I’m packing and getting ready for some down time (restful!), but I did want to point out something for folks who pre-order at least some of their manga through Diamond’s Previews catalog. Guess what’s in the June 2010 edition?
Page 290 in the Fantagraphics section, in case you want to go right to it. Here’s some of the solicitation text:
“Moto Hagio is considered the most beloved shōjo manga artist of all time. Unconstrained by genre, she has built a career exemplified by intellectual curiosity, psychological authenticity and a mature aesthetic sense akin to Osamu Tezuka as opposed to Sailor Moon. For the first time in English, Fantagraphics is proud to present a Hagio primer: a selection of short stories spanning from 1971 to 2007 by an artist at the peak of her powers.”
Needless to say, I’m super-excited and pre-ordering it as soon as I click “publish.” Of course, I’m also not even a tiny bit surprised that the blurb is obnoxious, since this is Fantagraphics. The dig at Sailor Moon, complimenting her by comparing her work to a man’s, even if that man is Osamu Tezuka… it’s vintage, really. And it has to be one of the most coherent Fantagraphics blurbs I’ve read in ages, so points for that. They usually scan like translated Latin from a codex plot device in an archeological thriller.