As a follow-up to my reverse psychology article, How to fail as a comics artist (http://www.comicthrash.com/content/view/72/2/), I've posted Part One...

So I've been playing around with Manga Studio 3.0 and using my Wacom Graphire tablet for input. I noticed...

It appears that MangaCast has put online a Seven Seas Panel Podcast from San Diego Comic Con. I love...

I was poking around on Google Video looking for anime and manga related materials and found an eight part video...

A Japanese television program called Top Runner (http://www.nhk.or.jp/tr/) recently interviewed CLAMP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLAMP), the incredibly famous and popular creative quartet that...

Unlike its predecessors in this series (Cup Noodle and 240Z), Project X - The Challengers - Seven Eleven - The Miraculous Success of Japan’s 7-Eleven Stores is relatively restrained in its adjectives. The thrust of this story is the development of the convenience store, driven by youthful amateurs, and the way it revolutionized the retail [...]

The ICv2 list of the Ten Most Powerful People in Manga has caused some blog discussion, of course. Since the full explanation behind their choices wasn’t included in the online version of the article, and since I happen to have a copy of the print version, I thought I’d share some key information. First, bear [...]

Dirk Deppey (under the Comics Retailing section) takes apart a retailer complaining that Viz is sending exclusive merchandise to Hot Topic and Borders. From day one, the vast majority of comics shops in the Direct Market treated manga publishers the same way they’ve always treated any other publisher selling material not prominently featuring Batman and [...]

Ian Brill wonders why used bookstores won’t buy manga. This is a question I’ve wondered about as well, although from the other side. I’d like to find used manga at cheap prices, but even the biggest used bookstores I’ve been to, the ones with decent graphic novel sections, don’t carry much. Is that because there’s [...]

I am completely astounded that this series has put out at least 20 volumes when all of the stories are the same. Then again, when I realize that the point of every one of those stories is to show cute girls in compromising positions, it’s a little more understandable. Here’s the formula: shy nerdy guy [...]

It looks like Publishers Weekly is taking a stab at the long-requested combined comic sales list. This week, they began publishing a comic bestseller list, the top ten titles for the month “compiled from data from bookstores and comics shops”. Unsurprisingly, it’s all manga, except for The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation at #2 and [...]

Sae was the bad girl in Peach Girl, the story of how a teen girl named Momo overcomes stereotypes to find love. And when I say bad, I mean BAD. Sae didn’t think anything of having Momo drugged and date-raped in order to steal her boyfriend. So seeing her as the heroine of a new [...]

In this original graphic novel by Queenie Chan, twin girls enter a remote boarding school in the Australian wilderness. From the beginning, there’s an air of something wrong. The girls are warned that they must pretend they’re not twins, only sisters, because of an odd prejudice on the vice-principal’s part. Their aunt, headmistress of the [...]

Kei is a schoolboy so cute that even his best friends can’t resist hitting on him. When he passes out and is taken to the hospital, it’s revealed that he’s really a girl, genetically. He decides he must live as a female, hoping that his unusual choice will bring his family arguments to a head. [...]

Viz has announced nine new titles debuting before the end of the year. Looks like a good variety of material. (Now why can’t Tokyopop lay out their information this clearly and directly?) In October: TRAIN_MAN: DENSHA OTOKO · MSRP: $9.99 · Rated “T” for Teens The manga companion to the quirky smash hit live-action film (theatrically released [...]

Like an episode of a good television serial, the latest edition of Case Closed may not be outstanding or unique, but it is entertaining in a fashion consistent with the series overall. (The most recent entry in the series I previously reviewed was Book 11.) First comes the conclusion to the last case from the [...]

As the book opens, it’s New Year’s for Ran and her friends. Ran’s competing in temple contests to win good fortune and prizes. Sensible friend Miyu wants to earn money with a part-time job. Her sense of responsibility and ability to take care of herself contrasts with Ran’s approach to life: Ran relies on others [...]

Schoolgirl Sahara stumbles across demon boy Gertrude as he’s recovering from a battle. He’s a patchwork, assembled out of other parts and magically enlivened by a recipe, and he is searching for the instructions that brought him to life so he can destroy them. He’s the usual type of outsider in this kind of manga [...]

Following up on yesterday’s reactions to Tokyopop’s online exclusives, here are two more and some further thoughts of mine. Dorian goes into more detail on why retailers make decisions to carry the manga they do and how this might start a declining spiral for the company: [Tokyopop has] always been a bit of a nuisance [...]

In the future, the world has been united in one empire. However, the emperor has died, and his scientists are trying to clone him to keep the empire together. The clone escapes and winds up, a blank slate, trying to survive with the aid of two others. He’s got an unusual marking in the middle [...]