Janelle Asselin

Publishing | DC Comics associate editor Janelle Asselin has left the company, reportedly for a job with Disney. She clarifies on Twitter that, contrary to a report, she wasn’t escorted from the building on Tuesday but, rather, left “at my leisure.” Asselin had been with DC since 2008, working primarily on Batman books like Batman and Robin, Batman: Streets of Gotham, Red Robin, Birds of Prey and the relaunched Batman, Batwoman, Detective Comics and Savage Hawkman. [Bleeding Cool]

Publishing | Longtime editor Betsy Mitchell is taking early retirement from her post as editor-in-chief of Del Rey, where she helped create Del Rey Manga. Tricia Pasternak, a former Del Rey Manga editor herself, has been promoted to editorial director. Del Rey was established as a science fiction prose imprint; the manga line was created in 2004 and was mostly shut down in 2010, when Kodansha began publishing its manga directly in the U.S. However, Del Rey still publishes a handful of manga and graphic novels, including xxxHolic, King of RPGs, and Deltora Quest. [Publishers Weekly]

Legal | In a twist that sounds like something out of a comic (or even an ad from an old comic), a witness in the Michael George trial testified he saw someone wearing an obviously fake beard outside George’s Clinton Township, Michigan, comics shop a few minutes before George’s first wife Barbara was murdered inside the store in 1990. [The Tribune Democrat]

Starfire

Comics | The latest critique of Starfire comes from Michelle Lee’s 7-year-old daughter, who was a big fan of the incarnations of the character in the Teen Titans comic and animated cartoon. She summarizes the whole problem with childlike simplicity: “Well, she’s not fighting anyone. And not talking to anyone really. She’s just almost naked and posing.” [io9.com]

Comics | Former superhero reader and current manga blogger Deb Aoki describes the Starfire/Catwoman controversy for her manga fanbase and discusses how shonen manga manage to provide good, even fanservice-laden, stories for men without alienating their female readers: “The fascinating and diverse female casts of Bleach and Naruto are a big part of these series’ appeal to both male and female readers. Yes, there are some busty babes in both series — but Soul Reaper Rangiku Matsumoto is a commanding officer in the Soul Society in Bleach, and Tsunade is a strong and dynamic Hokage (leader) of Naruto’s ninja village to name just a few.” [About.com]

Comics | Brian Truitt spotlights Marvel’s ABC television tie-in Castle: Richard Castle’s Deadly Storm, the just-released graphic novel by Brian Michael Bendis, Kelly Sue DeConnick and Lan Medina. [USA Today]

Wolverine and the X-Men #1

Comics | Writer Jason Aaron and editor Nick Lowe discuss the upcoming debut of Wolverine and the X-Men, which establishes Logan as headmaster of the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning. [The Associated Press]

Creators | Jonathan Callan has started a Facebook campaign to persuade the Animation Writers Caucus to give a Lifetime Achievement Award to the late Dwayne McDuffie. McDuffie’s wife Charlotte has posted there, asking that members of the Caucus nominate McDuffie via write-ins, as his name is not on the eligible list. [Facebook, via Blog@Newsarama]

Creators | Kate Beaton gives a pair of interviews about her popular webcomic Hark! A Vagrant!, which has received a printed collection from Drawn and Quarterly. [The L Magazine, io9.com]

Creators | Geoff Johns discusses DC’s relaunched Aquaman, which debuts today: “Everybody around has at least heard of Aquaman, and they’ve probably heard all the jokes — the same jokes Aquaman’s heard — and they have their opinion on Aquaman. Whether it’s good or bad, that’s what the book’s all about.” [USA Today]

Creators | For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, writer Jim Ottaviani was interviewed about his new graphic novel Feynman while riding on a teeter-totter with the interviewer. [HD Teeter Talk]

Comics | Caroline Small, the treasurer for Small Press Expo, meditates on the difficulty of bringing art-comics to a wider audience. [The Hooded Utilitarian]

Americus

Censorship | The Good Comics for Kids bloggers, many of whom are librarians, discuss MK Reed and Jonathan Hill’s Americus, a graphic novel about religious fundamentalists challenging a YA fantasy novel in a small-town library. The discussion touches on the issues the book raises and the way those issues are portrayed in the graphic novel. [Good Comics for Kids]

Comics | Kristy Valenti takes a look at Rob Liefeld’s fashion sense: “From a fashion (and commercial) perspective, ideally, a superhero artist should create an iconic costume (for example, Steve Ditko’s Spider-Man kit, Gil Kane’s Green Lantern look, or even Power Girl’s indefatigable “boob window”); Liefeld’s costuming is more like a collection, with certain motifs he returns to.” Such as high-waisted pants, shoulder pads and French-cut bikinis. Call in the fashion police! [comiXology]

Comics | Daniel BT suspects that life is imitating art as DC’s latest effort matches all too closely a Cracked parody of superhero comics art from the 1970s. [Sunday Comics Debt]

Manga | Translator Tomo Kimura lists the top ten manga creators in Japan and the number of books they have sold, from a list compiled by Nikkei Entertainment magazine. All ten are published in the U.S. as well as Japan, and One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda tops the list with almost 55 million sold. [Tomo Kimura's Translation Notes]

Del Rey, once the otaku favorite, no longer publishes manga, but they still have a line of global manga, and the newest announcement is causing a bit of a stir.

Leviathan author Scott Westerfeld is the latest prose writer to make the leap over to graphic novels. Sci-fi site io9 has the scoop on Westerfeld’s SDCC announcement: Del Rey will produce four manga-style graphic novels based on his Uglies novels, which are set in a future where all teenagers have plastic surgery to make them beautiful when they are 16. Westerfeld will come up with the storylines, which will change the point of view of the story from the character Tally Youngblood to Shay. Devin Grayson (USER, Nightwing) will script the graphic novels, and Steven Cumming will handle the art. Watch for the first volume in May 2012. Oh, and there’s a movie in the works as well.

Dark Horse will follow up, starting in 2012, with a line of digest-sized graphic novels about the Airbender characters that will pick up where the animated series left off. It’s a logical program for Dark Horse, which has several lines based on popular movies and television series, and produced the Avatar: The Last Airbender art book, but it’s also interesting that the Avatar franchise seems to have moved away from Del Rey, which published a prequel to and a novelization of the movie last year.

The new series kicks off on Free Comic BOOK Day with a free comic featuring two stories, the unpublished “Relics” and the already-seen “Dirty Is Only Skin Deep…” The Airbender comic will be packaged as a flipbook with a Star Wars: The Clone Wars comic, giving readers plenty of licensed goodness in a single hit.

Mardock Scramble

Kodansha Comics announced its first season’s offerings yesterday, and it looks like the lineup is a mix of old and new, including several series that have already been published in the U.S. by other publishers. The good news for many fans is that most of the manga published by Del Rey, which Kodansha is more or less taking over, will continue under the new imprint.

