Sailor Moon
Comics A.M. | Weak April for graphic novels in bookstores
The Walking Dead Compendium, Vol. 2
Graphic novels | April was a slow month for new graphic novel releases, so the BookScan Top 20 had plenty of room for some backlist titles. The Walking Dead dominated, of course, but the 10th volume of Sailor Moon was there for a second month and actually moved up a notch. And the first volume of Saga came in at No. 12, perhaps because people were curious as to what all the fuss is about. [ICv2]
Editorial cartoons | Nick Anderson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for the Houston Chronicle, has responded to Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s criticism of Jack Ohman’s cartoon with a cartoon of his own. [Comic Riffs]
Conventions | Jeff Smith, Brian Wood, Sean Murphy and Raina Telgemeier are the headline guests at the Maine Comics Arts Festival in Portland on May 19. [Foster's Daily Democrat]
Christine Larsen gets real in ‘Sailor Moon’ fan comic
Cartoonist Christine Larsen keeps a busy schedule between drawing comics, doing magazine illustrations and compiling art books like the upcoming Orcs. Still, she finds time to send up her childhood heroes from time to time.
Happily Evar After is an inspired three-page comic Larsen created for a Sailor Moon fanzine called Moon Power. Although that zine is apparently on hold, Larsen wanted to get her story out in theworld and posted it on her minicomics Tumblr MicroCosmics. And the story she chose … well, imagine if Tuxedo Mask forgot his anniversary with Sailor Moon.
Comics A.M. | ‘Walking Dead’ eases its grip on bookstore chart
The Walking Dead, Vol. 17
Graphic novels | BookScan’s January list of the Top 20 graphic novels sold in bookstores shows a bit more variety than the previous month, in which 10 of the slots were taken by volumes of The Walking Dead. This time it’s just six, with Building Stories, Saga, and the latest volumes of Sailor Moon and Fables cracking the Top 10. An adaptation of the Book of Revelation from evangelical publisher Zondervan was No. 9, followed by perennial bestseller Watchmen. (Note: The original version erroneously reported the number of Walking Dead titles in the Top 20.) [ICv2]
Creators | Paul Pope talks about his graphic novel Battling Boy, due out this summer, as well as the prequel comic The Death of Haggard West, which will released in in July. [Kotaku]
Comics A.M. | Harry Harrison dies; Marvel ends Premiere Classics
Harry Harrison
Passings | Artist and writer Harry Harrison, who worked with Wally Wood on many EC Comics — and persuaded them to start their sci-fi line — has died at the age of 87. Harrison is best known in science fiction circles as the author of the Stainless Steel Rat stories, and the movie Soylent Green was based on his 1966 novel Make Room! Make Room! [The Comics Reporter]
Publishing | Marvel is ending its Premiere Classics line of hardcovers collections with Vol. 106. [Blog@Newsarama]
Conventions | ComiCONN is this weekend, and although it is the largest comics and sci-fi show in Connecticut, you won’t need your jet pack to navigate it, says Life With Archie writer Paul Kupperberg. Kupperberg and Peter David will be among the guests. [Connecticut Post]
Comics A.M. | Batman: Earth One leads July bookstore sales
Batman: Earth One
Publishing | DC Comics’ Batman: Earth One, by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank, topped the Nielsen BookScan list of graphic novels sold in bookstores in July, one of five Batman books to populate the Top 20. The remainder of the chart was dominated by manga — five spots, with the newest volumes of Sailor Moon and Naruto claiming Nos. 2 and 3 — The Walking Dead — three volumes, with the latest slipping from No. 1 to No. 4 — and Dark Horse’s two Avatar: The Last Airbender books, by Gene Luen Yang, both of which remain in the Top 10. [ICv2]
Publishing | Archaia CEO PJ Bickett talks about some new planned digital products and the current Archaia strategy for its books: “As of right now for 2012 we’ve really focused on some key titles and in building those out as real brands. In the past we’ve taken more of a throwing it out there and hoping for the best [approach] and now we’re taking a more strategic, targeted and strategic approach. We’re seeing a lot of great efforts as a result of it.” [ICv2]
Big news: New Sailor Moon anime in the works
The Japanese publisher Kodansha and anime company Toei had big news for Sailor Moon fans today: They will be producing a new Sailor Moon anime, to debut next summer.
The original Sailor Moon manga (published by Tokyopop) and anime helped kick off the anime and manga revolution, bringing a whole new cadre of fans, especially women and girls, into the world of comics. Fans have been speculating about the return of the anime ever since Kodansha USA started re-releasing the manga, with a new translation and new format, last year. The manga has been hugely popular in the U.S., with the most recent volume spending four weeks on The New York Times graphic books bestseller list.
The new anime was announced today by Sailor Moon creator Naoko Takeuchi and the idol group Momoiro Clover Z, which will perform the theme song, during a 20th anniversary event that was streamed live on the Japanese site Nico Nico. Voice actors Kotono Mitsuishi and Tohru Furuya, who played Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask in the original, participated in the event, but it’s not clear that they will be in the new series (although the Sailor Moon fan site Moon Chase says they will). While details are sketchy right now, it appears that the anime will be released simultaneously worldwide.
The official press release (in Japanese) is up at Kodansha’s Japanese website.
Sailor Moon fans push back on manga piracy
Until Kodansha’s recent re-release of the first volume, Sailor Moon had been out of print in the United States for six years. What’s more, the original English-language edition suffered from many of the sins of early manga — bad translation, flipped pages, etc. Since it is, despite this, one of the most popular manga of all time, it’s not surprising that there are scanlations of it all over the web.
