Manga, Manga, Manga!
As usual, lots of manga news floating around. Here's some of the
stuff that caught my eye:
Christopher
Butcher reports on the overwhelming popularity of manga at Anime
North, an anime fan convention in Toronto. It's interesting
reading how the table Chris was working was so swamped that Chris was
literally turning people away so that he could re-stock sold out
merchandise. As Chris points out, 2004 is surely a time to stay
in the manga business, not get out
as some people have
suggested.
In other con news,
Augie
De Blieck Jr. reports on Tokyopop's presence at Wizard World
East. I'm just going to reproduce the relevant sections verbatim:
TokyoPop set up a little reading library with bean bags,
chairs, and sample issues to read through.
The few times I passed by the TokyoPop booth, it [the male/female
ratio] seems to be about 80/20 in favor of the women hanging around.
In my mind, this reinforces that Tokyopop is aggressively courting (1)
actual readers and (2) non-traditional comic readers. Good to
hear.
Also reporting from Wizard World East,
Heidi
MacDonald mentions that Tokyopop (who took over CrossGen's old
booth) was doing portfolio reviews and handing out samplers to "an
enthusiastic but not overwhelming crowd."
Finally,
Kevin
Melrose
points out that two of my hometown papers, the
Star
Tribune and the
Pioneer
Press, have both profiled Twin Citian Tania del Rio, who is
handling the manga-esque revamp of Archie Comics'
Sabrina
the Teenage Witch. I preordered the issue where the new
direction starts and I'm looking forward to reading it.
Afterwards, I'll probably pass it along to my niece, who enjoys
Shonen
Jump and
Alison
Dare. I'll be curious to see what she thinks of it.