The new titles are

• Monster Hunter Orage, by Fairy Tail creator Hiro Mashima
• Deltora Quest, the anime version of which is currently playing on The Hub
• The Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
• Mardock Scramble, a sci-fi manga that is also an anime
• Animal Land, by Zatch Bell creator Makoto Raiku, which “tells the hilarious and heartwarming story of a baby raised by animals”
• Bloody Monday, a thriller about a computer hacker racing to stop a terrorist plot
• Cage of Eden, which they describe as “Battle Royale meets Lost by way of Negima!”
• A new Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney manga series

In addition, they will be reviving Gon, the wordless dinosaur manga, which was originally published by CMX, and Until the Full Moon, by Fake creator Sanami Matoh, which was originally published by Broccoli.

Del Rey series that will be continuing under the Kodansh imprint include

• Air Gear
• Arisa
• Fairy Tail
• I am Here!
• Negima!
• Negima?!
• Ninja Girls
• Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei
• Shugo Chara!
• The Wallflower

In addition, Kodansha will publish the Rave Master final-volume omnibus, which had been announced by Del Rey and then postponed, and the CLAMP series xxxHolic and Tsubasa will continue under the Del Rey imprint, according to a Tweet by Scott VonSchilling, who attended the event. The list of missing and unaccounted for Del Rey manga includes Nodame Cantabile, a romance about classical music students that got good marks from critics but apparently doesn’t sell very well, and Moyashimon, which mixes microorganisms with college life and won a Kodansha Award in Japan. Attendees at yesterday’s event were told that Del Rey titles that weren’t mentioned were not necessarily cancelled, just not on the schedule yet, but of course, some may never make it onto the schedule.

Sean Gaffney has a good overview of the whole line and what it means at his blog, A Case Suitable for Treatment. My own observation is that this is a very aggressive schedule—they are going to put out a lot of books in four months—which is refreshing after Del Rey’s period of relative inactivity.

Kodansha, the largest publisher in Japan, announced two years ago that they were going to publish their manga in the U.S. under their own name, but only a handful of books have appeared so far. In recent years, Del Rey, a branch of Random House, had licensed most Kodansha manga. In October, Kodansha announced that it would take over the Del Rey series and publish them directly, rather than licensing them to Random House. Random House will supply editing, production and distribution for the new books.

Dallas Middaugh at NYCC/NYAF

When the news broke last week that Kodansha would stop licensing its manga to Del Rey and publish them under its own imprint, some commenters reacted with dismay. Aside from being unimpressed with the first few releases from the Japanese publisher, American readers are not happy with Kodansha’s complete lack of accessibility to the public — no content on their website, no press releases and very few interviews.

So when the Kodansha panel abruptly disappeared from the schedule for New York Comic Con & New York Anime Festival, online reaction was sharp and rather resentful. Fortunately, the Kodansha honchos seem to realize that things were going off-kilter and authorized Dallas Middaugh, who will continue to edit the publisher’s books under the new arrangement, to address what exactly happened.

And what happened was not a sudden cancellation, but rather a miscommunication, Middaugh explained. Kodansha had originally planned to do a panel at NYAF but decided to cancel it at the end of August. “We realized that we were a little off schedule,” he told Robot 6. “We really weren’t going to have any titles to announce, and without any titles to announce, we didn’t see any point in having the panel. I contacted the [New York] Comic Con folks and told them ‘We got nothing, please cancel the panel.’ And in their defense, I did say ‘What’s the latest we can get back to you if we decide we do want a panel?’ That day came and went, we had canceled the panel, they unfortunately took it as a yes and ran the panel information, and we were surprised the panel was listed.”

So what looked like an abrupt cancellation was actually a correction.

“It’s not the way we want to do things,” Middaugh said. “It’s very important to us to communicate with the fans, but it’s also important not to reach out until we have something to say. All apologies to everybody. We will of course have announcements coming up, over the next several months, but we don’t have everything ready for this show.”

While the scheduling snafu was one of those things that just happens with shows (Viz Media’s panel also disappeared from the schedule), it’s telling that Middaugh was able to speak about it on the record. One of the reasons for Del Rey’s popularity was its openness — Middaugh and then-marketing director Ali T. Kokmen frequently popped up in forums and on blog posts to engage fans — and it’s good to see Kodansha recognizing that American readers don’t like to be ignored.

We were right! On the eve of New York Comic-Con/New York Anime Fest, Kodansha and Random House (the parent company of Del Rey) have announced a major change: The Del Rey imprint will disappear as a separate entity, and Kodansha will publish its own books in the U.S., rather than licensing them. Random House stays in the picture, though, providing distribution and support through their Random House Publisher Services division. Longtime Del Rey editor Dallas Middaugh will transfer to that division.

UPDATE: PW has more, including the news that Random House will still be doing a lot of the editing and production work on the books. No word yet about the rest of the Del Rey staff, though. And it looks like Del Rey may survive as an imprint for non-manga graphic novels.

Full press release after the jump.

Kodansha and Random House Transform and Expand Their U.S. Manga Publishing Relationship

New York, NY – October 4, 2010 – Kodansha Ltd. and Random House Inc. have announced their plans to change and expand their manga publishing relationship in North America. The companies are shifting from a licensing relationship to a sales and distribution arrangement as of December 1, 2010.

The current relationship between Kodansha and Random House began in 2003, with the first titles debuting in 2004 under the latter’s Del Rey Manga imprint. Since then, more 500 volumes have been published, including many bestselling manga series.

Under the new arrangement, Kodansha’s subsidiary, Kodansha USA Publishing, LLC, established in 2008 and led by Yoshio Irie, will be publishing Kodansha-originated manga themselves directly in the U.S. English-language market with strong support from Random House Publisher Services (RHPS), Random House’s third-party distribution division. Del Rey Manga associate publisher Dallas Middaugh will remain with the program, transferring to RHPS.

“We are very excited to extend our relationship with Random House,” said Yoshio Irie, president and CEO of Kodansha USA Publishing. “Both companies see opportunity in the American manga market, and we look forward to working together to further the distribution and exposure of manga in the United States.”

“We are thrilled to have a publisher as distinctive as Kodansha USA Publishing join the Random House Publisher Services portfolio,” said Jeff Abraham, the division’s president. “Kodansha is one of the great worldwide publishing brands for the manga category, and we will do everything to support their efforts with our many booksellers and distributors who love selling manga titles.”

Del Rey’s ongoing manga titles which were licensed by Kodansha will be gradually taken over by Kodansha USA Publishing on a per-title basis.

Tokyo-based Kodansha established Kodansha USA Inc. on the occasion of their company’s 100th anniversary. Kodansha USA Publishing began by publishing Akira and The Ghost in the Shell in 2009 under the Kodansha Comics imprint. They plan to expand their strong line-up of manga under this exciting new collaboration with Random House Publisher Services.

Mushishi: One of the many reasons why fans love Del Rey

What’s happening to Del Rey manga?

Just a few weeks ago, in response to fan concerns about some volumes being canceled or postponed, we asked associate publisher Dallas Middaugh what was going on, and he was very reassuring:

Let me assure you that Random House plans to be in the manga business for years to come, and our program overall remains strong and steady.

