MangaBlog

At Love Manga, David Taylor adds his voice to the discussion of what we would like to see at the Tokyopop website. I’m in total agreement with him, especially on the issues of making book info easier to find, adding a friendslist, and moderating blogs and other areas. Telophase has a case in point:

Someone on the Tpop website posted the Huge Honking Spoiler from Fruits Basket in the title of their blog post and in the second sentence (the first couple of lines get posted along with the title), so that if you’re skimming the blog posts on the new page you can’t help but see it in GIANT RED LETTERS. All indications are that the person isn’t doing it deliberately, because they are honestly amazed and curious about the spoiler.

Someone get me a modstick, dammit! I need to administer a beatdown!

One more thing I’d like to see is some way to alert viewers when a new column comes up. The columns are one of the best parts of the site, but they aren’t visible at all on the front page and there is no way to alert readers to updates. Case in point: Telophase’s excellent Manga Resources column, which is well worth a bookmark (and I’m not just saying that because she mentioned me!).

While you’re on the site, check out ChunHyang72’s post on manwha, which includes commentary on the latest offerings from Netcomics.

Ed Chavez gives a first-hand look at Comiket through podcasts of gals’ day and hard-core otaku day. Heidi provides visuals at The Beat.

This article about digital comics piracy is mostly about Marvel and DC, but it’s interesting to contrast their attitude with that of manga publishers. Also, there are links to some download sites at the end of the article.

Yuricon announces its 2007 event, “Yurisai,” to be held Sept. 29, 2007, at the Gateway Hilton in Newark, New Jersey.

This one-day event will recreate the fun and intimate feeling of Yuricon’s 2005 Tokyo event.

The Yurisai will include video programming, workshops, panels, a “Yuriket” market, and the chance to interact with some of the biggest names in the yuri scene, including Rica Takashima, creator of “Rica ‘tte Kanji!?”.

Regisration info will be posted at Yuricon.

DrMaster has a press release making the rounds about its newest release, JUNK.

Posting may be a bit light over the next few days, as we’re taking a bit of time off to work around the house. Yesterday’s lesson learned: You can’t learn how to putty windows from an article on the internet.

However, there are plenty of good articles today. Chris Arrant’s interviews artist Jae-Hwan Kim for his people column on the Tokyopop site. Kim has been a manwha-ga for some time and also served in the army, where he learned Taekwando, which he says helps with the fight scenes. Now he’s working on WarCraft for Tokyopop and is negotiating with them about another series.

Diario de Nordeste has an interview with manga scholar Paul Gravett. (Via Dogmatika.)

Fun with Hype: 801Media puts out a press release announcing that it has licensed a title but can’t say what it is. So YaoiSuki responds with a guess-the-title contest. The prize is, of course, a copy of the book.

Sometimes a manga is not a manga: Love Manga comments on Zondervan’s planned line of Christian graphic novels.

There is much manga goodness at When Fangirls Attack today. Take a look.

For the second week in a row, Fruits Basket makes it to the top 30 in the USA Today Booklist. This makes it the highest ranked manga ever, beating Naruto by five places and also by staying in the top 30 for two weeks.

Wired discovers doujinshi and draws an interesting conclusion:

Japan seems to understand that creativity doesn’t fall from the sky. It needs nurturing, inspiration, tools and skills; and it’s no problem if your inspiration is something cool someone else did first.

The reporter visits Ikeburo and Ahibahara to get both sides of otakudom.

Meanwhile, Ed Chavez files his second report on Comiket at the MangaCast.

Papo de Budega, a Brazilian blog, posts an interview with VIZ Media Vice President International Carol Roeder. The interview focuses on licensing of the most popular properties in Latin America.

Fangirls Sans Cleavage is a cute look at G-rated cosplayers.

At the MangaCast, Jarred runs through this week’s comics. It’s going to be an expensive week for him, as there are a lot of interesting titles coming out.

To help you choose wisely, here’s a sampling of recent reviews on other sites:

At Anime on DVD, Jarred reviews a book I really liked, Mitsukazu Mihara’s The Embalmer.

Comics-and-more reviews Between the Sheets, by Erica Sakurazawa, and volume 3 of Eden.

Tangognat looks at D. Gray-Man and Skip Beat.

At Comics Worth Reading, Johanna reads volume 3 of Crimson Hero.

And at Crocodile Caucus, Lyle reviews the Shoujo Beat preview of La Corda d’Oro.

This week’s PW Comics Week is up, and DramaQueen takes center stage. It’s a nice, solid article that describes the line, what sets it aside from other publishers, and how the principal, Tran Nguyen, got started in the biz. Although it’s hard to imagine her asking her grandmother to contribute to a startup publisher whose mottos are “purveyors of fine man sex” and “harder, faster, cheaper.”

The gist of the article is that DQ does a better job because they are fans themselves, so they pay attention to what they’re doing. Here’s Christopher Butcher’s comment on their production quality:

“The dust jackets fit the books, the paper is high quality and the right cream color for manga,” says Butcher. “Out of the gate they were better than their competitors. They’re all about their fans and they love the material.”

Much is made of the extra explicitness in DQ’s books. And this was interesting:

DramaQueen hires translators with a fan background, some of who have worked in the scanlation community (scanning, translating and posting unlicensed manga online). DramaQueen actively takes advantage of their connection to the semi-legal scanlation market, working with sites that remove titles once they have been licensed for English-language publication.

That means they are getting titles that no one else has. But could this all be part of the Great Scanlation Conspiracy?