Manga

While comics fans were celebrating comics and other delights at New York Comic Con, publishers and fans in Europe were congregating in Frankfurt, Germany,...

Following yesterday's announcement that the Del Rey Manga imprint was folding into a distribution arm for Kodansha Comics, a US branch of the Japanese publisher, American manga watchers were NOT jumping for joy. Chris Butcher came right out and said it:

As rumored for months, Kodansha, the Japanese publishing giant, is shifting its relationship with Random House. Del Rey Manga is shutting down, but Kodansha Comics will remain, to be distributed by Random House. Del Rey Manga's associate publisher, Dallas Middaugh, will move over to Random House Publisher Services to act as the liaison for Kodansha.

Attention, continuity-obsessed readers of 70 year-old franchises -- THIS is how you handle growth and change. Click on the image for the full spoiler of the new, two years older cast of ONE PIECE -- the best selling comic in the world -- and check out Topless Robot for a character-by-character analysis.

Harem manga -- the genre in which a helpless young man is surrounded by hot, hot girls who keeps getting naked and climbing in bed with him, despite his strong wishes that they not do so -- is totally passé, according to manga-ka Ken Akamatsu who created two of the most popular examples, Love Hina and Negima. Over at Robot 6, Brigid Alverson examines this Akamatsu blog post translation, which gives the reasons for the declines of harem manga and moe:

A story in The Hollywood Reporter suggests that China is looking to get bigger in the international animation/comics field: Leading the charge is the city...

DC Peter David will be writing episodes of the upcoming cartoon Young Justice, which is based on the comic of the same name that he wrote for an almost five year run.

Drawn & Quarterly expands its gekiga offerings with the announcement of two new books from manga-ka Shigeru Mizuki, one of the most famed cartoonists...

In the recent manga cutbacks, one company has remained conspicuous by their silence -- Del Rey's manga line, mostly licensed from Kodansha, has been...

US-Japanese publisher Vertical spotlights creator Felipe Smith at the show with his, er, bold series PEEPO CHOO (which is NOT an all-ages book). PEEPO CHOO has been pubished in Japan but is now coming to the US. Here's the schedule:

Literary manga house Fanfare/ Ponent Mon pubishes some of the finest comics in the world. This year they have their first ever special guest, 3 times Eisner nominated Émile Bravo who will be signing as follows:  

The New York Times reports on the new manga eye fad, popularized by Lady Gaga, of giant contacts that make you look like...