Most of Saturday’s post got wiped out by a WordPress glitch that comes along every now and then and chops off a post, then turns off the comments—anyone know why that happens, or how to prevent it? So I’m re-posting as much as I can remember, along with the latest news.
First, here’s a TV listing: Jason Thompson talks about manga in Anime: Drawing a Revolution, to be shown at 9 p.m. (ET) tonight on the Starz network. And in case you miss that, Tom Spurgeon has a lengthy interview with him at The Comics Reporter.
The November sales figures are out from Diamond, and David Welsh posts the list of top-selling manga, which is topped by Fruits Basket for a change.
Comicsnob posts the top-selling graphic novels online, plus a watch list and holiday guide (part 1, part 2).
At Shuchaku East, Chloe has some holiday suggestions as well.
Katherine Dacey-Tsuei looks at the week in manga in her Weekly Recon at PopCultureShock, including reviews of some upcoming books in my review stack, Gakuen Alice and Japan Ai: A Tall Girl’s Adventures in Japan.
MangaCast has the latest on new titles from CMX, Aurora, and LuvLuv, Aurora’s Teen Love imprint.
The faculty and students of Kyoto Seika University created a manga to memorialize murdered student Daisaku Chiba—and perhaps catch his killer. The manga is now available online; it’s all in Japanese, but click on the link in the middle, below the phone numbers to take a look. (Via ANN.)
ANN also has more details on the demise of Japan’s first free manga magazine, Comic Gumbo, which cost parent company Digima the equivalent of $2 million before it folded.
And one more: Japanese manga magazine Bessatsu Margaret has announced it will carry a manga adaptation of Alex Shearer’s children’s novel Bootleg, about children who make clandestine chocolate in a country where candy is verboten.
Erica Friedman starts out to review Comic Yuri Hime Wildrose at Okazu and detours into an interesting discussion of attitudes towards lesbianism in yuri.
The latest novelist to go the manga route is Diana Gabaldon, who is writing a manga side story to her Outlander series. Hoang Nguyen will be the artist.
The German blog Manly Manga and More lists Tokyopop’s new licenses in Germany and takes a look at Carlsen’s January releases.
Reviews: Julie checks out vol. 1 of The Guin Saga Manga and vol. 8 of Tail of the Moon at the Manga Maniac Cafe. Michelle gives vol. 10 of xxxHolic an A+ at Sololoquy in Blue. At Anime on DVD, Ben Leary checks out Project D.O.A., Greg Hackmann reviews vol. 1 of Uzumaki, and Ed Chavez reads vol. 1 of Dorothy of Oz. Coeli has an overview of vols. 1-5 of Basilisk at Poopsies! At MangaCast, Eva reviews Shinjuku Shark, and Mangamaniac reviews Love Bus Stop. Ferdinand reviews vol. 1 of My Dearest Devil Princess at Prospero’s Manga, and his alter-ego Billy Aguiar checks out vol. 1 of Style School at CBGXtra. Connie is on a roll at Slightly Biased Manga, with reviews of Monokuro Kinderbook, vol. 5 of Click, vol. 1 of Moon Child, vol. 6 of 3×3 Eyes, vol. 3 of Princess Princess, vol. 14 of Tsubasa, vol. 6 of Loveless, vol. 6 of Sugar Sugar Rune, vol. 1 of Iron Wok Jan, and vol. 5 of Bird Kiss. Tiamat’s Disciple reviews the light novel vol. 1 of The Twelve Kingdoms. At Active Anime, Holly Ellingwood checks out vol. 6 of Oh My Goddess (second edition) and vol. 6 of Enchanter. Hillel Wright reviews Fred Schodt’s The Astro Boy Essays for Japan Today. Andrew Wheeler writes at length about vols. 1 and 2 of Miki Falls at ComicMix.
I have only one thing to say about the Starz show:
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!
They make “case studies” about TMNT and Transformer and don’t ask me anything about them??? Hello? I developed TMNT for television and wrote most of the episodes! And I wrote a majority of the Gen 1 Transformers too — hell, I created Optimus Prime’s origin story! And I had already been an anime fan for YEARS before writing them! Hell, I named a character in TF after my friend Soji Yoshikawa, who directed the first Lupin 3rd feature! And I designed April O’Neal to look like Miyazaki’s version of Fujiko in the last Lupin episode — that’s where the yellow jumpsuit and the shoulder-cam came from!! Hell, the most “anime” thing about either of those shows was ME! And I’m a what? CFO of Go Media? (Wrong!) And a HISTORIAN!?? I repeat:
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!
Sorry. I just had to vent.
PS: Well, at least I got off a few nice quotes about Tezuka-sensei.
Those Tokyopop Germany titles floored me. Someone actually licensed two josei pr0n titles by Kasane Katsumoto, mangaka of Hands Off? Never thought I’d see that! (…Deep Kiss and Deep Sex aren’t that good, though, unfortunately. Katsumoto-sensei should’ve stuck to her amazingly well-written platonic love stuff.)
Oh, and although Brother x Brother is one of the most beautifully-drawn yaoi titles I’ve ever seen, it’s super incesty. Another title I wasn’t expecting to get bought. Wow.