Love Manga

Its the USA Today Top 150 time again and its much the same as last week.

Only one title is still lurking within the chart and that not surprisingly is VIZ Media’s Naruto. Volume 11 drops just a few places in it’s 6th week from #43 to #46 which puts it well on course to beating the 10 weeks in a row set by its predecessor volume 10.

Consortium breaks the news early (well earlier then DQ were expecting) about some new publishers joining its distribution ranks.

From Shelf Awareness (and Mangacast) comes details of DramaQueen and CPM Manga (again) signing up distribution deals with Consortium starting in Spring 2007;

Central Park Media, New York, N.Y., a 16-year-old video and book publisher focused on Japanese and Korean animation and graphic novels and a leading North American publisher of Japanese manga and Korean manhwa.
DramaQueen, Houston, Tex., a relatively new publisher of graphic novels, manhwa and yaoi from Korea and Taiwan.

From CPM’s point of view I’m not entirely sure what this means. They press released about signing with Consortium, and then the following day they fold up and stopped distributing, and now Consortium are announcing that they have CPM Manga back again for a Spring 2007 catalogue and yet no word from CPM themselves.
To be honest I’m not really sure what to make of it, and after all this time I’m truly wondering if I still care. I will admit an interest in seeing what this means for the Be Beautiful imprint as that seemed about the only section successfully working for CPM. We know they have the titles, we even had new licenses mentioned back in February, but I’m beginning not to care if they see the light of day. It is going to have to be a fairly consistent release of titles from then over many months before I’d consider getting back with them, there is just so much other good titles out there that I don’t really need to go looking.

Talking of good titles, the other distribution partner is DramaQueen. I’ve said many times before how much I love and respect DramaQueen and the people that work there, if I had to pick my favourite manga publisher the two D’s, DramaQueen and Dark Horse would be fighting for the top spot; so when I see news like this it makes me genuinely happy for them.

Since their inception the distribution has been relatively solid (or at least for me in the UK) with both Baker & Taylor and AAAAnime and with their own website store; but Consortium will bring them something else. Like Ed says over at Mangacast, So Consortium could be that step needed to get the word and the pulp out there. Good thing for these pubs and I hope a good thing for readers and I couldn’t agree more. The idea that DramaQueen and to an extent CPM Manga can enjoy a much wider distribution, or more simply, get their great quality titles out to an even bigger audience is fantastic.

Or a better way, what Ed said. ^.^

As an aside to that distribution fun comes news of VIZ Media opening up Death Note to the European market with;
Ediciones Glenat España in Spain,
Panini in Italy,
Tokyopop in Germany,
Dargaud Lombard in France

All set for release in 2006, it is a good example of just how important the European manga market really is.

This weeks PW Comics newsletter makes up for last weeks no manga articles with two this time around.

First up is Kai-Ming Cha’s look at Broccoli in Super-Cute Broccoli Grows in the U.S.

As a quick history piece it quite worth the read, especially for all those that like their manga slightly more cute.

This October will see the wide release of Koge-Donbo’s Yoki Koto Kiku (which was a Borders exclusive over the summer), a manga about triplets who go head to head with their in-laws (and each other) for their brother’s inheritance. Broccoli Books also plans to publish Donbo’s Kon Kon Kokon, a story about a fox-girl that’s currently being serialized in Japan. In 2007 look for the release of Satol Yuiga’s E’s, about an elite group of psychics.

The second article by Kate Culkin called Mangaka, American-Style is as the title would suggest a look at the new Mangaka America book due out in November.

It is a particularly glowing look at how the book came about and what they were aiming for with its release;

The book was born out of del Rio and Staehle’s dissatisfaction with the manga instructional manuals available in English. Impressed by the two volumes of Japanese Comickers, a how-to and survey of Japanese comics also published by CollinsDesign, del Rio explained, they aimed to create a similarly high-caliber work “for a Western audience, featuring North American creators who actually work professionally as global manga artists.”

As always from the ComicList.

A. D. VISION
Line Manga Vol 1 TPB, $9.99

ANTARCTIC PRESS
Ninja High School #142, $2.99

DARK HORSE COMICS
Berserk Vol 13 TPB, $13.95
Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Vol 1 TPB, $10.95

DC COMICS
Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne Vol 5, $9.99
Oyayubihime Infinity Vol 2, $9.99
Seimaden Vol 6, $9.99

ICARUS PUBLISHING
A G Super Erotic Anthology #43 (adult), $4.99
A G Super Erotic Anthology Mega Bundle #2 (adult), $18.00

TOKYOPOP
Avatar Cinemanga Box Set Vols 1 - 3, $19.99
Kingdom Hearts Vol 1-4 GN Boxed Set, $23.99
Tokyo Tribes Vol 5 GN (Of 11), $9.99

VIZ MEDIA LLC
Shonen Jump Nov 06 #47, $4.99

Yes that other distributor which isn’t Diamond releases its Top 200 Graphic Novel sales to date for 2006.