Perhaps Random House does, but the Del Rey imprint seems to be foundering. At the manga site Kuriousity, blogger Andre notes there are no new Del Rey titles in October Previews, and no new Del Rey titles on Amazon after November, except for a handful that have been pushed back to 2013.

I e-mailed Middaugh for a response, and he replied, “Thanks for asking, but we have no comment at this time.” Andre got a similar answer from Del Rey’s PR person, April Flores.

Meanwhile, Del Rey’s website (which was one of the better-designed publisher sites) has been folded into Random House’s Suvudu.com, which is a horrible mishmash in terms of design and product presentation. As a result, catalog descriptions for Del Rey manga, whether by design or by accident, are now almost impossible to find — they don’t show up when you search the site, only when you search in the Random House box.

What does it all mean? Commenters at Kuriousity speculate that Del Rey will stick to global manga, and Japanese licenses will go to Kodansha USA, which is distributed by Del Rey’s parent company Random House. Del Rey has a panel scheduled at New York Comic Con, but it seems to be about prose properties. So for now, all we can do is wait and see.

Welcome to What Are You Reading?, our weekly survey of your noble Robot 6 bloggers’ most recent reading. This week, our special guest is Jason Thompson, author of Manga: The Complete Guide and The King of RPGs. Jason just wrapped up a year of giving away his surplus manga at Suvudu.com, an experience he wrote about at his Livejournal.

Michael May: Graphic Universe has a series called “History’s Kid Heroes” that I’ve been checking out. So far I’ve read The Snowshoeing Adventure of Milton Daub, Blizzard Trekker and The Stormy Adventure of Abbie Burgess, Lighthouse Keeper. They’re short, quick reads – about 30 pages – and exactly the kind of thing I would’ve checked out from the library as a kid. Each one tells the story of an adventurous experience in the life of a real, historical child.

Abbie Burgess was the daughter of an island lighthouse keeper in the 1850s. She had to keep the place running during a violent storm while her dad was on the mainland trying to get medication for Abbie’s sick mother. It’s a tense, exciting story, but Milton Daub’s was the one that I connected to most because Milton was just an average kid before an extraordinary blizzard hit his nineteenth century New England town. With his dad’s help, he made snowshoes so that he could go to the store for milk for his baby brother. The snow was so deep that he had to leave the house through a second-story window. Along the way, he passed other houses full of neighbors who also needed emergency supplies, so he offered to deliver those as well and spent an entire day making trips to the store. Milton’s independent spirit and willingness to help his community are inspirational, even to someone like me whose kid days are long behind him.

Tom Bondurant: I’ve been reading a lot of fun stuff this week, including the second Hitman paperback, Kate Beaton’s collection Never Learn Anything From History, Empowered vol. 6, and the Jimmy Olsen backup from next week’s Action Comics. I also re-read Dan Slott and Ty Templeton’s excellent Spider-Man/Human Torch miniseries from a few years back, this time in hardcover form thanks to a sale at the LCS. At that sale I also picked up the collected Avengers: The Korvac Saga. I’m only a couple of issues in, and I have a vague idea of how it all plays out, but so far it’s doing a very slow burn. Right now I think I’m in it mostly for the George Perez pencils.

As for the single issues, I’ve generally been a fan of James Robinson’s work on Justice League of America, but he really took a chance with this week’s spotlight on Donna Troy. He (and Donna) seemed to realize that the old “fight mocking versions of your friends” trick has been pretty played out, so the story wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Still, the issue felt rather perfunctory, like Donna’s 10,000-mile angst checkup. Next time it comes around, maybe she can sing “I Will Survive” while punching out those hateful Kid Flashes and Starfires.

Throughout Jonathan Hickman’s run on Fantastic Four, I’ve felt like I’ve been playing catch-up. At some point I plan to read the whole thing in a few big chunks. Accordingly, this week’s issue offered a good spot to stop and assess the storylines so far. I especially like this issue’s team-up, since it touches on older plots from the Chris Claremont and Mark Waid days.

And speaking of older plots, if I were more of a Nick Fury scholar I could better evaluate the continuity issues raised in Secret Avengers #5—but those aside, it was a neat, occasionally touching look at … well, something that might well have been a mere continuity patch.

Sean T. Collins: I’ll look back on this week as the week I read the comic of the year, I’m pretty sure, but I also re-read an elementary-school landmark and checked out a new publisher’s promising debut. Click the links for full reviews…

The ACME Novelty Library #20 by Chris Ware (Drawn & Quarterly): I can count the number of comics-reading experiences I’ve had that were this emotionally intense on the fingers of one hand. I felt physically stunned by this book. The kind of comic the word “masterpiece” was made for.

Scary Stories Treasury by Alvin Schwartz & Stephen Gammell (HarperCollins): Remember Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark? Chances are good that if you ever read this children’s classic, you damn well do remember it—the stunning black-and-white illustrations from Gammell and the chillingly direct prose from Schwartz are nightmare fodder even now.

The Whale by Aidan Koch (Gaze Books): Cartoonist/publisher Blaise Larmee’s new imprint makes its debut with this flawed but lovely look at loss, distinguished by Koch’s fine pencil art.

Chris Mautner: Super Spy: The Lost Dossiers by Matt Kindt.
This is basically the comics equivalent of a bunch of bonus DVD features, containing various mini-comics, sketches, notes and other ephemera related to the first Super Spy book. I haven’t read that yet, so my enjoyment of this book was limited quite a bit, though not so much that I couldn’t see it’s appeal or enjoy some of the stories on their own.

On the Odd Hours by Eric Liberge
This is the third in a series of French graphic novels that NBM has released about the Louvre museum and how awesome it is. This is my least favorite of the three (my favorite would be Marc-Antoine Mathieu’s Museum Vaults). It’s about a young, surly, deaf man who takes a night job at the Louvre where he has to “awaken” the art work by playing various instruments. There’s a lot of metaphors about how art resonates with us on an inner level, etc., etc., but honestly I found the whole thing rather clumsy and obvious and the main character is such an ungrateful churl that it’s hard to generate any sympathy or interest in him.

Not Quite Dead: Last Gig in Shnagrlig by Gilbert Shelton
This story—about a rock band that gets sent to a far Eastern, fundamentalist country by the CIA (unbeknownst to them) and ends up causing no small amount of political and social unrest—was originally serialized in Mome and was notable for being the first Shelton story to hit the press in a long time. Sadly, I didn’t care for the story when it was first serialized and I don’t much care for the new Knockabout edition, despite the snazzy addition of full color. Shelton’s sense of satire hasn’t really altered much since his hey day in the 60s and 70s and a lot of the jokes he makes hit the same targets he did in stuff like Wonder Wart Hog. Religious fundamentalists are repressed and stupid. The government is run by soulless, stupid bureaucrats who don’t care who they hurt so long as they don’t lose face. The military is filled with uber-macho idiots. Musicians are gullible and stupid. Cadillacs are great cars. And so on and so forth. I suppose all these targets are still valid today, but the problem with Last Gig is not only doesn’t it seem all that trenchant or sharp, it’s not very funny either.

