picks from the latest Previews.

At Mecha Mecha Media, John Thomas posts the latest edition of the Yuuyake Shimbun and reveals that he worked on the translation of the novel The Great Adventure of the Dirty Pair. Go John!

The nominations are out for the Ignatz awards, and the only even remotely manga-ish nomination is Brandon Graham for King City, which has been getting nice reviews all over the internets.

Reviews: In a comprehensive article at PopCultureShock, Erin F. reviews Tekkonkinkreet, discusses the movie, and adds some cultural context; she also has a lengthy article about it in this month’s Otaku USA. Matthew Alexander checks out vol. 1 of He Is My Master at Anime on DVD. At Prospero’s Manga, Ferdinand reviews vol. 1 of Vampire Kisses: Blood Relatives and Miranda reads vol. 1 of Boogiepop Dual: Loser’s Circus. Tiamat’s Disciple compares the manga and anime of Tokko. Michael Aronson reviews vol. 2 of Adolf at Manga Life. At Slightly Biased Manga, Connie checks out Delivery Cupid and vol. 20 of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.