This week’s Flipped features an interview with the very talented and incredibly busy Tokyopop editor Lillian Diaz-Przybyl. She would neither confirm nor deny that she leads an army of clones to get all of her work done.
Yoshinagarama
May 22, 2007 by
In this week’s Flipped, it’s all Fumi Yoshinaga, all the time. I think I’ve finally figured out what distinguishing factor makes Ichigenme 801 and The Moon and the Sandals Juné, which isn’t really relevant to my central thesis that she’s generally awesome.
Monday links
May 14, 2007 by
ComiPress provides a fascinating look at the uncomfortable position faced by some Chinese fans of Japanese manga and anime:
“The question of ‘Is enjoying Japanese manga and anime an unpatriotic act?’ has been a great point of debate in China. The topic has caused many problems, and many young Chinese people are torn between their anti-Japan feelings and their love for Japanese manga.”
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I’m always glad to see Fanfare/Ponent Mon’s books get the attention they deserve, so this piece in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin (found via MangaBlog) was much appreciated. I like this introductory analogy, too:
“But it’s a bit like wine in a sense: Sure, there are products for the masses, but there are also products that true connoisseurs can enjoy even more.”
I do think the pleasures of Kan Takahama’s Kinderbook are much more readily apparent than these reviewers did, though.
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At Kate no Komento, Katherine Dacey-Tsue casts an understandably wary eye upon the next evolution of Tokyopop’s web presence:
“What I don’t like about the site are the gimmicky labels that Tokyopop has assigned to the buttons on the navigation bar. They seem like the handiwork of a marketing consultant, rather than someone who actually uses websites.”
Glancing at the image, I tend to agree that the tags aren’t immediately useful in terms of navigation. I’ll readily admit that this might be a generational thing for me.
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At the Manga Recon blog, Dacey-Tsuei increases my anticipation for Morim Kang’s 10, 20, and 30 from NETCOMICS:
“Those deformations, oversized sweat drops, and flapping arms capture the way we really experience embarrassment, fear, betrayal, and attraction: in the moment, one’s own sense of self is grossly—even cartoonishly—exaggerated, even if that moment seems trivial in hindsight.”
This reminds me very much of my reaction to Rica Takashima’s charming, low-fi Rica ‘tte Kanji!? (ALC), which is a definite inducement to give the book a shot.
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For this week’s Flipped, I talked (via e-mail) to Simon Jones about ero-manga imprint Icarus. So you know at least one smart person was involved in the creation of this week’s installment.
Smoke-filled rooms
May 7, 2007 by
I bailed on local Free Comic Book Day activities on Saturday, which was very lazy of me. In my defense, the local shop invests as much as it can in the event, but I still end up feeling like I’m taking comics out of the hands of casual or potential readers. And since my interests run towards the comics intended for kids, I feel extra guilty.
What I did instead:
Head count
April 30, 2007 by
In this week’s Flipped, I take a look at one new series I liked primarily because of the art, and one that I liked kind of in spite of the art. Both series are from Del Rey, both have titles that start with the letter “p”, and both feature a strangely satisfyingly high body count.
Who are you wearing?
April 24, 2007 by
This is a question that will best be reserved for the actual Eisner ceremonies, but a bunch of people were kind enough to respond to a number of other inquiries for this week’s Flipped.
Talking to myself
April 17, 2007 by
In the midst of my weekend bout of manganization, I had what I thought was a stroke of genius, but it was really just another reason why I should never be given a position of responsibility in manga publishing.
I was looking at the cover of a volume of Death Note, and I got all indignant at the blurb that mentioned the book was by the same artist who illustrated Hikaru no Go. I thought to myself, “Well, what does that accomplish? Tons of people are already reading Death Note. They should put the blurb on the cover of Hikaru no Go.”
Then I noticed that all of the books I was shelving had only their spines showing, and that people are much more likely to see a blurb for Hikaru on Death Note than the other way around. I can only attribute this exchange to the fumes from the composite wood products in the shelves I’d assembled.
Another recent conversation with myself reveals that, in addition to spending too much time reading manga, I spend far too much time watching television. The transcription can be found in this week’s Flipped.
Flippedancy
April 9, 2007 by
It’s Monday, so it must be time for me to pimp this week’s Flipped! Coming under scrutiny are two new series that focus on protagonists who might want to get their affairs in order: Black Sun, Silver Moon (Go! Comi) and Shakugan no Shana (Viz).
And here are a couple of links to folks who expand on last week’s column, either directly or indirectly:
Shopping around
April 2, 2007 by
This week’s Flipped is up, in which I put on my secret shopper disguise and compare prices and shipping rates at some different on-line manga retailers. Actually, my secret shopper disguise consisted of pajamas. If it makes the reading more interesting to imagine me in sunglasses, a blond wig and a disfigured nasal prosthetic, don’t let me stop you.
I’m just glad I didn’t wind up carelessly ordering the same books over and over.
Monday linkblogging
March 19, 2007 by
Is “classic” an alluring adjective, and does literary merit guarantee longevity? Those are some of the questions on Robin Brenner’s mind at No Flying, No Tights:
“Then there’s my other problem: I keep running up against what Mark Twain identified as a classic: A book which people praise and don’t read. Perhaps I’m being harsh, but there are a fair number of graphic novels out there that may well be extraordinarily well crafted — but can anyone read them?”
Time’s running out to enter TangognaT’s blog anniversary manga give-away. She’s added some extra incentives and wonders where the love is for some of the titles up for grabs.
Writing for the Patriot-News, Chris Mautner goes deep into geek territory, looking at Genshiken (Del Rey) and Welcome to the N.H.K. (Tokyopop). I love the former, and I’m on the fence about sampling the latter. I feel like I should, because portrayals of otaku culture can’t all be good-natured benevolence, can they?
At Read About Comics, Greg McElhatton has high praise for the first volume of Housui Yamazaki’s Mail, giving it the edge over the Yamazaki-drawn Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (both from Dark Horse). I’m partial to Kurosagi, but I’ve really enjoyed both of the volumes of Mail that have been released so far.
And as soon as I clicked “Send” on the e-mail with this week’s Flipped column attached, I browsed around the blogosphere and discovered that Jog had written about the same topic (that everyone should buy Fumiyo Kouno’s sublime Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms from Last Gasp), only much, much better. Ah, well.