Brigid Alverson: A graphic novel adaptation of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl seems like a great idea, but the execution of Eric Drooker’s version falls a bit flat. The biggest problem, to my mind, is that it was done as animation sequences for the feature film, and much of the art has that smoothly shaded CGI look, like grownup versions of Jimmy Neutron strung out on heroin. There’s simply a terrible clash between the medium and the message. It’s not all like that—Drooker includes some lovely, painterly passages—but the slickness directly contradicts what the poem is all about.

I found the first volume of Van Jensen and Dusty Higgins’s Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer a lot easier to like, although in this case I thought the art was a bit too rough in places. It’s a really clever takeoff on Carlo Collodi’s original story (with some nods to the Disney version), taking the original characters and story and weaving them into a new vampire tale. It all works really well, and I particularly liked the sequences where Higgins used a woodcut style for the art. In the other areas, however, he opts for a coarse screentone that I found made the art harder to read. I would love to see the art redone with a single color, rather than big dots. Other than that, though, it’s a great comic, and I’m looking forward to diving into volume 2.

Jason Thompson:

Coraline (Neil Gaiman)
Recently I’ve been reading a lot of young adult novels. I saw the film version of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline first, so it was hard for me to get the stop-motion puppets and They Might Be Giants songs out of my head, but the book was an incredible YA horror novel with sparse, lovely, well chosen prose. Some of the imagery, as well as part of the premise—an artificial world which appears to be paradise but which is actually an illusion created to entrap you and suck your soul—reminds me of Ramsey Campbell’s 1980s horror novel Incarnate, a classic which I know Neil Gaiman was influenced by, since he also borrowed from it in the early issues of Sandman. Anyway, I’m just saying this as a nerdy compliment because I like Campbell. Gaiman is a great writer, and the book is oh so creepy and charming and lean.

Twilight (Stephenie Meyer)
Sabriel, Lirael and Abhorsen (Garth Nix)
Both of these were recommended by friends. Twilight is…well, everyone knows what Twilight is. Garth Nix’s Abhorsen Trilogy is a YA fantasy series set in a world which mixes World War I-level technology and necromantic, elementalist magic…or rather, they don’t mix, because the magical world and mundane world are separated by miles of barbed wire and a vast wall. It’s mostly about young necromancers/exorcists who defeat Evil Dead-style beasties which roam the world. It’s a great setting and some imaginative fantasy imagery, so it surprised me to find that I actually found Twilight to be more engaging. The thing is, the Abhorsen books are all very basic quest novels in which a character goes from place to place (as foreshadowed on the map on the inside of the front cover) fighting undead along the way and eventually saving the world from the ultimate evil. There’s virtually no characters apart from the main characters, and no character development apart from “Can I grow into the awesome shoes of the mighty responsibility of my fateful heroic destiny blah blah blah”. On the other hand, Twilight actually has characters, and emotions and plot complications which are character-based, rather than involving physical struggles which are hard to get across in a non-visual medium. Of course, Twilight is also absurdly, pathetically shameless wish fulfillment, and it milks the “girl protected by hot boy” fantasy that I’ve seen in hundreds of manga, Shinobi Life being one recent example. So both of them have their flaws, but I’m finding myself more interested in the trashy two-dimensional love-and-relationship pulp of Twilight than the two-dimensional quest of the Abhorsen books…maybe if I’d read them before puberty I’d have answered the other way around.

Peepo Choo (Felipe Smith)
Smith is an amazing artist and storyteller and I can’t wait to see his next work. Peepo Choo with its sex and violence and gleeful stereotype-deconstruction is a great series, but I also feel his rage in MBQ, which ended up as sort of a sketch comedy of disconnected sequences set in Los Angeles, but is also an autobiographical story of a young comic artist burning with passion to do good work without compromising his ideals. Now that Peepo Choo, his first series for a Japanese magazine, has been well-received, I hope he becomes an international superstar. One thing among many which I like about him is his tremendous ability for facial caricature and exaggerated expressions, which isn’t something I normally associate with manga, where artists tend to draw just a few generic facial types, and where facial expressions in dramatic manga often operate on a “less is more” principle (Mayu Shinjo, Hitoshi Iwaaki, etc.).

Graphic Witness: Four Wordless Graphic Novels (Frans Masereel, Lynd Ward, Giacomo Patri and Laurence Hyde)
A stunning collection of wordless proto-graphic-novels created between 1918 and 1951. All of them have strong working-class, leftist, social-realist themes. I think it’s admirable to tell stories using as few words as possible—wasted dialogue is a sin—so I love what these artists can do with a few well-chosen images. Lynd Ward’s work is especially stunning.

In brief notes, I recently reread all of Rumiko Takahashi’s Maison Ikkoku, an incredibly funny and sweet romantic comedy series which VIZ ought to bring back in print. (I reread it looking for a quote to read at my wedding.) Lastly, for research, I just ordered a copy of Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of its Enemies by Avishai Margalit and Ian Buruma (who I previously knew through his excellent writings on Japan), and a friend loaned me Karen Armstrong’s A History of God.

Nodame no more?

Viz and Tokyopop may be bigger, but Del Rey manga has always been the prestige manga publisher, the home of smart, mature titles like Love Roma, Mushishi, and Nodame Cantabile, as well as solid genre favorites like Kitchen Princess (arguably the shoujo-est shoujo manga ever), Air Gear, Negima, and Basilisk. Sure, there was the occasional dud, but overall their line was strong, their production values were high, and the translations didn’t insult your intelligence.

Lately, though, things seem to have slowed down over at the Del Rey shop. Ali Kokmen, their affable and well-liked marketing director, was let go. Their website got swallowed up by a generic graphic-novel website run by parent company Random House; their old site got everything I talked about in yesterday’s post right, and the new one gets everything wrong. And a reader who pre-ordered volumes of Nodame Cantabile and Gakuen Prince got this e-mail recently:

Volumes 17 and 18 of “Nodame Cantabile” have been cancelled prior to publication, as have volumes 4 and 5 of “Gakuen Prince.” We have no additional information available as to why this may have occurred. At the present time there are no upcoming releases scheduled for either series within the next 12 months.

Comments at the site indicate that another series, Pumpkin Scissors has also been canceled (although in the word of comics retailing, “canceled” may simply mean postponed).

Is Random House is washing its hands of manga? I e-mailed Del Rey associate publisher Dallas Middaugh and asked some pointed questions; here is his answer:

Thanks for inquiring about our manga program. Let me assure you that Random House plans to be in the manga business for years to come, and our program overall remains strong and steady. You may recall that we moved a few series into the omnibus format, which has made it appear to some that we’ve drastically reduced our list, but we’re still publishing roughly the same number of pages of manga each year.

The Del Rey Manga site has been merged into our Suvudu site, which, if anything, has increased our updates for delreyemanga.com, a site which had remained static for way too long. And our commitment to graphic novels remains strong, as in addition to our manga program we have new graphic novels from Diana Gabaldon, Dean Koontz, GB Tran, and several others out later this year and early next.

I do recall them moving series to omnibus format, something that actually played pretty well with the fans I heard from, as they are better value for the money. A few years ago, they actually did some exclusive omnibuses for the Borders bookstore chain, so that isn’t new.

