Lots of good stuff in the comments section of the Cheeky Angel/Fruits Basket compare-and-contrast. In addition to a healthy mix of opinions, Stephanie links to a fascinating piece she wrote on visual flow in manga at her LiveJournal. Also, Mitch gives his own thoughts on the two titles at his blog.
(Of course, Blogger picks today to take a break from copying comments to my e-mail. And yes, I checked the settings, so it’s not just me being tech-stupid. Though it was very perceptive of you to identify that possibility.)
Speaking of Fruits Basket, David at Love Manga looks at ICv2’s tally of graphic novel sales in the Direct Market for February. I’m kind of surprised at how far down the list one finds ADV Manga’s Cromartie High School, considering how much crossover love it’s gotten in the blogosphere. I’ll be interested to see the BookScan numbers on it, since ADV seems to have spared no expense on marketing this thing in bookstore chains, what with all the special display units. And the digests themselves are strikingly designed, which can’t hurt.
More on this later, but the manga-in-translation industry clearly has designed its publishing schedule to drive me to poverty on a quarterly basis. Glancing through the issue of Previews that came out yesterday, I should just start sketching out my cardboard “will work for manga” sign now.