Yaoi Suki is blogging up a storm at Yaoi-Con. I’ll update this post periodically with licenses, but visit the site as they have lots more.
Licenses announced so far (title links are to online stores):
Cage of Thornes by Sakuragawa Sonoko
Angel & Devil by Uzuki Jun
Missing Road by Sakurai Shushushu
Casino Lily by Nitta Youka
Love a la Carte by Minami Haruka
Virgin Soil by Minami Haruka
BLU:
Innocent Bird
June Pride
Bokura no Onsei
Ed Chavez just posted his first podcast from Yaoi-Con.
Johanna at Comics Worth Reading gave me a heads-up that she has posted more info from the ICv2 Retailers Guide on how they selected the Top Ten Most Powerful People in Manga. Johanna has some good commentary on their selection methods, and she also reproduces their list of the people who almost made the Top Ten:
Robin Brenner, Young Adult Library Services Association
Jim Chadwick, Editor in Chief, CMX
Liza Coppola, Senior VP of Marketing, Viz Media
Jason DeAngelis, Founder, Seven Seas Entertainment
Rika Inouye, Senior Director of Licensing, Viz Media
John Ledford, CEO, ADV Films (with the blurb “Although ADV’s launch of its manga line involved thrusting too many titles into a crowded market, the company still controls a number of great licenses and remains a player.” Which reads to me as wishful thinking)
Kuo-Yu Liang, VP Sales & Marketing, Diamond Book Distributors
Michael Martens, VP Special Markets, Dark Horse
Charles Solomon, Journalist (”the leading commentator on manga (and anime) in the mainstream media”)
David Wise, Editor in Chief, Go Comi
To which I say: Robin Brenner! Yay! Also, I like seeing Jason DeAngelis, David Wise and Jim Chadwick there, as I think they are really influencing the market by bringing over different types of manga. I would like to have seen Asako Suzuki of CMX there as well. And since this is supposed to be a manga list, I’d throw the ADV guy off.
I have to admit “Charles Solomon, journalist” didn’t ring a bell, so I googled him. He’s the film critic for the New York Times, who mostly writes about anime. And I realized that I have read a couple of his articles, I just didn’t recall the name. But ICv2 is looking for “key figures who had influence not just on their own organizations, but also on the market as a whole.” Solomon probably is ”the leading commentator on manga (and anime) in the mainstream media,” as ICv2 says, but who gets their manga recommendations from the New York Times?
I know bloggers tend to overestimate their own importance, but it seems to me that manga is one field where the online community really is key. With that in mind, here are my nominations, in no particular order, for the most important people in the mangablogosphere:
Dirk Deppey, who edited the Shoujo Manga issue of The Comics Journal, which people are still talking about a year later, and who includes breaking manga news and reviews in his blog Journalista, thus putting it in front of a larger audience of comics readers.
Christopher Butcher, the voice of the retailer, who led the recent revolt against the Tokyopop exclusives.
Ed Chavez, whose podcasts at MangaCast bring reviews and con panels to the world through their iPods.
David Taylor, who crunches the numbers like nobody’s business and whose comments section at Love Manga is like a virtual water cooler for creators, editors, and readers.
The people who run LiveJournal, where all the kids and some of the grownups flock to discuss their favorite titles in their own communities.
Chris Beveridge, whose Anime on DVD site, despite its name, provides a congenial home for manga fans with great full-length reviews, obsessively updated release lists, and a truly awesome forum.
Whoever it is that runs Manganews, which puts fans in touch with scanlations and also provides the morning news for the community.
Shawn of ComiPress, another must-click for anyone who follows the business.
David Welsh, whose Precocious Curmudgeon blog and Flipped column relentlessly pimp the most worthwhile titles, like Death Note, Japan and Sgt. Frog.
The editors of ICv2, who certainly set the agenda for all this week’s discussions!
I’ve probably forgotten someone really important, so feel free to chime in with your own suggestions.
Yaoi Suki (no permalink) has the first news out of Yaoi-Con: 801 Media has licensed Affair, by Shiuko Kano. And make of this what you will:
Additionally, there was rumor that there was another license involving SOMEONE who was at the launch party, and who a big fuss was made over *coughcoughcoughTOKOKAWAIWASTHEREcoughcoughcough*
Special treat for Saturday: Queenie Chan takes a break from penciling volume 3 of The Dreaming to share a beautifully drawn short story with her readers.
