Coming Attractions: January 2012: Manga
New manga! Fast cars! Sexy women (and men)! Nazis! Cats! Rock 'n' Roll! Murder!
Continue ReadingMust read: Worldwide manga troubles
Lost in the storms of outrage over every boob shot and inker change at various superheroes comics is the real underreported story of the last six months; the decline in graphic novel sales and the concurrent decline of manga. While the former is definitely partly caused by the latter and both are undoubtedly influenced by the bankruptcy of Borders, the full causes behind both have yet to be fully analyzed. The manga side of the equation is covered in depth however in a lengthy column by Jason Thompson at io9 called Why Manga Publishing Is Dying (And How It Could Get Better). Thompson is no stranger to the manga field, having authored the essential reference Manga: The Complete Guide and the manga King of RPGs for TokyoPop. So his analysis is well worth following:
Continue ReadingFormer Marvel head Avi Arad writes a manga graphic novel
Avi Arad, the energetic movie mogul who once ran Marvel, but now just helps out with things like the new Spider-Man movie...has written a comic book. And it's a manga?:
Continue ReadingSherlock Holmes: A Comic Comparison
The past year has seen an unusually large number of Sherlock Holmes adaptations, both in comics and on the screen, but not all Holmeses are created equal. Last night, British viewers got to see the last episode of Season 2 of the BBC's wildly popular starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, and Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows starring Robert Downey Junior and Jude Law is still doing well in theaters a month after it opened. So if you're in a Holmesian mood and wondering what to read next, here's run down on the Holmes adaptations which have come out or had new installments in the past year. Varying from inspiredly odd to unreadably awful, don't go to the comic store without reading this first!
Continue ReadingComiket video: crowds organized but shrinking
Although we think San Diego is the biggest and the craziest comics event on earth, all dedicated conologists know that Japan's Comiket is actually the biggest. Held twice a year, the Winter edition just wrapped up and over 500,000 people attended the three-day festival. The incredible thing about Comiket is that it is an amateur press show: the fans are there to buy doujinshi -- fanzines based on popular manga by "amateur" creators. We know Japan is full of amazing wonders and enigmas, but the huge popularity of fanfic is definitely among them.
Continue ReadingManga Steve Jobs is a woman
Chocolate Apple 1991-2011, a manga released at the just passed amateur manga show Comiket -- which drew some 500,000 people -- presents the author's heartfelt appreciation of the late Steve Jobs and his creations, while portraying Jobs as a cute Japanese girl.
Continue ReadingBandai Entertainment reorganizes, ceases publishing manga, DVDs, and Blu-rays
Well, that didn't take long. 2012 has claimed its first publishing casualty as Bandai Entertainment has announced they will be canceling their manga and home entertainment publishing to focus on licensing their brands as they undergo a restructuring. Their Facebook and Twitter accounts will also be shut down.
Continue ReadingGantz to end in 2012
Gantz, Hiroya Oku's popular, super-violent manga about a team of operatives and their mysterious missions, is ending its run in Young Jump next year, it's being reported. More than 30 volumes of the manga have appeared in Japan -- in the US, Dark Horse is up to volume 20. It's also been adapted into a TV series and two movies.
Continue ReadingSales Charts: unBoxing Day 2011 (and a surprising discovery)
Some online sales data for 12/25 and 12/26 from IBM, a Top Ten list from Amazon's Kindle graphic novel page, and a surprising discovery! Read on!
Continue ReadingComing Attractions: Fall 2011: Random House, Part Two
I hope this has been worth the wait! Here are the independent publishers Random House distributes, and there are some lesser known (but quite good) titles here!
Continue ReadingNYCC Announcements: Yen Press Adapts NYT YA Bestsellers
Share this link on Facebook!TweetYen Press has announced two manga style adaptations of bestselling YA novels: Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Chronicles of Nick and Cassandra Clare’s The Infernal Devices trilogy. HyeKyung Baek is attached to The Infernal Devices as artist. Both series will initially be serialized online at Yen Plus before graduating to a print edition. Does “online serial followed [...]
Continue ReadingNYCC Announcements: Viz Takes Shonen Jump Digital, Syncs Closer to Japanese Original
Share this link on Facebook!TweetThis is interesting. Viz is migrating Shonen Jump to a digital edition that’s only 2 weeks removed from the Japanese original. (And you can probably chalk that up to translation time.) They’re on the library model for this. Full access annual subscription or $0.99 4-week rental. The annual access subscription comes [...]
Continue ReadingInternational Comic Arts Forum 2011 underway in White River Junction
BY JEN VAUGHN - From all over the globe, scholars, professors, panelists and attendees are swooping into White River Junction as this weekend The Center for Cartoon Studies hosts the International Comic Arts Forum. Past incarnations of ICAF have been hosted at SPX (they used to plan programming too!), the Library of Congress and the School for the Art Institute of Chicago.
Continue ReadingRead Taiyo Matsumoto’s No. 5 on iPad
Taiyo Matsumoto is a groundbreaking manga-ka whose Tekkon Kinkreet is one of the most striking works of its time. But he has a whole body of remarkable work, which Chris Butcher introduces for you here along with an interview with the man himself.
Continue ReadingMust read: Ryan Holmberg’s Manga 3.11
Ryan Holmberg, who normally writes about alternative manga, has written a long, excellent, piece on how the Japanese manga industry has reacted to the 3/11 earthquake.
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