Gareth writes: Hi, I am a library assistant from the UK (Liverpool), and I would be very happy if you could answer a quick question for me. I had a couple of ten-year olds playing in the library yesterday, and one of them, a young girl, said she only reads comics. My question is, is all ages Manga suitable for a 10-year-old, or if not could you perhaps recommend some graphic novels and comics for 10 year olds. Having read the recent Carol L. Tilley study finding that comics have no disadvantage compared to traditional prose, I am really keen to develop Manga and graphic novel resources especially for younger children.
Hi. My name is Lori, and I’m addicted to manga. It started innocently. It was 2002. My husband and I were in a comic book store, and I was looking for some new series to pick up. There, I discovered Dragon Knights, a series Tokyopop was publishing in comic form. It was fun and I love dragons anyway. It lasted 6 issues before Tokyopop abandoned the comic form and went to publishing in graphic novel form, unflipped. I of course, followed the change in format since I wanted to follow the story. And thus was my addiction born. Why do I think I’m addicted to manga? Let me explain. I was looking at the numbers for Tokyopop’s releases for a small blog I keep there, and on a whim decided to look at how much manga I purchased over the year. My husband is always complaining I had too much manga, and I just brushed it off. Until I looked at the numbers myself. For the year 2007, I ordered 156 volumes of manga through Previews. I purchased another 47 from amazon.com, Deepdiscount.com and other sources. So that’s 203 volumes I purchased throughout the year. 25 of those volumes were…