This will inevitably lead to speculation about whether the Japanese publisher Kodansha is pulling their titles from Del Rey, as they did from Tokyopop; all three of the canceled titles are licensed from Kodansha.
Random House and Kodansha formed a joint venture in 2003, chiefly to sell Random House books in Japan, and one result of this cozy relationship is that Del Rey got the choice Kodansha titles. The joint venture was dissolved last year, and around the same time, Kodansha announced that it would be publishing manga in the U.S. itself, although its only releases so far are re-issues of Akira and Ghost in the Shell. The picture isn’t all that clear, though, because Del Rey just released the latest volume of another Kodansha title, Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei.

Ultimately, Del Rey’s strength lies as much with their editing and production values as with the licenses they get; one of their best books in recent years is Nina Matsumoto’s Yokaiden, a global manga. And most publishers have slimmed down their releases, publicly or quietly, so that’s nothing unusual. With a corporate parent like Random House, Del Rey should be better positioned than most, as long as RH keeps putting resources into them.

For manga and anime fans, Anime Expo is the first of the big summer cons. This year only a handful of manga publishers showed up, but all had plenty of energy and some new announcements to make. That’s probably a good snapshot of the manga industry as a whole—there are only a few players left, but the survivors are pretty robust. Anime News Network has pretty exhaustive coverage of the con, and Animanga Nation does a nice job with a more casual feel.

Out of curiousity, I looked over con coverage from previous years to see who is missing this year. Bandai, Digital Manga, Tokyopop and Viz are clearly the survivors of the manga wars, although it was touch-and-go for Tokyopop for a while. Missing from the roster are Dark Horse, Del Rey, Seven Seas, Udon, Yaoi Press, and Yen Press, all of which have appeared at AX in previous years (although not recently), and ADV Manga, Aurora, Broccoli, CMX, DrMaster, and Go! Comi, which have all shut down or at least gone dark.

I thought it would be interesting to see how AX has evolved over the years, so let’s climb into the time machine and take a look at past cons.

Planned cover for the American edition of Kodomo no Jikan

2006: The big news of AX 2006 was an appearance by the manga collective CLAMP, and that already has a sepia-tinged feel to it. A number of the smaller companies announced new titles: Go! Comi had about five, Broccoli had some new Koge-Donbo books, and Seven Seas announced the yuri title Kashimashi ~Girl Meets Girl~ and the ill-fated Kodomo no Jikan (never published because of the controversy over its plot, in which an eight-year-old tries to seduce her teacher). Del Rey had a panel but didn’t announce any new titles.

ADV promised “a big presence” at AX but talked mostly about anime; they had already begun to get evasive about their manga, which was coming out more and more slowly, and later that weekend, Tokyopop announced they had taken over the licenses for Tactics, Peacemaker, and Aqua (the prequel to Aria, which they also acquired). Tokyopop also had a robust list of new licenses to announce.

Viz had a special Shojo Beat panel. Dark Horse announced two titles, Dame Dame Saito Nikki, which they never seem to have published, and Satsuma Gishiden, which they started but never finished. (Kate Dacey just named it to her list of The Best Manga You’re Not Reading.) Digital only announced one new manga, Vampire Hunter D, which would be released in English before being published in Japanese.

Aurora's launch title, Walkin' Butterfly

2007: The market was at its peak, and there were lots of publishers and lots of new titles being announced. The brand-new publisher Aurora announced their launch titles. Broccoli announced they were hiring and unveiled a few new titles. CMX announced they would be publishing mature-rated manga in addition to their tamer selections. Dark Horse, Digital, DrMaster, EigoManga, and Go!Comi all had new titles to announce; Go!Comi’s focused heavily on creators they had already published, and they also hinted around about their secret project, O-Play, a combination game/visual novel that never did make the splash they expected. Tokyopop discussed cell phone manga and their new ratings system and presented a lineup of Japanese and global titles as well as light novels. Udon showed up but apparently didn’t have a panel; they were just in the exhibit hall. Viz was there but didn’t announce any new titles.

2008: Still a pretty robust list. ADV admitted that they wouldn’t be licensing any new manga but claimed they would finish up the series they had. (This proved not to be the case for most series.) Aurora, Broccoli, CMX, and Go! Comi were all present, but with fewer new licenses and more promotion of existing books. Dark Horse was talking about their CLAMP “mangettes,” which were due out last summer and still haven’t materialized. Digital was looking good, with special panels for their June and 801 imprints and lots of new licenses to announce. Tokyopop and Viz also had new licenses to announce; Tokyopop had just imploded, split in two, and laid off almost half its staff a few weeks before. Absent from the party: Del Rey, DrMaster, EigoManga, Udon. Yen Press seems to have been around but I see no indication of a booth or a panel.

However, Home Media Magazine has an interesting and prescient article, in which they noted that Viz didn’t spring for a booth on the floor and the ADV people were curiously evasive. (The piece is mainly about anime, which crashed before manga did.)

2009: The weekend opened on a somber note, as CPM formally announced it was shutting down (they had been defunct for about two years at that point). Austin Osueke, the president of EigoManga, gave the keynote address, which caused some head-scratching as a lot of people didn’t know who they were, and he talked about the fact that manga sales were slipping.

He closed out the keynote by offering a big-picture strategy, saying that the business plan for manga should focus on producing IPs that can be adapted easily into video games and films rather than simply putting books on shelves.

Hmm. Broccoli was missing, having closed its doors in late 2007. Also not in attendance: Aurora, Dark Horse, Del Rey, Digital, DrMaster, Go!Comi, Tokyopop, and Udon. On the upside, CMX announced a heap of new titles, Viz had new titles and news that it was speeding up releases of One Piece, and Yaoi Press announced it would be launching a light novel line. Correction: Digital had a booth, but not a panel. Thanks, Michelle!

Eigomanga's Danity Kane

2010: The herd has been thinned considerably. Aurora closed its doors earlier this year, although its staff recently announced that they were forming their own publishing company. DC shut down CMX, and Go!Comi and DrMaster have apparently gone defunct. Who’s left? Digital, which seems to have survived the shakeout quite nicely with a strategy of sticking to what they do best (mostly yaoi but a few oddball titles with serious fan appeal) and communicating directly with their fans. Viz, which is the biggest manga company and is bankrolled by three Japanese parent companies. And Tokyopop, the plucky survivor of the group, which went through some really tough times but seems to have emerged smaller and stronger. (The one that puzzles me still is EigoManga, which does educational manga; they have a pretty low profile but have outlasted almost everyone else.)

Dark Horse and Del Rey have been quiet on the manga front lately; they still put out books, but we haven’t been hearing any breathless announcements from them. Del Rey has been wrapping up its series by putting out omnibus volumes, while Dark Horse has been getting some buzz by republishing CLAMP’s work in omnibus form.

And there you have it: A burst of optimism, a meteoric rise, and a quick collapse. The handful of companies left seem to know what they are doing, but I sure do miss the diversity of having all those little publishers putting out all sorts of manga. Maybe next year will be more interesting.

