PopCultureShock has come up with an interesting tool: ComicRankings, which collates comics reviews from around the blogosphere and ranks comics, creators, and publishers accordingly. The top-ranked publisher is Del Rey, followed closely by Viz; Dark Horse is fourth and Tokyopop is number seven. DC and Marvel show up in 8th and 9th places, although the difference in points isn’t huge. Interestingly, though, no manga or mangaka show up in their charts of the best and worst comics and creators.
ICv2 has a three-part interview up with Dark Horse CEO Mike Richardson; here is the part where he talks about manga. Here’s an interesting nugget to get you started: He tried hard to get the license for Fruits Basket but was turned down because DH didn’t seem like the right kind of company. Were they just too manly for Tohru Honda? (Probably not, as they will be publishing vol. 2 of Red String this month.)
Julie pulls out the manga from the January Previews. David Welsh thumbs through it as well, but the only manga he picks up on is the last volume of Dragon Head.
Christopher Butcher has beautiful photos of his visit to the Osamu Tezuka Manga Museum in Takarazuka, and he throws in bonus pix of the statues of the Takarazuka Revue.
Ed Chavez has two side dish podcasts up at MangaCast, one about the seinen magazine PLAY Comic and the other about the gekiga title Weekly Manga Sunday.
At Manga Xanadu, Lori takes the first step: She admits she’s addicted to manga. Click for devastating photos of overstuffed bookshelves.
I’m afraid Deb Aoki is only going to make it harder for Lori: She lists 11 ways to feed the beast without breaking the bank and the most-anticipated manga of 2008 at About.com. And she updates the top ten manga trends for 2008, plus an interesting non-trend—very little manga for children.
Size matters, says Simon Jones, but proportions matter even more. Simon points out that the new omnibus editions are bigger than standard American manga but not really in proportion to the Japanese editions, which can lead to some glitches.
There’s more Manga Zombie at ComiPress; this time it’s a profile of Ishihara Gojin.
Lianne Sentar sticks up for Death Note at Sleep Is For the Weak.
Erica Friedman writes about her trip to Japan for Winter Comiket at Okazu.
A Florida paper profiles an aspiring Christian manga-ka. And here’s the latest Manga 101 article, this one from Fairbanks, Alaska.
At Blog@Newsarama, Chris Mautner asked a number of eminent critics, plus me, what was their favorite review of 2007. All the results should be well worth reading.
Reviews: Wilma Jandoc looks at two Christian-themed manga, Pilgrim Jager and Cross, at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Kethylia has good things to say about vols. 1 and 2 of Mushishi. At Manga Jouhou, Kurishojo reviews vol. 1 of Alive: The Final Evolution and vol. 4 of Passion, and Anne checks out vol. 1 of Poison Candy. At Soliloquy in Blue, Michelle enjoys vol. 1 of Boys Over Flowers and vol. 10 of Hikaru no Go but doesn’t care much for the Japanese vol. 1 of The Moonlight That Surrounds Me. Mangamaniac Julie checks out vol. 1 of Words of Devotion at MangaCast and vol. 20 of Red River at the Manga Maniac Cafe. Connie reviews vol. 2 of Heroes are Extinct, vols. 1 and 2 of Real/Fake Princess, vol. 9 of Law of Ueki, vol. 9 of Sgt. Frog, vol. 20 of Cheeky Angel, and vol. 5 of Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. Billy Aguiar reviews vol. 1 of Monochrome Factor for CBGXtra. Kevin Tan looks at The Best of Pokemon Adventures: Yellow at The Star of Malaysia. Katie Haegele reviews vol. 1 of Gakuen Alice for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Emily checks out Pikka Pika Venus! at Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page. At Active Anime, Holly Ellingwood reviews vol. 1 of Wild Ones, vol. 2 of Kurohime, and Garden Dreams. John T looks at vol. 3 of MPD-Psycho at Mecha Mecha Media. Jog reviews vol. 12 of Golgo 13.
Hi Brigid: Thanks for linking to ComicRankings (as well as the Manga Recon love of coruse). The reason no manga shows up in those Best or Worst lists is because the limits I set for them were more for comics than manga. For example, individual books they needed to have at least 4 reviews, but for whatever reason, no manga had 4 reviews or more; at least none that had a high enough average to beat out the comics. So, I should really (and probably will soon) do a separate 2007 list for Manga — but more importantly, I need more manga reviewers who use a scoring or grading system! Thanks again – Jon
Thanks for the explanation, Jon—I was wondering if it was something like that. I’ll be interested to see your manga lists.
Wow, I had never heard of that Dark Horse story about trying to get Fruits Basket. I wonder how different the manga world would be if that had gone through? Would Fruits Basket still be such an incredible hit? And that’s Tokyopop’s biggest seller? What would they have done without it? Would shojo be as big without THAT title becoming so huge? I think it still would have been a big hit and it would have impacted Dark Horse in an extremely positive way. It would have paved the way to a more diversified catalog. They would probably be able to finish Reiko the Zombie Shop and Octopus Girl too (notice the resentment?)! Oh well, I’m kinda excited about the Clamp deal, even though I’m not a big fan of theirs. Ever since I read the interview where they said they might not ever finish X because they don’t want to upset the tastes of their younger readers with violence. Seemed a bit of a sellout. Like if Spielberg said that he wouldn’t make Schindler’s List or Saving Private Ryan because he made E.T. They seem more focused on commercialism than artistic vision these days, even though making money should be the least of their worries after all the millions they have made. I’d like to see them do something a bit daring.