Digital Manga Has First Batch of Titles for Guild Work But No Specifics Available

Digital Manga has announced that their Digital Manga Guild project, where fans translate manga for free in return for the promise of shared profits, now has some books to work on, although they won’t say what they are or who puts them out yet. Here’s the press release, complete with snazzy graphic: Digital Manga is excited to announce the first acquisition of 487 titles from Japanese publishers for the Digital Manga Guild (DMG). That number is expected to grow exponentially, […]

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Sailor Moon Returns to Print, Manga Fans Rejoice

A very important manga — historically, Sailor Moon broke open the U.S. market for manga in bookstores and among girls — is returning to print from Kodansha USA. Here’s an excerpt from their press release: Brand new deluxe editions of the acclaimed series will be released by Kodansha USA’s Kodansha Comics imprint in September 2011. Out of print for six years, SAILOR MOON re-launches along with Takeuchi’s two-volume prequel series CODENAME: SAILOR V, in print in the US for the […]

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Viz Confirms Inubaka on Hiatus

As I feared when I wrote about the next Inubaka volume disappearing from online sales outlets, the series is on hiatus. I received the following statement from a PR person: INUBAKA is currently on hiatus and no new vols. are scheduled for the immediate future. I appreciate them making a statement, although I do wish the news had been better.

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Tokyopop Layoffs — Who’s Left?

Heidi MacDonald is reporting that Tokyopop has laid off “several more people — including editors Lillian Diaz-Przybyl and Troy Lewter. The staff is now reduced to a mere handful of people”, which doesn’t include, based on Heidi’s experience, the PR person, who is also gone. Lillian Diaz-Przybyl was the longest-running Tokyopop person I knew (not counting company head Stu Levy). She was an excellent editor, especially known for reaching out to fans, including most recently an essay on buying manga […]

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Has Viz Canceled Inubaka?

I like Viz’s manga series Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs. It’s got some guy-oriented fan service and silly plots, but the adorable dog pictures more than made up for that for me. Volume 17 came out last November, and I used to have Volume 18, originally planned to be released next month, on my Amazon wishlist. However, I just noticed that its entry has been replaced by this “no longer available” mention: For those who aren’t familiar with Amazon’s system, books […]

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Manga Links Worth Thinking About

Shaenon K. Garrity (link no longer available) wrote an excellent overview of those little artist side notes found mostly in shojo manga. She provides a number of hilarious examples to support the idea that if you Read enough of these notes, however, and you get the impression that shojo manga artists are both incredibly boring and completely insane. I was impressed that she did an entire column on the format without even mentioning the overused “I’m so sorry my art […]

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Diamond Gem Awards Show Comic Market View of Manga

The 2010 Diamond Gem Award winners were just announced. These awards are nominated by a “panel of Diamond industry professionals”, voted on by comic book shop retailers, and selected based on “quality, creativity, and overall sales impact”, as you might note from the subtitle “Suppliers of the Year”. The winners are the industry “good guys”. For example, DC Comics, which has more retailer-friendly policies, beat out Marvel for Publisher of the Year (for the second year in a row), even […]

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Are You Willing to Commit to Long Series?

Kate Dacey (link no longer available) asks a question I find myself very much in sympathy with: do I really want to spend my money on a series that spans 10, 20, or even 40 volumes if there might be a shorter, snazzier title waiting in the wings? These days, I find myself losing interest even in series I’ve been enjoying around book six or eight. In the past, I collected longer series. Checking my database, I see that I […]

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