Matt Blind takes a look at online sales rankings at Comicsnob. He also points out the contrast with the USA Today best-seller list, which included all three of the new Naruto volumes; in the online rankings, Blind finds them in reverse order and behind Fruits Basket, Negima, Bleach, and the Warriors manga. And Van Von Hunter got a bump in sales, perhaps from the SAT prep book based on the title.
Kodansha has officially announced the winners of its International Manga competition. Word had previously leaked out that the artist known as rem had taken top honors, but the runners-up, Liou Ming Law of the UK and Hwei-Lin Lim of Malaysia look pretty impressive as well. The website includes sample art and interviews with each winner. And a reminder: The deadline for next year’s competition is December 31.
John Jakala is Bleach-blogging at Sporadic Sequential, including a particularly egregious rights notice on a scanlation site—even if you don’t read Bleach, check it out just for a laugh.
Grounded Angel is complete and available for free download from Antarctic Press.
New York Magazine posts a preview of Undertown.
ComiPress has some serialization news from Japan, including word of a new Kei Toume manga, Momochi, in Big Comic Spirit, and the return of Those Who Hunt Elves to Dengeki Gaioh. Also, Hunter x Hunter, which has been on hiatus, will resume serialization in Weekly Shonen Jump. The sharp-eyed sleuths at AoD have spotted some new Netcomics titles. And here’s a reminder that manga can be used for evil as well as good: The Chinese government is putting cartoon police officers on internet users’ screens to remind them not to go to unauthorized sites. I predict that these characters will be as wildly popular as the Microsoft paper clip.
David Welsh points to an interesting comment on Journalista about sales of manga, and other comics, in bookstores versus comic stores.
At the MangaCast, Ed posts the first part of his big list of Japanese releases for September; this one covers small presses.
Ned Beauman compares Naruto (favorably) to Anthony Powell’s epic A Dance to the Music of Time at the Guardian’s book blog. (Via Blog@Newsarama.)
Reviews: At Anime on DVD, Matthew Alexander reviews vol. 1 of Alive. Ferdinand checks out vol. 1 of Kanna and Miranda reads vol. 1 of Pick of the Litter at Prospero’s Manga. At Okazu, Sean Gaffney reviews vol. 9 of Jyoshi Kousei (High School Girls). Cornerofmadness checks out vol. 2 of Wild Adapter at Manganews.
Hmm..they’re counting Van Von Hunter’s test prep books in the same bar as the actual manga, even though the test prep books are in the test prep section? Something about that doesn’t seem like they should be counted together….
Interesting to note that there is only one Volume 1 on that chart that actually was released that week — our book “The Devil Within.” And only one of the other three Volumes 1 is an actual licensed Japanese manga — Naruto #1, which was published, like, 167 years ago or something.