Aria is among the nominees for this year’s Japan Media Arts Festival; as far as I can see, it’s the only licensed manga in the bunch.
As the September volumes of Naruto reach saturation, they are sliding down the USA Today bestseller list. This week, vol. 18 moves from 74 to 127, vol. 17 goes from 100 to 149, and vol. 16 disappears altogether. Watch for the next three volumes to show up next week, though.
Park Cooper interviews Heidi Arnhold, the artist for The Dark Crystal: The Garthim Wars. (Via Tokyopop editor Beedlejuice.)
David Welsh checks out the latest Previews.
Noah Berlatsky has a simple explanation for the popularity of yaoi: It’s sexy. (Via Simon Jones (NSFW), of course.)
At the MangaCast, Ed Chavez has a Side Dish podcast about the adult fantasy magazine Comic Valkyrie, and he also links to previews of Compass, Blood Relatives, and Reptilia.
Yaoi Press has a preview of The Lily and the Rose up at the Tokyopop site, which is an interesting way to do it.
Jason Thompson will be a guest at MangaNEXT this year.
Same Hat posts the covers of Kazuo Umezu’s Mummy Teacher.
The Death Note murders? Human body parts have turned up in Brussels with notes attached saying “Watashi wa Kira desu” (“I am Kira”). ) (Via ComiPress.)
Reviews: At Active Anime, Scott Campbell checks out vol. 9 of Golgo 13, Christopher Seaman reads vol. 2 of Shugo Chara! and Holly Ellingwood reviews Full Metal Panic! Vol. 1: Fighting Boy Meets Girl. Anime on DVD is back up, after a few days of down time, and they’re making up for lost time, with reviews of vol. 1 of Princess Resurrection by Danielle Van Gorder and Solfege by Ed Chavez. Comicsnob Matt Blind finds Jason Thompson’s Manga: The Complete Guide indispensable. Julie reads vol. 3 of Nosatsu Junkieka at the Manga Maniac Cafe. Ferdinand reviews vol. 1 of The Palette of 12 Secret Colors at Prospero’s Manga. Kethylia finds Don’t Say Anymore Darling to be rather uneven. At About Heroes, EvilOmar reads vols. 1-5 of Air Gear and has plenty to say about it. At Okazu, Erica Friedman reviews vol. 1 of Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora, a Japanese title.
which is an interesting way to do it.
But it’s effective. I did it when I was there, I posted pages of my works along with Roulette samples from RUSH, and it generated a great deal of interest – most of that interest led to click-trough’s to the sales pages, and of course, eventual sales.
The only issue I had? Ignorant people. There were young ones that complained because I didn’t post all of it up, and there were jerks who claimed they were reporting me for exposing Tokyo Pop members or ‘gay stuff’. :/ Despite warnings saying – adults only and ‘yaoi’, they couldn’t seem to stop visiting to remind me how wrong uploading the material was. [I never uploaded anything adult in nature—I respected the sites inability to weed out underage users from ‘manga viewer’ samples.
I think it’s a great idea. In the traditional model, you would only have, say, Viz publications advertised in the pages of Shonen Jump and Shojo Beat, and only Tokyopop products being pushed on TokyoSpace. But I think the marketing folks realize that bringing in business for your competitors can grow your own market.
And yeah, I’m amazed at the number of people who feel compelled to download something so they can be outraged about it. ^_^
You’d think in a four-sentence article (about the Death Note murders) they’d know that the names of the victims were not TYPED into the Death Note…