Odd Is On Our Side

Del Rey announced this week that they will publish two more graphic novels starring the Dean Koontz character Odd Thomas. Like the previously published In Odd We Trust, both graphic novels will be set in the time period before the four novels that have starred the fry cook who can communicate with the dead.

According to the press release, Odd Thomas “has inspired more readers’ letters than any other” of Koontz’s characters. The two books are in addition to Odd Is On Our Side, which is due this October and was written by Koontz and Fred Van Lente, with art by Queenie Chan.

The first book, Odd Is My Co-Pilot, will be scripted by James Kuhoric (Legendary Talespinners, Battlestar Galactica, Dead Irons) and illustrated by Chan. The second new graphic novel will be scripted by Landry Q. Walker (Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade, Little Gloomy) and illustrated by Ikari Studio. Both of the just-announced books will be based on outlines by Dean Koontz. Publication is planned for 2011-2012.

I didn’t make it to the Del Rey panel at C2E2 due to a time conflict, but I did encounter Del Rey’s effervescent marketing manager Ali T. Kokmen in the hallways and he was kind enough to give me the quick rundown.

The first thing I asked him is a burning concern to many in the manga industry: Is Kodansha USA cutting in on their game? Del Rey always gets the lion’s share of the Japanese publisher Kodansha’s licenses, and tends to treat them well, so when Kodansha set up its American arm some fans were worried Del Rey’s license stream would try up. Kokmen’s answer was cheering: “The existence of Kodansha comics has not affected our publishing program.”

Del Rey has started to publish some series, such as School Rumble, in three-in-one omnibus editions, and others seem to be coming out at a slower rate; after the cancellation of the X-Men and Wolverine manga there was a bit of speculation as to what was going on. Kokmen seemed puzzled when I brought this up. “We have been reevaluating the publication schedule for a while. Those decisions have been made, but they are just starting to shake out,” he said. “Part of this was the omnibus decision for a few titles.” But there’s no strategy to slow things down: “Projects slip; every book is unique.”

Kokmen highlighted two books that are coming out in May, the hardcover collection of Steven King’s The Talisman comic books and the graphic novel adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a good thing,” Kokmen pointed out, “but you need to see pictures of gory zombie decapitation, and that’s what we provide.”

Kokmen was also bullish on the upcoming Airbender books. The first, written by Dave Roman and Alison Wilgus and illustrated by Eisner winner Nina Matsumoto, is a black-and-white prequel to the movie; the other, due out in September, is a straight adaptation of the movie.

The second Odd Thomas graphic novel, Odd Is on Our Side, is due out in October. “It’s really exciting because Queenie Chan is doing the art, and Dean Koontz is writing it with Fred van Lente, who just signed an exclusive with Marvel Comics. Fred has done Marvel Zombies, Hercules, Iron Man, Spider-Man.” That means there are two New York Times best-selling authors working on the book, Kokmen said, as Koontz has hit the list for his novels and Van Lente made the graphic books best-seller list for several of his comics.

Due out later this year is The Exile, a graphic novel based on Diana Gabaldon’s sci-fi/romance Outlanders novels. “There are two main characters and they are written from the heroine’s point of view,” Kokmen explained. “Her love interest is Jamie, a gorgeus, shirtless, kilted Scottish hero, and the graphic novel is retelling the story from Jamie’s point of view. Some of our fans are very excited to see what these characters finally look like, but what’s even more exciting is it’s a familiar story from the other character’s point of view.”

Dave Roman's sketch of Jubilee

Dave Roman and Raina Telgemeier’s response to the news that the second volume of their X-Men: Misfits manga series was canceled is a model of how to deal with bad news gracefully. They talk a bit about how they would have done things differently had they known the series would be just one volume, but they are philosophical about it:

And, because it was work for hire, and the characters are all licensed, there’s no way the rest of the story will ever see the light of day. There is nothing we can do about it. We did the work and we got paid (for both books). Del Rey had to make cuts; we fell under the knife. End of story.

No drama; these two are a class act. (This reminded me of Dave’s advice to freelancers, which in addition to a lot of technical advice included a paragraph that began “Don’t be a jerk.”) They go on to thank their editors, their fans, and artist Anzu, and they wind up with this:

And of course, a final word of thanks to all the people who have vocally supported X-Men: Misfits. We knew there would be a lot of skepticism about the project from the beginning, so hearing from so many people who “got it” really made us happy. The cancellation is still sinking in and we certainly appreciate the people who have already shared their feelings with us. That’s publishing, though. Series are NOT sure things. The best way to support a series you love is to buy the books, and spread the word. In the meantime, we imagine we’ll continue to get tons of Google Alerts, letting us know about all the torrents and rapidshare files of X-Men: Misfits there are out there …

This being Livejournal, their fans all send them hugs in the comments. Of course, with Dave’s Airbender prequel about to hit the stores, his Astronaut Elementary on its way to print, and Raina’s Smile getting a warm reception from the critics, they won’t have much time to brood.

X-Men: Misfits

It looks like the manga publisher Del Rey has canceled the second volumes of its X-Men: Misfits and Wolverine: Prodigal Son. The news broke in a conversation on Twitter, where manga blogger Deb Aoki tweeted a tip that the books had been canceled and Lissa Pattillo noted that they had been taken down from retail sites.

Dave Roman, who co-wrote the X-Men books with his wife, Raina Telgemeier, confirmed this in two tweets of his own:

Wow! News travels fast! @goraina and I super disappointed since it was written as a 2-part story and it will be unfair to readers.

We only found out last week. We still don’t have a lot of the details beyond it being a cost of licensing vs. profits issue. :/

Roman added that he had seen some of the pencils and assumed that the artist, Anzu, was “far along, but still deep into it.”

Antony Johnston, the writer of Wolverine: Prodigal Son, confirmed that book’s demise on his blog:

Unfortunately, the simple truth is that not enough people bought them. Despite WOLVERINE being praised by readers and selected for two library YA lists, despite MISFITS making it onto the New York Times bestseller list, and not least despite all the efforts of Del Rey themselves and our editors there, there just weren’t enough readers to justify the costs. This is, sadly, more common than you might think in comics.

According to the Bookscan chart, the first volume of X-Men: Misfits sold 4,042 copies in bookstores in 2009, which put it at number 720 in the top-750 chart. By contrast, not a single Viz Signature title (including the Eisner-nominated Pluto and 20th Century Boys) made the top 750. Diamond lists 1,655 copies sold in September 2009, the date of its release, meaning the book’s sales were respectable by manga standards. And it made the 2010 Great Graphic Novels for Teens list.

The Wolverine manga, by contrast, doesn’t seem to have cracked the Bookscan chart, although Diamond lists 1,906 copies sold in April 2009.

Don’t cry for these creators, though. Johnston continues working on his Daredevil series, Telgemeier is still promoting her successful graphic novel Smile, and Roman tweeted last week that he turned in the final version of Astronaut Elementary, which will be published by First Second.

