In this week’s news: September’s Movable Manga Feast, digital manga vs print, Twitter on AX, Del Rey’s future, manhwa, banned books week, New York Times best sellers, podcasts, and the Manga Village roundup.
It was starting to become a tradition for me. Going to San Diego Comic Con and by Saturday afternoon, stopping by the Yen Press booth and picking up the anniversary issue of Yen Plus. I didn’t go to SDCC this year, and by the same token, Yen Plus wasn’t given out this year. It had gone digital, with a free preview available until September 9th, so I am still able to do my annual One Year Later post. So, what’s changed in the move from print to digital? First off, the August/Preview issue has no Japanese-licensed titles in it. It’s all Korean/OEL manga. Compared to the last two years, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I didn’t care for the Japanese offerings in the premiere issue, but there was definite improvement by the 1st anniversary (namely Black Butler and Hero Tales). But the Korean/OEL side still held sway over me, so having this issue be mostly that didn’t bother me. One of the things about going digital that might not be as Yen Press planned is how much easier it is for me to skip over the titles I don’t want to read. In print form, I would generally start…
And the Con Goes On It’s been two weeks since Comic-Con, but reports are still coming out with video and transcripts from the manga panels that were held that. While that might be bad (and stressful) for the writing and transcribing them, it a bonus for those us of who couldn’t go! Deb Aoki posts about the manga events on Friday and takes a closer look at the Yen Press announced titles. Comics Journal has video of the Manga for Grown-Up panel and Carlo Santos from Anime News Network talked with guest Moto Hagio. And yes, there will be more links coming. But if you couldn’t make it to the con, they will be worth it. Stuck in SDCC’s Shadow One week after SDCC was Otakon over on the East Coast, in Baltimore, MD. There wasn’t a huge manga presence there in either publishers or journalists. Ed Sizemore of the Manga Worth Reading blog not only held his own panel on Anime Journalism, but he also did writes up on Manhwa at the con for Manhwa Bookshelf, and days Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Audio from his panel can be found here, a transcript from Anime Diet here, and a report…
YEN PRESS LAUNCHES THE ONLINE VERSION OF YEN PLUS WITH A FREE TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION THROUGH AUGUST NEW YORK, JULY 27, 2010 – It was announced Friday at San Diego Comic-Con that Yen Plus, the monthly manga anthology from Yen Press, is now available online at yenplus.com. And for a limited time, Yen Press will offer free access to the August issue from now through September 10th. Yen Publisher Kurt Hassler said: “It’s no secret that there is a huge demand for the digital delivery of manga content. Our responsibility as publishers is to grow and change both with the industry and the readers to meet that demand. Relaunching YEN PLUS in a digital format is our first major step in that direction, and as we look at expanding the selection that the magazine has to offer in the coming months, we look forward to not only hearing from our existing readers but reaching out to new audiences as well.” Each issue of Yen Plus includes the latest installments of popular manga such as Maximum Ride, Daniel X, Nightschool, Time And Again, and more. A new online edition will appear on the first Tuesday of each month. Subscriptions will cost $2.99…
From Aurora’s Ashes Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the people behind the company have banded together to create a new manga publisher. Calling themselves Manga Factory, former staffers from Aurora have created a new independent company instead of being a subsidiary of a Japanese company, as Aurora was. They have already announced one title, Teen Apocolypse: Guilstein for the Kindle and promises to do more electronic books in the same genre’s as Aurora; shojo, fantasy, josei and yaoi. This seems to tell me that Aurora wasn’t doing too bad, but maybe they just weren’t doing good enough to please the exec back in Japan. For these former employees to come together and create their own company, in this economic environment must mean they seen a reason to keep plugging at it. I look forward to see what they offer, especially in the digital format. Tokyopop + Zinio = ?? Tokyopop has been a pioneer of digital manga. They were the first to put their OEL manga on an e-reader, they feature sample chapters of new manga, and whole volumes on their website, and now they are teaming up with digital magazine and book publisher Zinio to make their…
RIN-NE Volume 1 By Rumiko Takahashi Publisher: Viz Media Age Rating: Teen Genre: Supernatural/Comedy Price: $9.99/Free online Rating: Ever since a childhood incident Sakura Mamiya has had the power to see ghosts. Now her life has gotten a lot more complicated with the arrival of her mysterious classmate Rinne, who seems to know a thing or two about detecting ghosts himself! Having enjoyed so far Takahashi’s shonen titles since Urusei Yatsura, I was thrilled to hear that we in the US would not only be getting her newest, Rin-ne, at the same time as Japan, but it would available for free online to read. Having now read the first volume’s worth of chapters, I have to say my initial excitement may have been premature.