I’ve always liked the Coldcut listings because they have a tendency to reflect a different group of titles that we don’t usually see each month in the Diamond direct market chart.
A quick couple of caveats though in case your wondering why VIZ Media seems to be dominating and Tokyopop is nowhere to be seen, and that is because Tokyopop is greatly tied into Diamond and do not use Coldcut as a partner. Dark Horse also does not use Coldcut hence their lack of appearances.

Anyway, over at Icarus Publishing Simon has carved out all the manga titles, but in case your shy of visiting I’ll reproduce the list here.

Yes I know that’s a huge long chart. ^.~
Out of the 200 places Manga accounts for a more then decent 81 titles, which when compared to how it fairs in the Diamond direct market is even more impressive (usually manga is about 20-30 titles out of 100 compared with 81 out of 200).

As I mentioned earlier not every publisher deals with Coldcut so the representation is slightly skewed, but still the VIZ Media dominance is undeniable. Only 5 different manga publishers make the list and 4 of them (Be Beautiful 7, Drawn & Quarterly 2, Yaoi Press 1 and Del Rey 1) combine to make an underwhelming 11 titles, leaving the other 70 to VIZ Media.

Series wise it is all Fullmetal Alchemist as the first 7 volumes all make the chart, the next closest being Naruto with 6 volumes and Death Note and Rurouni Kenshin both with 4 volumes each; again not overly surprising all things considered.

Simon though does pick up on the interesting part of Be Beautiful in that its 7 volumes of BL titles are the only representation for CPM Manga. Which just goes to show how far CPM have disappeared from the radar altogether.

Well back from holiday and here we go again. ^.^

ICV2 writes what was probably an inevitable article as the Bleach anime hits the Cartoon Network and starts what ICV2 call the Cartoon Network effect on the bookmarket.

Volume 01 of the series reappears in the bookscan top 10 chart at #7, 26 months after its debut back in June 2004 whilst volume 02 is already placed at #20; and in total seven volumes of Bleach were in the top 50. But like we wrote before and as ICV2 picks up on, is Bleach strong enough to have the same effect as Naruto. Naruto’s advantage was that it only had seven volumes for people to catch up on, whereas people dedicated to Bleach have a rather massive investment of 14 volumes.
Personally I think it probably can do well maybe not on the same scale but just one look at Naruto shows that no matter what happens when each volume comes out it just keeps selling better every time. All 11 volumes of Naruto are inside the top 18 and to quote a part of the article;

According to one industry observer, sales of the 11 volumes of Naruto so far in 2006 account for just under 10% of total manga sales for the year.

So maybe the volume count isn’t as big an issue but time will tell over the next coming weeks. One things for sure I suspect were heading for another all VIZ Media top 01 again as Bleach and Naruto fight it out.

COLTON, CA – SEPTEMBER 2006 – Boys’ love—homoerotic stories, usually written and read by women—has made a splash in the U.S. with the introduction of yaoi manga imported from Japan, but until recently, the genre’s offerings have had a decidedly eastern flavor. When Worlds Collide, a new boys’ love comic anthology from Iris Print, is the first in a line of true original English-language (OEL) boys’ love.

Worlds (ISBN: 0-9787531-2-7, 177pp, $12.95) contains five short comics in a manga-sized trade paperback. Rather than keeping to a Japanese aesthetic, the art styles range from a manga-influenced hybrid style to a more traditional American comic style. The book is intended for mature audiences, and the stories are primarily erotic romance, based on a theme of “opposites attract.”

This collection, falling somewhere between female-dominated yaoi manga and male-dominated gay comics, serves to showcase the wide variety of art and stories existing in the boys’ love genre today. While the target market is female readers of yaoi manga, the book’s western writing and more realistic body types will appeal to readers that may not appreciate the highly stylized nature of Japanese comics.

When Worlds Collide has a release date of October 20, 2006, and can be pre-ordered on Amazon.com or at the publisher’s web site at www.boyslovebooks.com.

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER: Iris Print is a new publisher of English-language boys’ love fiction and comics for a western audience. Founded in February 2006, Iris’s goal is to bring quality boys’ love books to American readers and further awareness of the genre. For more information, please contact Kellie Lynch, Editor, at kellie@boyslovebooks.com or visit www.boyslovebooks.com.

Iris Print
582 W. Valley Blvd. Ste. 12B
Colton, CA 92324-2267
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