From "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel"

USA Today’s Whitney Matheson has a first brief preview of Del Rey’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Seth Graham-Smith’s bestselling twist on the Jane Austen classic that led a bit of a mash-up trend (Graham-Smith’s followup, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, was released earlier this month).

The graphic novel, by Tony Lee and Cliff Richards, will arrive in stores in May.

Dragon Puncher

• The big news of the week is that Top Shelf has not only completely updated and streamlined their Web site, but has also unveiled a whole heckuva lot of new projects for the fall, 2011 and beyond, including new books by Jeff Lemire, Nate Powell, James Kochalka and Chris Eliopoulos. All in all it looks like an interesting line-up, containing a solid mix of all-ages and more adult-oriented material.

• Top Shelf isn’t the only one doing the Web site shuffle. Both Savage Critics and All About Comics have moved/updated their blogs,

• IcV2 offers some more information on Vertical’s plans to publish Osamu Tezuka’s Ayako in the fall.

• Tokyopop is planning to publish Neko Ramen, four-koma (or comic strip) about a cat that runs a noodle shop, and they’re posting sample strips to get folks all hot and bothered.. Look for it in stores in June.

• SLG will publish the debut graphic novel by one Diana Thung, titled Captain Long Ears. Check out our preview from earlier this year here.

• Here’s what the cover to the Essential Superman Encyclopedia will look like.

• And here’s what the cover to the next Zippy the Pinhead collection will look like.

• Author and Jim Flora devotee Irwin Chusid reveals that he may have a new Flora book in the works.

• Ben Catmull posts a panel from the upcoming second issue of Monster Parade. Man, I really liked that first issue. Can’t wait for the next one.

• Nat Gertler reveals that he’s working on a Peanuts Treasury book for Little, Brown.

• Can’t find a copy of last year’s Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror done by the Kramer’s Ergot crowd? Here you go.

• Finally, it looks like Josh Cotter is starting another one of those experimental journal/comics projects. This one seems to be called March Hare.

King of RPGs

King of RPGs Vol. 1
Story by Jason Thompson; Art by Victor Hao
Del Rey, 240 pages, $10.99

Jason Thompson is a talented, erudite guy. He knows more about manga than I can ever hope to absorb in the rest of my lifetime. His Manga: The Complete Guide is one of the best reference guides on the subject around and one of the most frequently pulled books off of my shelves. His monthly (or whenever) column on Comixology brims with intelligence and wit. Plus, he’s got a helluva collection.

All of which makes it more than a bit sad for me to report that I didn’t very much care for King of RPGs, Thompson’s his first official entry into the world of published comics (along with artist Victor Hao). Part of the problem may entirely be with me, as I’m not much of a fan of the comic’s (or OEL manga if you prefer) subject matter, classic, tabletop role-playing games, to begin with. My friends in high school in college would constantly attempt to get me involved in a game and I’d go along to get along, only to be bored stiff after the first hour. Why is it taking so long to set up my character? What do you mean I have to “roll for initiative”? It’s been three hours, can we stop playing now? Aren’t there better things we could be doing with our time?

But I don’t think my dislike for the book is solely due to my distaste for the topic. The main problem with King of RPGs is it’s too loud. The characters are so broad and two dimensional, and the situations so over the top in their attempt to be “zany,” that they stretch the limits of credulity to the breaking point and sink any hope the reader may have at identifying or at least sympathizing with the characters. With the volume constantly turned up to 11, there’s no room for nuance. I didn’t once find the main character Shesh’s split personality — he turns into a psychotic maniac when he gets too involved in role-playing — amusing, mainly because Thompson seems to find the situation itself funny and doesn’t try to make it funny, if you see the difference. It doesn’t help that guy has a name like “Shesh” either.

Hao’s art has some of the same problems as Thompson’s text. It’s unnecessarily cluttered and busy, bearing a rough, shakily thin line that suggests a lack of polish more than anything else (there’s way too much greytone shading as well). His backgrounds feel generic and boxy — I never got the sense that I was in an actual town or college, more that the walls and tables were mere decorative props that would fall over if someone leaned against them too hard.

King of RPGs had the potential to be a rich, amusing look at an offbeat hobby. It’s certainly full of colorful characters, both in the real world and in the various games. But Thompson and Hao haven’t entrusted the subject matter enough to give the work any real depth or humor, relying instead on thin cliches and forced absurdity. The end result is a comic that’s unlikely to please either hardcore devotees or those unfamiliar to the medium.

Cold Space

Time again for our monthly trip through Previews looking for interesting new adventure comics. I know it’s only been a week since the last one, but that’s ’cause I’d gotten behind.

Ape

Black Coat: Or Give Me Death – It took a while, but the second collection of my favorite Revolutionary War-era monster-hunter’s adventures is finally arriving.

Antarctic

Robin Hood – I’m a little nervous about Antarctic’s take on Robin Hood, but I’m encouraged by their publishing Richard Moore. I’ll give this a “shot” (ba-dum CHING!).

Boom!

Cold Space #1 – Celebrity comics aren’t exactly known for their high quality, but Samuel L Jackson is a smart, talented man. I’m taking the bet that he’s a pretty good writer too. Plus: space men.

Brave and the Bold #33

Dark Horse

Beasts of Burden – You don’t know how hard it’s been trade-waiting a series about ghost-busting pets. Well, maybe you do. If so… wait’s over!

Star Wars Omnibus: A Long Time Ago, Volume 1 – I thought that there was pretty much no way anyone was going to get me to buy another Star Wars comic. Never underestimate the power of pure nostalgia. I love those cheesy old Marvel issues and a collection of them for the bookshelf is irresistible. Looking forward to seeing that giant, green rabbit again.

DC

Brave and the Bold #33 – I’m a sucker for these girls’ night out stories, especially when Cliff Chiang’s drawing it and the women are Zatanna, Wonder Woman, and… is that the Barbara Gordon Batgirl? I’m confused. I thought this book was set in current continuity, but that’s some red-looking hair on that Batgirl. Anyway, the only way this could get better would be to put Black Canary in it too. They should make an ongoing series from this concept. Get Kelly Sue DeConnick to write it with Chiang on art. Just… don’t call it Sheroes.

The Last Unicorn

Del Rey

Stuff of Legend – Toy stories are cool. Especially when the toys have to save their owner from the Boogey Man. The art in this has an epic quality that’s missing from other, cutesy, toys-come-to-life comics.

IDW

The Last Unicorn #1 – A lot of people have fond memories of the Rankin-Bass movie version, but I’m not one of them. I’m hoping this series is able to show me why everyone loves the story so much. Not that it would kill me to just read Peter S Beagle’s book, but Renae De Liz’s artwork is gorgeous and I’m thinking that if anything’s going to sell me on the wonders of this story, it’ll be that.

Kill Shakespeare #1 – Romeo, Hamlet, Othello, Falstaff, and Puck search for a reclusive wizard named William Shakespeare who may have the ability to assist them in their battle against evil forces led by Richard III, Lady Macbeth and Iago. As I said on my other blog, “This will probably be the greatest story ever written.”