But when a Sailor Moon fan site linked to scans of Kodansha’s new edition, readers who clearly had no problem with posting scanlations were strongly critical of the site owner for linking to rips of an American edition. Here’s a comment that sums up much of the discussion:
This is so sad! The new books are really beautiful and it’s shame to rip them off this way. I understand why the Tokyopop translations were circulated because the copyright expired but this is very different. Really disappointing and I have to say I hope you remove them from your site.
But the person who posted the links, Elly, shoots right back:
Comics A.M. | Digital comics milestone; Kickstarter’s patent battle
comiXology
Digital comics | Following the entry this week by Image Comics into same-day digital release, 40 percent of the comics that debuted in print Wednesday were also available digitally through comiXology. Asking whether day and date comics are “hitting a tipping point,” retailer news and analysis site ICv2 notes: “Publishers are gaining confidence in the concept as evidence grows that day and date releases do not negatively impact print sales. DC’s bold move to convert its entire line to day and date digital with the New 52 has been the clearest indication yet that digital sales are not cannibalizing print.” [ICv2.com]
Legal | Kickstarter, the two-year-old crowd-funding site used by a variety of artists to fund projects, has asked a federal court to declare invalid a patent held by Brian Camelio, who founded ArtistShare in 2000. Camelio, a composer and former studio musician for the rock band Journey, has obtained a patent for a process that resembles Kickstarter’s own crowd-funding model. According to PaidContent, “Kickstarter ask a federal court to declare that the patent is invalid and that the company is not liable for infringement. If the patent, described as ‘methods and apparatuses for financing and marketing a creative work,’ is valid and Kickstarter is infringing, the site could be forced to shut down or pay significant damages.” [PaidContent]
Comics A.M. | Alibi witnesses testify in Michael George trial
Legal
Legal | Defense testimony began in the Michael George trial Monday after the judge denied a motion by the defense to order an acquittal. George’s daughter Tracie testified that she remembers her father sleeping on the couch in his mother’s house the night in 1990 when his first wife Barbara was shot and killed in their Clinton Township, Michigan, comic store. Another defense witness, Douglas Kenyon, told the jury he saw a “suspicious person” in the store that evening and that Barbara George, who waited on him, seemed nervous. [Detroit Free Press]
Conventions | Last weekend’s Alternative Press Expo inspired Deb Aoki to offer a burst of suggestions on Twitter as to how it could be made better. Heidi MacDonald collected the tweets into a single post, and the commenters add some worthwhile points (including not scheduling it opposite the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival, which attracts much of the same audience and is free). [Deb Aoki's Twitter, The Beat]
Awards | Ian Culbard’s adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness won the British Fantasy Award for best comic/graphic novel, presented Saturday by the British Fantasy Society. [The British Fantasy Society]
Is Sailor Moon poised for a comeback?
Sailor Moon was the first shoujo manga to catch on in the United States, and the anime succeeded in part because of organized fan campaigns to keep it on the air. The rights for both the manga and the anime had both lapsed by 1995, 2005, however, so both have been officially unavailable here since then.
Kodansha Comics galvanized fans last spring with the announcement that they would publish a new edition of Sailor Moon as well as the previously unpublished (in the U.S.) prequel Codename: Sailor V. There’s no word on the anime yet, but here’s an interesting sign: Anime News Network reports that Great Eastern Entertainment has listed four Sailor Moon items for future sale (no prices or details were listed), all bearing a Toei Animation logo. (The page has mysteriously disappeared since ANN posted it, and it doesn’t look like Great Eastern responded to their request for comment.) As an alert commenter at ANN points out, Toei, the owner of the Sailor Moon anime, was shopping around “refurbished” episodes at the MIPTV market in Cannes last year. Perhaps someone bit, either there or elsewhere. The fansite Moon Chase reports (from an anonymous source) that there is another deal that has to be finalized at a higher level before the anime can be licensed in the U.S., and they are skeptical about this latest development, but some enthusiastic folks are speculating that an announcement could come as early as Funimation’s panel at SDCC.
Judging from the reaction I got when I wrote about Sailor Moon at MTV Geek, there’s a huge fandom out there that is anxious to get their manga and anime back. While Kodansha’s deluxe-edition manga seem to be aimed at older readers reliving their youth, the anime has a lot of teen appeal, and if it is re-released in the U.S., we could see history repeat itself.
Kodansha to bring Sailor Moon back to the United States
Kodansha Comics stole a bit of thunder from C2E2 today with the announcement that they are bringing a classic manga series back to the U.S. market: Naoko Takeuchi’s Sailor Moon.
Speculation has been bubbling around the manga world for a while that Kodansha would bring back Sailor Moon, which was originally published in the United States by Tokyopop (then known as Mixx) but has been out of print for years. A magical-girl story about teenage girls who transform into superheroines to fight evil, Sailor Moon was the first successful shoujo manga and anime in the U.S. and helped pave the way for the manga revolution that followed. Sailor Moon is one of those books people get sentimental about—for a lot of readers and creators, especially women, it was their first comic. It looks like Kodansha is going for those older readers, as they are describing their release as a “deluxe edition,” rather than keeping them cheap for teenagers—who would probably find it laughably dated. Kids are cruel that way.
Kodansha plans to launch the new edition in September and publish a volume every two months. They will also be publishing the prequel, Codename: Sailor V, which has not been previously licensed in the U.S. They original series will follow the sequence of the 2003 Japanese re-release but collapse it from 18 volumes into 12 for the main story arc plus two more volumes of short stories. It sounds like they are doing a new translation, and the books will have new cover art and freshly retouched interior art.
Click for a look at the cover of Codename: Sailor V.
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