I was curious to know how the smaller, more affordable Kickstarter launched by Digital Manga at the end of last month to publish Ludwig B was doing, since they picked a rotten time of year to ask for money (although licensing needs and the desire to stay in people’s minds may have been factors in wanting to get back out there quickly). Currently, with a little over half way done, they’ve reached a bit over half their goal (55%). But […]

Earlier this year, I wrote about Jump Start, Viz’s program of debuting new series in Weekly Shonen Jump the same day they launch in Japan. Beyond the first three titles, which I wrote about at that link, the following series have appeared in English: The September 29 issue had the first (extended-length, it felt like) chapter of elDLIVE by Akira Amano, a space exploration story starring an oddball. He hears a voice in his head that always says negative things, […]

This interview with Hikaru Sasahara, president of Digital Manga, the company struggling with how to publish more works by Osamu Tezuka after their massive Kickstarter failed, has some new information I found surprising and troubling. Near the end come these paragraphs: The failure of DMP’s ambitious Kickstarter does not mean the end of DMP’s Tezuka program. Sasahara has planned all along to publish some Tezuka titles digitally via DMP’s Digital Manga Guild. In that system, the publisher, licensor, and localizing […]