Back in Beantown

I’m back from my flying visit to New York, exhausted but exhilarated. I had lunch with Dallas, Ali, Tricia, and April from Del Rey, and they plied me with books, so look for some reviews soon. I stopped by the awesome new Kinokuniya bookstore at Bryant Park and checked out the Takehiko Inoue mural, and I even used the Charmin bathroom on Times Square.

Then I headed to MoCCA for the main point of my trip: Moderating a panel discussion on manga. The museum is small, but the range was impressive, and it was great to see original drawings ranging from the old EC comics and a Pogo Sunday Strip to the webcomic Questionable Content. The panel featured designer Brad Foltz, Kinokuniya manager John Fuller, Del Rey Associate Pubilisher Dallas Middaugh, and translator Mari Morimoto. With members of the Metro Anime Club and PWCW editor Calvin Reid in the audience, we had plenty of good questions to discuss. Erin and Noah, the Ninja Consultants, recorded the whole thing, so watch for a podcast soon. I want to especially thank Gina Gagliardo of First Second Books for inviting me to moderate the panel; I had a great time.

And I’m heading back tomorrow for NYAF!

In the meantime, yes, we do have some manga news.

At MangaCast, Ed Chavez posts the manga schedule for NYAF. He also finds time for another post about the Japanese magazine Morning, and he and the crew discuss this week’s new manga. And he posts the new BL and ero-manga releases in Japan.

At PopCultureShock, Katherine Dacey-Tsuei suggests five things to do at NYAF and Erin F has created a manga map of New York City. Actually, it’s more of a manga-lover’s map, complete with commentary on manga-related sites you won’t want to miss. And Katherine checks out some new releases in the Weekly Recon.

David Welsh also looks over this week’s new comics, and he writes about manga with outstanding art in this week’s Flipped column.

VNU reports that “Naruto” was the fourth most searched-for term on Yahoo in 2007. That’s a testimony both to the popularity of the franchise and the limited allowances of its readers: I just did the search, and the second hit on the page was a scanlation site. (Via Blog@Newsarama.)

Also via Blog@: a preview of vol. 2 of Dan Hipp’s Gyakushu.

Deutsche Mangaka has some news of 2008 releases in Germany.

Reviews: EvilOmar has short takes on a variety of books at About Heroes. At Slightly Biased Manga, Connie checks out Battle Royale 1 (Ultimate Edition), vol. 3 of Go Go Heaven, vol. 11 of Astro Boy, and vols. 1 and 2 of Bastard. Kethylia enjoys vol. 2 of Peach Girl: Sae’s Story. At Prospero’s Manga, Ferdinand reviews vol. 1 of Sgt. Frog, Ultimate Edition, and Miranda updates us on vols. 2 and 3 of Trinity Blood. Charles Tan takes a look at Sexy Voice and Robo at his blog, Bibliophile Stalker. At Anime on DVD, Danielle Van Gorder looks at Fumi Yoshinaga’s Truly Kindly, and she also checks out Japan Ai: Adventures of a Tall Girl in Japan.