MangaBlog

Broccoli Books has an illustration and coloring contest for fans of all ages. Deadline is September 30.
On Mainichi Daily News, an interview with cartoonist Izumi Matsumoto, creator of the Kimagure Orange Road series. Matsumoto has been out of commission for years due to depleted cerebrospinal fluid, which caused fatigue and headaches. Now he wants to use his talents to raise awareness of the little-known condition.
Anime on DVD reviews volume 1 of Pretty Maniac, a new manga from DrMaster rated for 13 and up.

Three nice articles from the margins of the manga world:
On this side of the border, comics artist Pam Bliss decides to start reading shoujo manga and looks at it through an artist’s eye on Sequential Tart. Her view of manga through the eye of a non-manga artist is good reading, especially for newbies.
Right on the border between manga and … umm.. something that’s not manga, Heidi Benson of the San Francisco Chronicle interviews Sho Murase, the artist who is bringing Nancy Drew back to life for Papercutz.
And on the other side of customs, millarworld.the.magazine has an excellent feature on comics for all ages that includes interviews and reviews as well as links to even more. The only manga included is Crayon Shin Chan, which is out of print, but some of the other comics look good.

Are manga comics at all? I find the question profoundly boring, but they’re tearing up the message board at Comicon over this post by Pat O’Neill. There’s still time to join in the conversation.
O’Neill’s initial essay is a reaction to Dirk Deppey’s essay on manga in The Comics Journal, which is worth reading even if you don’t have a dog in this race.

It’s kind of hard to think about comics right now; the devastation down south, even though it’s far away on the map, keeps hitting home in different ways. In its own way, the comics community is rallying round: Newsarama reports on artists who are selling original art to raise money, including Teen Titans artist Rob Liefeld. Icv2 is carrying news of retailers and other comics figures in the hurricane area.
The Comics Reporter has a good roundup of hurricane-related comics links.

Over on Newsarama, Troy Brownfield provides a peek at CMX’s fall line.
Now, I know we’re all supposed to be hating on CMX because of the Tenjho Tenge debacle. But I’m willing to forgive them a bit because Gals! is such a big hit in my house. It’s smart and funny, and although the translators’ attempt at rendering Japanese street talk into English street talk is laughable at times, it works for the intended audience (12-year-olds). The lesson we all hope CMX will learn is to gear the books to the audience, and since they have an entire preview package aimed at mature audiences, that may have sunk in.
Looking at the fall line, I like the looks of Chikyu Misaki and will probably pick it up when it comes out next month. Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne looks interesting too.
If they stink? Well, back to hatin’. Until the next good book comes along, anyway.

Manga artist Rivkah Greulich has posted a preview of her manga, Steady Beat, on her blog. Grab it quick, before the geniuses at Tokyopop change their minds and make her pull it again. (But if they do, there’s a consolation prize: the best 404/Not Found page I’ve ever seen.) The book is due out in October. Bookmark the blog for a running commentary on the life of an American manga-ka. Then check out her site, Steady Beat, for more art and commentary, including the beginnings of a resource page on shoujo manga.
Meanwhile, Rivkah’s new column on The Pulse, Culture Clash, is already generating favorable buzz. The column promises “a fresh look at the comics industry from somebody already involved . . . yet seeing it for the first time with unbiased eyes.” And that means no taking sides in the current comics culture war:

You will never see me waving the “manga” flag nor the “comics” flag. Each have their own merits—as I’m surely learning. And it’s the merging of the two—this fusion of East and West—that fascinates me.

Between the comic and the column, Rivkah promises plenty of interesting reading in the months to come.