The Mysterians Volume 1 Story by Jay Antani, Art by Matt Hentshel Publisher: Tokyopop Age Rating: Older Teen Genre: Sci-Fi Price: $9.99 Rating: My name is Vox. I am the last surviving member of an underground resistance. Our mission: Expose and destroy a vast and sinister plot to take over planet Earth. Aliens have infiltrated the Earth’s entire political, industrial, military and socio-industrial complex. They are determined to extinguish life on our planet. Since birth, the five of you were fated to receive this message. You are possessed of extraordinary abilities… Logan, you have superior strength and superhuman intuition. Leelee, no Olympian has ever had your level of agility. Jenna and Jamie, your parents knew of your telekinesis and ESP when you were still children. Tony, your intellect is off the charts. The entire world needs you. You must use your talents to join together and stop this invasion…And in doing so, the five of you will become…The Mysterians! Science Fiction doesn’t get nearly as much love in manga as it should, but this title seems to be trying to make up for lost time, and does a pretty good job of it! Even with the fairly generic plot of…
Dark Metro Volume 2 Story by Tony Calen; Art by Yoshiken Publisher: Tokyopop Age Rating: Older Teen Genre: Horror Price: $9.99 Rating: Terror awaits the people of Tokyo, with gruesome lessons only the dead can teach. In this second collection of shorts, a waitress at a maid café sparks jealousy. A mother who can’t handle the responsibility of raising her child commits a horrible crime. An ancient sword awakens a psychotic samurai. And finally, the solemn guide Seiya reveals his own tragic past and the nature of his gifts that are his curse. Things don’t get any better with this second volume of this series. Following the same unsuccessful pattern of the first volume, there is some slight improvement story-wise, but technical issues with the formatting wipe it out.
Dark Metro Volume 1 Story by Tokyo Calen; Art by Yoshiken Publisher: Tokyopop Age Rating: Older Teen Genre: Horror Price: $9.99 Rating: What lies below Tokyo’s subway system is more frightening than you could have ever imagined…in its subways there exists a boundary between this world and the next–the land of the dead, and the mysterious young man Seiya is its guide. In this collection of bone-chilling shorts, follow the twisted tales of death and hauntings that inhabit this horrifying underworld, where innocent youth fall victim to the ghosts who inhabit Tokyo’s underground. Dark Metro is a title in a category all it’s own. It’s not a come-uppance theater title, as the main characters in the stories aren’t bad. They are just ordinary people experiencing the supernatural in Tokyo’s subways. But it’s not like the Twilight Zone, as Seiya, the guide to the underworld, doesn’t narrate the stories either. He possesses the power to decide who lives and who dies in the subway, just appearing somewhere in the story to save the protagonist from whatever horror is after them. This title falls through the cracks of horror genre and should probably stay there.
The Japanese are at it again… Digital manga via Nintendo devices is in the news again. This time though, it’s from the people that it matters most; the manga publishers. From a news article from Manga Jouhou, the four largest manga publishers Kadokawa, Kodansha, Shueisha, and Shogakukan have formed a joint venture with a software house that will bring digital manga to the Wii console. The venture is called Librica and is the first serious step from the creators of the content to bring to a wider audience.
In a previous post, I spoke about the Kindle as being a possibility for reading electronic books and manga. But, a little searching around the web has brought to light another possibility that is much more inexpensive, and more readably available. As a matter of fact, you may have on in your home right now! It’s the Nintendo DS. Nintendo’s newest handheld game platform can be a tool for more than just games.While Nintendo has been announcing products that bring manga to the Japanese DS users, we here in the US can only hope and pray that these products are brought over. But, thanks to good, old, hacker ingenuity, (and some hardware from Asia), programmers and others can and often do make their own programs, or “home brews” to run on the DS. For more information on Home Brews for the DS, see this wiki. For purveyors of portable digital manga (and who are willing to risk their DS) would be two home brew programs: PictoDS and Comic Book DS. A review of the software running on a DS, with pictures can be found here. It uses the dual screens and touch screen to really give a customizable reading experience….