Hi Hi Imitation Anime Show #37418

Cartoon Network prospects for more Japan-inspired gold with their new show Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, based on the misadventures of J-Pop group Puffy. (Whom you all know from the Teen Titans theme song, of course ... )

Join the Collective!

Aspiring webcomickers, you might want to try signing up with the Band of Webcomic Creators as a way to get more readers. Who knows, it might really work for you!

Angelic Layers of Metaphor

Johanna at Comics Worth Reading looks into Viz's release of Tenshi na Konamaiki Cheeky Angel, which may very well have some underlying things to say about gender roles, because that's what happens when boys turn into girls. And go through puberty.

When shit hits the fans

If you read one thing about the concept of "fandom," make it Entitlement and the Modern Fandom at Websnark.

Would you like a DVD with that?

AoD looks at ADV's release of Peacemaker Vol. 1 (they dropped the "Kurogane" for the DVD), and if you buy the Limited Edition artbox you also get the first volume of the manga. Now that's clever marketing!

And the pig. The pig is genius. Simplicity in design, comical in nature and with an attitude to be a Shinsengumi as well.

Same thing we do every night

Ignore the bit about TP's new release Threads of Time. Instead, check out the delightful-sounding 1000 Steps to World Domination. I don't suppose it's what Larry Young really wants to do with all the stuff he's publishing ... ?

Pichi Pichi Pitch

So, you wanna get your comic published? Larry Young of AiT/Planet Lar has some advice on how to pitch your idea.

Blistering Barnacles!

Hergé is still awesome, as this paean to Tintin proves. (Source: Thought Balloons)

Jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, but never jam today

ShoujoMagic has just released Alice in the Underground, a one-off that remakes the Lewis Carroll tale in Gothic Lolita style. Somehow, this sounds like a very predictable thing to do, but if it intrigues you, head to their IRC channel and pick it up ...

In-depth Reviewage

Anime on DVD takes a look at the yaoi-tastic Kizuna, while Anime News Network tackles the yaoi-inspiring (check the doujinshi section of any convention) Prince of Tennis.

Into abstraction

Mae Mai and Precocious Curmudgeon are raising the level of discourse on manga, and at this point I think I'll stop. If some other retailer calls apocalypse on the industry, maybe I'll poke my head out of the meerkat-hole again.

(Oh, and check out Matt Thorn's stuff. Daunting.)

PWNED!

Actually, says ICv2, Viz has a bigger TPB catalog than Tokyopop. So THERE!

What? You mean there's stuff BEFORE Osamu Tezuka?

Not totally manga, but Midnight Eye has fascinating article on pre-WWII anime. Note the similarity to American works of that same era.

Seven Seas, ahoy

Anime News Network has more info on Seven Seas, a new publisher of U.S.-produced manga. (Or ... as close to manga as the Americans can get.) So that's why I didn't recognize any of their titles ... ha ha. Oh, by the way, the hide-and-seek navigation to their "teaser" pages is horrible. Can't we just see the stuff people are working on?

It's Sakura Kinoshita week

Right Turn Only at ANN looks at this week's manga lineup, including the aforementioned MLR, PMK and Tactics.

Viz's new titles for November -- including the somewhat well-known Here is Greenwood.

Reimu is scanlating a couple of interesting-sounding titles, namely Ping Pong and Piano No Mori, but it looks like you have to go on their IRC channel to get them.

That's about all the news today, since you should be out there reading the new stuff! :p

Even cooler than the Chrono Trigger character of the same name

If you read one comic this week, make it Wil Pfeifer's Frog.

No, seriously.

(This actually reminds me of the comics I used to do when I was a kid ... )

And it all comes out in one fat deluge

Bags and Boards reports that Tokyopop plans to produce a live-action movie of Real Bout High School starring Melissa Joan Hart. Of all the comic book movies in all the world ...

What, you mean they make comics in OTHER Asian countries besides Japan? Gerry Alanguilan has dispatches from the Philippine comic book scene.

Ian at Brill Building has some good things to say about Taiyo Matsumoto's Black and White; (note to self, check this out sometime) and over at Comic Book Resources they have a couple of old American dudes talking about what makes manga so ... manga-esque. Naturally this also involves putting it in context with the US comic industry and why Marvel sucks at doing manga-esque.

Ooh, Completely Futile finally weighs in on the recently exhumed corpse of the "There's Too Much Manga!" debate. Adam reminds us (in more words or less): Have you even SEEN how much manga they put out in the Japanese periodicals? There's plenty more good stuff out there to be found. It's just that those guys at Tokyopop ... well ... y'know ...

I was gonna send y'all to Thought Balloons for some more links on Asian comics, but Mae Mai did a much better job cataloguing these. It's all about the manga-style wanted poster, man. I want to design one of those.

Dude, why is Johnny Bacardi so good at finding cute drawings?

So it looks like a publisher by the name of Seven Seas is entering the manga market, too ... don't know any of their titles, but the art's all right. (Source: ANN)

Not to go ZOMGWTFYAY or anything, but SnoopyCool just put up Chapters 69-74 of Midori No Hibi, or, The One Where That Guy's Right Hand Turns Into a Girl.

Just to prove that it isn't all sword-wielding samurai and simpering schoolgirls: Manga-Fiends, in partnership with MangaDownloads, has released the first chapter of Major, a baseball manga about a precocious kindergartener who dreams of making it to the big leagues like his dad. And, yeah, it's a tad more interesting than it sounds, honest.

And holy crap you guys, the US editions of Matantei Loki Ragnarok (they SHOULD have started with the original Matantei Loki, fools!), Tactics and Peacemaker Kurogane are ALL coming out this Wednesday. ph33r.

This just in

ICv2 reports that Boychild Productions in England will be bringing out Manga Mover, an anthology that will "feature stories with a mature level and include a mixture of mainstream and alternative/avant garde material." About time!

Only the news that matters.

Woof! According to Anime News Service (scroll down to Sep 27), you can now play Inu-Yasha as a collectible card game if the mood so suits you.

Orange Tangerine continues the riding the Death Note train with Chapter 36, where the stakes are upped but ... it's still running on fumes.

And, I got the reviewer position at ANN! Go me.

Comics Theorists Gone Wild!

Understanding Scott McCloud.

If I were Scott, I'd be just a bit creeped out.

The TP Juggernaut Continues

Franklin Finds that DC Comics and Dark Horse have just been PWN3D by Tokyopop, which now boasts a backlist of 800 trade paperbacks -- the most of any comics company in the US.

(As a side note, do recall that many of these TPBs are ... well ... not all that great. But one could say the same of any of the big-name comics publishers.)

On to Round 2 with the Manga Retail Wars at ICv2.

Scanlations of interest:
- Orange Tangerine has released Chapter 35 of Death Note, though that series seems to be really running on fumes (and LOTS of text) these days and it's not as cool as it was when it first started out.
- Another chapter of Ai Yazawa's Nana over at Sugar Oasis.