Mangaman Announced

Barry Lyga (The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl, Archvillain) and Colleen Doran (Sandman, Orbiter, A Distant Soil) have teamed up for Mangaman, a graphic novel due in November. The plot involves a manga character falling into “our” world and how he copes in an American high school. It’s described as

Sci-fi adventure meets love story — and East meets West — in Mangaman, an original graphic novel for teens.

When Ryoko falls in love with Marissa Montaigne, the most beautiful girl in the school, his eyes turn to hearts and comic tension tightens as his way of being drawn and expressing himself clashes with this different Western world in which he is stuck. “Panel-holed” for being different, Ryoko has to figure out how to get back to his manga world, back through the Rip . . . all while he has hearts for eyes for a girl from the wrong kind of comic book.

Lyga knows his comics, so I’m not surprised the book is partially described as metafiction, while Doran is an ideal choice for the art, since she understands manga and can draw either that style or more American-comic-influenced teens. This, by the way, is the book she mentioned when I interviewed her last year.