Manga

Manga isn't all awkward schoolgirls and giant robots. There has long been a very strong alternative and literary thread of manga, and two recent articles give you some perspective on it. I would call Ryan Holmberg's Proto-Gekiga: Matsumoto Masahiko’s Komaga a must read, but I have to confess, it is very long and involved, and I have set it aside for weekend reading. BUT the important thing is that he compares and contrasts Yoshihiro Tatsumi, who is kind of credited as the father of "gekiga" or realistic manga, with Matsumoto Masahiko, a figure who appears in Tatsumi's autobiographical A Drifting Life under another name. Masahiko's work went down a slightly different path than Tatsumi's but Holmberg shows that it was equally important:

Digital Manga has been successfully Kickstarting publication of several books by God of Comics Osama Tezuka for a few years now. So far they've done Barbara, Swallowing the Earth and more. But Tezuka drew some 150,000 pages of comics in his lifetime, so this is a pretty big task to bring all his comics to English. The new project has ambitious goals: to publish the following titles:

I know we've been slacking a bit with 31 Days due to the horrors of New York Comic-Con, but it's full sped ahead to the pumpkins now. And here is the best thing you will hear today, tomorrow or possibly in a lifetime: Japanese Horror master Junji Ito Is doing a Pokemon collaboration. Yeah that's right. The creator of Uzumaki, Museum of Terror, the Long Hair in the Attic and much more, is doing POKEMON. The news was announced in Japan as a "Collaboration," you know, like Tokidoki doing Marvel, except terrifying and unspeakable. It's called “Kowapoke,” which means “Scarypoke” and a single phone wallpaper image has been released thus far. That's Banette, cute little Banette, admittedly not the nicest Pokemon, now all Kowapoke'd up. T-shirts are being given away in Japan now because life is unknowable and terrifying.

Neon Alley's Viz'z free streaming media platform, is adding a bunch of choice Sailor Moon,  Sailor Moon Crystal, Bleach, Naruto Shippuden, and Ranma 1/2...

  by Zachary Clemente While at SPX this year, I was able to grab a quick word with seven amazing cartoonists about their work in Hana Doki...

According to a French press release, and Google translate, manga master Jiro Taniguchi will be one of the main guests for the 42nd Festival...

After a long wooing period, Viz has finally joined Comixology. Viz has its own ebook portal for manga and so was no stranger to...

It seems that there were about 8,000 comics and anime cons this weekend and they all had news. At Sakura Con in Seattle, Yen...

attackontitan_13.jpg While American comics publishers are usually secretive about the print runs, apparently Japanese publishers aren't quite as stingy with numbers. It was just announced...

The 18th Annual Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prizes, given out to notable manga, were announced yesterday. he grand prize went to March comes in like...

Lots of Attack on Titan titles!  And other fun stuff! --- --- --- --- --- Negima! 28 Ken Akamatsu On Sale Date: August 12, 2014 $10.99 USD / $11.99...

Straight from the offices of Publishers Weekly, it’s More to Come! Your podcast source of comics news and discussion starring The Beat’s own Heidi...