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.

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 […]

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 However, I just noticed that its entry has been replaced by this “no longer available” mention: For those who aren’t familiar with Amazon’s system, books […]

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 […]