Handley sentenced to six months; Hibbs looks at bookstore sales

The big news of the day is that Christopher Handley was sentenced to six months in prison for possession of “obscene” manga. With this, the court documents become public, and ANN does a good job of going over them and pulling out the salient items. As is often the case, these details will change perception of the case somewhat. Simon Jones puts the whole thing into context, and at The Yaoi Review, Jennifer LeBlanc has some thoughts as well and read the comments for more (some of the comments show up black-on-black, but if you select them you can read the text).

In today’s must-read review, Kate Dacey compares Sexy Voice and Robo to Harriet the Spy. Tangognat, Sadie Mattox, and Michelle Smith have additional insights as well. Also, the instigator of all this, David Welsh is asking for more; his latest license request is for SV&R creator Iou Kuroda’s Japan Tengu Party Illustrated.

Brian Hibbs analyzes the BookScan graphic novels numbers in his latest Tilting at Windmills column at CBR. It’s a long and thoughtful post, and I’ll probably have more to say about it in a day or two, when I’ve had time to digest it. (One immediate conclusion: Manga sales are down, although not necessarily for the reasons he gives.) In the meantime, Heidi Macdonald unpacks it a bit at The Beat (and be sure to check the comments), and Sean Kleefeld responds on his blog as well.

At Good Comics for Kids, Lori Henderson lists this week’s new all-ages comics and manga. And while it’s not manga, the first meeting of our Book Club is a good excuse to see what we all thought of George O’Connor’s Zeus: King of the Gods—and add your own two cents.

Lori Henderson considers e-manga pricing in the wake of the Amazon-Macmillan kerfuffle.

Comics from other countries: Deb Aoki celebrates the Year of the Tiger with a short look at seven Chinese comics (manhua) in English. Researcher Heinz Insu Fenkl updates a page of North Korean comics, some I have linked before and some that were new to me. Noah Berlatsky is unimpressed with Manhwa 100 at The Hooded Utilitarian.

Congratulations to Danielle Leigh on two years of writing her Manga Before Flowers column at Comics Should Be Good. She celebrates by telling us her origin story.

News from Japan: Shueisha puts that Twilight thing in perspective with their 3-million copy print run for the latest volume of One Piece. Manga-ka Takeshi Noguchi will revive the Babel II sci-fi manga, which was created by the late Mitsuteru Yokoyama.

Reviews: EvilOmar posts some new short manga reviews at About Heroes.Other reviews of note:

Melinda Beasi on vol. 3 of 13th Boy (Manga Bookshelf)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 7 of 20th Century Boys (The Comic Book Bin)
Julie on 9th Sleep (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Kristin on The Apartment and Valerie (Comic Attack)
Greg McElhatton on vol. 1 of Biomega (Read About Comics)
Snow Wildsmith on vol. 1 of Butterflies, Flowers (Fujoshi Librarian)
Sophie Stevens on vol. 8 of Honey and Clover (Animanga Nation)
Cynthia on How to Capture a Martini (Boys Next Door)
Sam Kusek on vol. 1 of Moyasimon: Tales of Agriculture (Manga Recon)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 2 of Selfish Mr. Mermaid (Kuriousity)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 4 of Sunshine Sketch (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Albright on Swallowing the Earth (Yen Plus Info)
Cynthia on vol. 2 of Vampire’s Portrait (Boys Next Door)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 3 of WaqWaq (The Comic Book Bin)
Emily on Waruiko no Mikata (Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page)
Erica Friedman on vol. 4 of Yuri Hime Wildrose (Okazu)