My Unbound column at Robot 6 this week is an interview with Gina Biggs, who draws the unabashedly girly Red String, which was published for a while by Manly Manga for Manly Men (TM) publisher Dark Horse.
David Welsh takes his turn at this week’s new releases.
The Manga Recon bloggers have a fun roundtable discussing who would be the royalty of The Manga Kingdom.
David Goodwin addresses a question that frankly had never occurred to me before: Is Urasawa schmaltzier than Tezuka?
Kyoto Seika University, which already has a manga department, is offering a graduate course in manga. Check out the comments for some serious manga hatin’, though. (Via Mecha Mecha Media.)
Kate Dacey, a.k.a. The Manga Critic, is giving away two copies of vol. 17 of Nana. Click the link to find out how you can win one!
Laura writes about Ocean Day at Heart of Manga.
Courtney Kraft reports on Anime Expo for the Graphic Novel Reporter, and Kai-Ming Cha has an article on the first Asian American Comicon at PWCW.
News from Japan: Canned Dogs reports that the tankoubon for the manga Akuma to ore shirudaku has been cancelled and GanGan Online pulled it from their site as well. Apparently it’s “borderline” eromanga. Naru Nanao’s sketch of a character from Lucky Star garnered over 1 million yen at auction. Cromartie High School manga-ka Eiji Nonaka is starting a new series, Double J, in Weekly Shonen Magazine.
Reviews
Julie on vol. 1 of Ballad of a Shinigami (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Eva Volin on vols. 1-5 of Black Jack (Graphic Novel Reporter)
Courtney Kraft on vol. 1 of Brilliant Blue (Graphic Novel Reporter)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 1 of Cirque du Freak (Kuriousity)
Connie on vol. 6 of Fairy Tail (Slightly Biased Manga)
Lorena on vol. 2 of Fall in Love Like a Comic (i heart manga)
Lorena on vol. 4 of Honey and Clover (MangaCast)
Kiki Van De Camp on vol. 1 of Hot Gimmick (VIZBIG Edition) (Animanga Nation)
Danielle Leigh on vol. 1 of Kimi ni Todoke (Comics Should Be Good)
Connie on vol. 2 of Me and the Devil Blues (Slightly Biased Manga)
Lori Henderson on vols. 28 and 29 of Naruto (Manga Xanadu)
Sesho on vol. 34 of Naruto (Sesho’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Connie on vol. 17 of O-Parts Hunter (Slightly Biased Manga)
Katherine Farmar on Red Blinds the Foolish (Comics Village)
Eva Volin on Swallowing the Earth (Graphic Novel Reporter)
David Welsh on V.B. Rose (Precocious Curmudgeon)
David Goodwin on vols. 1-7 of The World Is Mine (The Eastern Standard)
I’m still waiting for someone to pick up Nonaka’s first series, Cromartie High School, from the ever hated and reviled ADV manga. Last volume I have is #12, printed in October 2007!