Comipress translates an interview with Negima manga-ka Ken Akamatsu. Akamatsu talks about his love of Sailor Moon (“Until I knew it, I was just an ordinary person”), his characters and stories (most of the characters in Negima were created by his assistants) and his work ethic—he works faster than most artists so he can take more breaks.
ChunHyang72 continues her scary manga reviews with a look at manga featuring ghosts and demons.
Naruto is coming to a mall near you. There will be a Ninja Academy, Chakra Challenge, and lots of swag. As if Naruto needs any more promotion. I wish Death Note would come to a mall near me—I’d show up for that.
Meanwhile, Completely Futile reports on the closing of a Japanese bookstore in Illinois. I’m bummed, as my sister lives nearby and I took the kids there once; they bought their first phonebook manga there.
Pop Culture Gadabout reviews Naruto and finds it surprisingly appealing. (Via Precocious Curmudgeon.)
Astronaut Elementary, volumes 1–3
By David Roman
Cryptic Press, not rated
$3 per volume
About two years ago, both my daughters were really into Nickelodeon magazine, to the point that I had to buy two copies of each issue. When I read it myself, I understood why—the magazine was full of the same kid-friendly subversive humor that attracted me to Mad magazine and the Garbage Pail Kids when I was a kid.
Dave Roman, who is an associate editor at Nickelodeon, has filled the three Astronaut Elementary mini-manga with that same cheeky humor, but he has channeled it into a series of more-or-less linear episodes about a motley crew of kids at a school in outer space.
Reading these, I get the sense that Roman is still a kid at heart. These books are filled with smart-alecky comments and crazy characters that would certainly ring true on most playgrounds. There’s the misfit Doug Hiro, who is so enamored of space walking that he never takes off his helmet; snotty rich girl, Maribell Melonbelly; Miyumi San, who has a crush on her elfin science teacher; and the heroic but clueless Hakata Soy, who once saved a planet full of bunnies by joining with his friends to become a giant Transformer. In volume 2, a robot named Cybert arrives with the express mission of destroying Hakata Soy but gets hilariously derailed by the school routine and a session with the guidance counselor. One rather manga-esque character is Spike Johanson, who unabashedly likes vintage clothing and cute boys. Astronaut Elementary is a webcomic, and it shows in the structure: Each brief chapter focuses on a single character, with a loose narrative thread running through each volume.
Roman’s touch gets surer in each volume. In volume 1, the panels are crowded and sometimes hard to follow, and the characters speak in a stilted manner that is too obviously trying to be funny. In volume 2, he shifts to a more natural diction, and in volume 3 he opens up the page a bit more with bigger panels and less crowding. There’s a lovely sequence in that book, in which the school is evacuated and all the students are floating in space. Doug Hiro starts to connect with his classmates for just a moment, but then they all take off again and he loses himself in the starry backdrop of outer space. That spread alone is worth the price of admission.
The style of these books is closer to indy comics than most manga, and the storylines and characters remind me a bit of Amelia Rules, only zanier. But it’s not any less like manga than some of Tokyopop’s global titles. You can read the stories for free at Roman’s website, but the mini-manga are nicely produced (especially volume 3) and would be great stocking stuffers for kids or grownups who haven’t lost that youthful attitude.
This review is based on complimentary copies supplied by the author.
Noted academic journal The Kansas City InfoZine has an interesting article about a comics conference at the Library of Congress. Here’s an anecdote from Steve Ridgley, who studies violence in fiction and in particular, the effect of boxing manga on Japanese society:
One manga story of two fictional boxers, in which one killed the other, brought 700 people to a Buddhist funeral for the fictional character in the 1960s. Most who attended the funeral, complete with photos of the deceased, were college men and school-aged boys.
And Kukhee Choo, of the University of Tokyo, is studying how the Japanese government uses manga to market itself.
She said that comics are an estimated $200 billion industry in Japan, which makes it a government interest.
“Today, what I noticed in America, is the manga, or comic books, are still a sub-culture,” Choo said.
Choo said she would like to see Western and Asian cultures study comic art at universities in the same way they study classic art or English.
In fact, the article reveals that the Library of Congress owns 120,000 comics and is spending serious money to preserve them. But don’t think you can just head down there for the latest issue of Naruto:
Researchers may view the Library of Congress’ comic collection, but must first show serious collection intent or proof of study.