Turf

Image

Turf #1 – I’d like to hug whoever came up with the idea to have aliens invade at the exact same time that the Vampires vs 1920s Gangsters War is heating up. I guess that would be writer Jonathan Ross.

Marvel

Black Widow #1 – After I’m done hugging Jonathan Ross, I’m going over to Marvel’s offices to find the person responsible for a Black Widow ongoing. I don’t know Marjorie Liu’s work, but I hope she knows her spy stuff.

Her-Oes #1 – Hate the title, but love the idea of reading about the high school hijinks of Marvel heroines. Is it bad though that I’m going to be rooting for teen Namora to stuff teen Wasp in a locker? I can’t imagine this series lasting very long, but as long as it has teen She-Hulk and teen Valkyrie in it, I’ll be there.

SHIELD

Super Heroes #1 – Paul Tobin already writes comics just for me, but he’s really proving it by putting the Invisible Woman on the Avengers with Black Widow. I’m sure he’ll even find something interesting to do with the Vision.

SHIELD #1 – Dang, Marvel’s on fire this month. Leonardo da Vinci, Agent of SHIELD is genius. I want a series starring just him.

Black Widow and the Marvel Girls – This Paul Tobin/Black Widow mini-series sure got collected fast. Thanks, Iron Man 2!

That’s it for me. What are you looking forward to in April?

Wonder Woman Encyclopedia

We’re continuing our look at various publishers’ plans for the new year with an in-depth look at the Random House imprints Del Rey and Villard, which are best know for the number of manga, Webcomics and licensed material they release. What’s on their schedule for 2010? Click on the link to find out.

February

Ben 10: Doom Dimension

Ben 10: Doom Dimension. Written by Peter David; Illustrated by Dan Hipp. In this OEL manga spin-off of the popular cartoon series, our hero Ben finds himself literally blasted into the mysterious Fourth Dimension, where he’s sought after by a fearsome bounty hunter. Note that the art is by the creator of Gyakushu.96 pages, $7.99. In stores Feb. 23.

Panic X Panic by Mika Kawamura. “Mitsuki and Kakeru are childhood friends — and rivals! When Mitsuki is attacked by a demon, she and Kakeru discover that they have magical powers. An ancient scroll decrees that they must work together to save the world from a demon invasion. And so begins a demon-filled adventure.” 208 pages, $10.99. In stores Feb. 23.

The Splendid Magic of Penny Arcade: The 11 1/2th Anniversary Edition by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik. One of the most popular Webcomics evar makes its official move to Del Rey, with this Hardcover, 176 pages, $24. In stores Feb. 23.

March

Bakugan: The Evo Tournament Volume 1 Written by Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir; Illustrated by Kris Sisson. Since I officially qualify as an old fart (at least according to some) I’ve got no idea what this whole “Bakugan” thing is about. It involves cards, right? Or is that Pokemon? Are there toys involved? Anyway, here’s the official manga version. 176 pages, $10.99 In stores March 2.

Pink Innocent

Pink Innocent by Kotori Momoyuki. Clueless Kokona has a dreamy, talented and smart boyfriend but has no idea what to do now that they’re going out. Oh, get your head out of the gutter, this is more of a “relationship advice” manga. 176 pages, $10.99 In stores March 23

April

Genshiken: Return of the Otaku by Kio Shimoku and Iida Kazutoshi. Not a manga, but an illustrated novel starring the characters from the popular seinen series. When their beloved club is threatened by the arrival of a new club organization chariman, what will the Genshiken members do? 240 pages, $9.99. In stores April 13.

The Stuff of Legend Written by Mike Raicht and Brian Smith; Illustrated by Charles Wilson. Originally published by Third World, this is a story about a group of toys that rally together to save their young owner from the clutches of the Boogeyman. 128 pages, $13. In stores April 27.

The Essential Wonder Woman Encyclopedia by Phil Jimenez and John Wells. I think this one has been known about for awhile. Everything you could possibly want to know about the Amazonian wonder but were too afraid of failing Trivial Pursuit: The DC Version to ask. No doubt a Superman version is waiting in the wings as well. Oh look, it is! 496 pages, $30, paperback. In stores April 27. An exclusive hardcover edition will be distributed by Diamond.

May

Clamp In America

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel by Seth Grahame-Smith and Jane Austen Adapted by Tony Lee; Illustrated by Cliff Richards. Oh come on, you knew this was coming. It was just a matter of time. 176 pages $14.99. In stores May 5.

The Last Airbender Movie Prequel Written by Dave Roman and Alison Wilgus; Illustrated by Nina Matsumoto. As the title suggests, I would imagine this ties more into the upcoming big-budget movie than the well-established and beloved cartoon series, but it’s nice to see Roman getting more big-ticket work, though I’m not familiar with Ms. Wilgus at all I’m afraid. 112 pages, $10.99. In stores May 11.

The Talisman: The Road of Trials Adapted by Robin Furth, Illustrated by Tony Shasteen Collecting the ongoing adaptation of the Stephen King/Peter Straub novel. I didn’t find the first few issues of this to be good in any definable way, but I’m sure it will find an audience nevertheless. 160 pages, $25. In stores May 25

CLAMP in America by Shaenon Garrity and CLAMP This should be very good. Garrity is one of the most engaging and readable comics critics around, and she knows manga like the back of her hand. I’d easily pay good money to read her thoughts one of the most popular creative manga groups around. 352 pages, $27.99. In stores May 25

Goats: Showcase Showdown by Jonathan Rosenberg. The latest print collection of Rosenberg’s popular Webcomic. These obviously must be doing well for Del Rey, as this is the third volume in the series with no signs of letting up any time soon. 168 pages, $15. In stores May 25.

Fairy Navigator Runa by Miyoko Ikeda and Michiyo Kikuta I’ve got no idea what this book is about, but I bet it somehow involves fairies. 192 pages, $10.99. In stores May 25

June

Octopus Pie

Avatar: The Last Airbender Volume 1 by Nickelodeon Somehow I doubt that every single person who works at Nickelodeon had a hand in this amanga or adaptation or what have you, but there you have it. I think this might be a photo-comic, actually, similar to the kind Tokyopop used to do. 96 pages, $7.99. In stores June 22.

Penny Arcade 6: The Halls Below by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik. Another collection of Penny Arcade comics. I imagine this one contains more recent material. 208 pages, $15. In stores June 22.

The Last Airbender Movie Tie-In Written by Dave Roman and Alison Wilgus; Illustrated by Joon Choi And if you’re not completely Airbendered out by this point, here’s the official, super-official, graphic novel tie-in to the film. 144 pages, $10.99. In stores June 22.

Octopus Pie: There Are No Stars in Brooklyn by Meredith Gran. See what I mean about Del Rey being a Webcomic publishing machine? Anyway, here’s (I think) the first ever non-self-published trade of Gran’s popular humor series. 272 pages, $16. June 22

July

Code: Breaker Volume 1 by Akimine Kumijyo. From Wikipedia: “the story of a high-school girl who is trained in martial arts and a new transfer student, a boy with mysterious powers.” Del Rey is labeling this a “major summer release.” Oooooo. 208 pages, $10.99. In stores July 27.