The latest Publisher’s Weekly Comics Week is up, and it’s chock full of manga-rrific goodness. Their BEA coverage starts off with a juicy quote from Kurt Hassler about the rosy future of the manga market and moves on from there. Elsewhere, Kai-Ming Cha interviews Jason DeAngelis about the sudden demise of Nymphet, and I talk to NBM’s Terry Nantier about his newest manhwa, Run, Bong-Gu, Run! The review is of Avril Lavigne’s Make 5 Wishes, and the top ten list? Mostly manga.
Meanwhile, Viz has a two-part interview with Viz VP of Sales Gonzalo Ferreyra and Director of Retail Marketing David Rewalt about the coming Naruto invasion.
The Osamu Tezuka show opened in San Francisco last week, and Tezuka stories are popping up all over. The LA Times has a longish background piece this week, and Jeff Yang of SF Gate interviews Fred Schodt about his new book, The Astro Boy Essays.
David Welsh looks over this week’s comics, and not one but two Simon Joneses, with radically different opinions of MPD Psycho, show up in comments.
So it turns out that Otaku Central is actually located in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Well, that’s the home of Otaku USA, anyway. The local paper has an informative article on the new magazine, which launched yesterday, including the fact that the initial print run is 100,000 copies and that the editors plan to go from bimonthly to monthly next year.
Attention publishers! John Jakala muses about which series he’d like to see in omnibus editions.
A daughter turns her father on to Naruto in this sweet, comic-geeky essay. Linked by blog@Newsarama, where Wayne Beamer wonders if anyone else has been introduced to a new comic by their kids. That would be me, actually; I started reading manga because my kids were reading it, and my daughter regularly hands me new books to check out. At Sporadic Sequential, Jakala mentions that his daughter, who is only two, was instinctively attracted to Naruto as well.
Mainichi has an update on the cases of three men accused of illegally sharing manga on the internet using the file-sharing software Winny. Two of the men, who both admit to the deed, have been charged with copyright law violation, while the youngest, who is 17, was referred to family court with a recommendation that he be charged as an adult.
Reviews: Connie of Slightly Biased Manga has been busy: Over the past few days she reviewed all of Gals!, plus vol. 13 of Fullmetal Alchemist, vol. 3 of Bird Kiss, vol. 19 of GetBackers, vols. 5 and 6 of Pastel, and vol. 6 of Nana. At Active Anime, Holly Ellingwood takes a look at Jason Thompson’s magnum opus, Manga: The Complete Guide. PopCultureShock’s Katherine Dacey-Tsuei reviews vols. 1-3 of The Times of Botchan. Kethylia is underwhelmed by Ode to Kirihito. Ariadne Roberts reviews vol. 1 of Beyond the Beyond for Anime on DVD.
Brigid, Thanks so much the link to the Fred Schodt piece. I was already looking forward to the book when I heard about it at NYCC, but now I can’t wait to read it. It was a great article that demonstrates the power comics/manga can have if we just have faith in the both the art form and the audience. Great reading to start my day.
Frederik Schodt’s new book will be a must read. His Manga! Manga! somehow turned up in my small town New England library when I was a kid and really set me on the path of enjoying manga not just as entertainment, but as a window into Japanese culture. A book by him on Tezuka is sure to be good.
Great links today, Brigid. I’ll try to post videos and pictures for you guys from the MATCHA event in SF tonight.
PS: I happened to run into Gonzalo Ferreyra while having lunch in NYC— he overheard me and my dinner friend talking Tezuka and popped over the introduce himself :) Gotta love BEA weekend for its weird coincidences…
Ryan!