Comic Book Resources

Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Stuck in the Middle

Libraries | There is, of course, follow-up on the decision by the Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to remove the anthology Stuck in the Middle: Seventeen Comics from an Unpleasant Age from middle-school libraries. Local CBS affiliate KELO reports on the reactions of parents and highlights some of the better-known challenged and banned books.

As we noted yesterday, teachers will still have access to the 2007 collection of stories about life as a teen-ager (by such contributors as Gabrielle Bell, Daniel Clowes, Joe Matt and Dash Shaw). That's because, in the words of School Board President Kent Alberty, "There is value in the book. One of the subjects addressed is bullying, something the district is very interested in making sure is handled appropriately, and the book does address that." [KELOLAND.com]

Publishing | Japan's NHK television network reports that publishing giant Shueisha, a co-owner of Viz Media, plans to develop plans to sell manga via mobile phones in the United States beginning in spring 2010. [Anime News Network]

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Robot reviews: Another manga round-up

Ooku Vol. 1

Ooku: The Inner Chambers
by Fumi Yoshinaga
Viz, $12.99.

As story hooks go, Ooku's got a great one: A strange plague during the Edo period of Japan kills off more than three-quarters of the country's male population. As a result, the culture and gender relations end up going all topsy-turvy, and succeeding generations find the women ruling the roost and men being protected and prized for their ability to produce offspring. This is especially in the Shogun's harem, or Inner Chambers, where the story takes place.

It helps that the story is by Fumi Yoshinaga, who, in books like Antique Bakery and Gerald and Jacques, has proven herself to be more interested in gender relations and identity issues than mere yaoi squickiness (although she certainly likes that too. Certainly the fact that Ooku won the Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize in its home country has led to a certain amount of anticipation among some manga fans.

Unfortunately, while Yoshinaga remains an excellent and expressive artist, the series stumbles out of the gate. One of the main problems is the translator's decision (no doubt motivated by an attempt to approximate a certain Japanese dialect) to have everyone speak in a formal, Renaissance Faire-like manner, with lots of "thees" and "thous" and "didsts." It has the unintended effect of coming off as forced, and distancing the reader from the characters and the story.

Beyond that though, Yoshinaga doesn't really seem to do much with her idea, at least so far. She seems more interested in conveying the various back room politics and romances that take place in the inner chambers than giving thought as to what such a huge change in the population would do to a culture. Would the fashion still be identical to what it was in the real world, with men shaving their heads and women wearing long gowns? Wouldn't that change somewhat drastically? Would a female shogun really keep a male harem and if so, would it be so identical in structure to what the real Edo shoguns had? This may sound like nit-picking, but makes the story seem more than a bit facile, as though she just swapped everyone's sex and that alone would be interesting enough. It may well be that I'm not giving Yoshinaga enough credit and that she's actually considered these issues and will explore them in more depth in future volumes. But so far, I'm not encouraged.

Reviews of Red Snow, Pelu and more after the jump ...

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Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Legal

Legal | Twin brothers in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, have been sentenced to three months in jail for possessing anime- and manga-style images depicting children in sexual situations.

David Scott Hammond and James Cory Hammond, 20, pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography after police discovered the images downloaded on their home computer last November. Although David Hammond's attorney said his client didn't realize it was illegal to download cartoon pornographic images of children, the prosecutor asserted that, "Every one of these images involves the victimization of children. The victimization wouldn’t happen in the first place if there weren’t people there to look at this material."

Earlier this month, lawmakers in Alaska began considering a bill that would expand the state's child-pornography laws to include cartoons. And in June a U.S. appeals court upheld the conviction of a Virginia man who was prosecuted, in part, under a 2003 federal statute outlawing possession of cartoon images depicting the sexual abuse of children. [The Chronicle Herald]

Viz Media

Publishing | The San Francisco headquarters of Viz Media was closed for two days this week after an unexpected downpour on Monday caused storm drains to overflow, flooding parts of the city. [Anime News Network]

Publishing | Just last week we were reporting that Villard had acquired the rights to Fated, a graphic novel written by Michael Jackson and Gotham Chopra. Now comes word that the Random House imprint paid $800,000 for it. Illustrated by Mukesh Singh, artist of Virgin Comics titles Gamekeeper, Devi and Jenna Jameson's Shadow Hunter, the black-and-white book is due out in June. [Crain's New York Business]

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Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Dragon Ball, Vol. 3

Manga | Wicomico County Public Library in Maryland is conducting an "internal reconsideration" of Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball after the popular series was removed from a combined elementary/middle school library last week due to depictions of nudity and sexual situations. The public library has pulled the manga while it decides in what section the T-rated series should be shelved. [The Daily Times]

Publishing | Deb Aoki gets more details from Viz Media Senior Editor Eric Searleman about the publisher's relaunched original comics initiative, which began accepting submissions last week: "We're hoping to publish a wide range of comics by a diverse group of creators. A lot of people are expecting Viz Media to publish manga (or comics that look like manga) but we don't plan on limiting ourselves, in any way. It doesn't matter to us if you draw like Tite Kubo or Darwyn Cooke. If you've got an awesome idea for a comic book, we want to see it." Simon Jones provides commentary. [About.com, Icarus Publishing]

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Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Dragon Ball

Manga | Wicomico County schools in Maryland removed all copies of Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball from library shelves Wednesday after the mother of a fourth-grader complained about the nudity and sexual situations depicted in the first volume of the hit series. The manga, which sports an "All Ages" a T+ rating, is published in North America by Viz Media.

A committee of administrators and "people from outside the school system" will review books, but the schools superintendent will make the final decision on the fate of the series. At a Tuesday meeting of the County Council, one councilman distributed photocopies of scenes from Dragon Ball, describing some of the illustrations as "disgusting." [The Daily Times, The Daily Times]

Legal | An amended agreement between Google and the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers is expected to be filed by Friday to address concerns raised by the Google Book Search settlement. DC Comics is among the parties that object to the terms of the original deal, designed to resolve a 2005 lawsuit accusing the Internet giant of infringing on copyrights by digitizing out-of-print books without permission. [Publishers Weekly]

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Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Viz Media

Internet | A draft letter leaked earlier this week has revealed the desire of a manga-scanlation group to partner with a major publisher, and touched a nerve with members of its online community. In the muddled draft, one of the owners of Manga Helpers suggests Viz Media could somehow benefit by teaming with the website, which posts fan-translated scans of Japanese comics. (MangaHelpers recently received cease-and-desist letters from Japanese publisher Kodansha.)

Reaction to the leaked letter was quick and largely negative, causing another Manga Helpers founder to post an "explanation on current events": "The goal behind presenting that document to a company was so that we can promote the fans -- not their work. We wanted to create a bridge between publisher and fan (scanlator - translator - artist) to help everyone work together and not only make online distribution legitimate, but to increase the amount of released manga by promoting the talented translators, editors and artists we have at MH."

Simon Jones notes that financial concerns may be at the core of Manga Helpers' proposition: "They are worried about having to pull more content at the request of Japanese companies giving increasing scrutiny to the scanlation scene, and in the process lose a great deal of their user community and the advertising profits from it.  Shueisha and Shogakkukan are larger manga publishers than Kodansha by volume, and through Viz, Manga Helpers hopes to secure their remaining content." Brad Rice, meanwhile, suggests it's probably not a good idea for a site that hosts illegal scans to attract attention to itself. [Manga Helpers]

Business | Sonny Bunch suggests that Disney should have passed up Marvel, whose major properties are tied up in film and theme-park licensing agreements, and instead purchased an "indie" publisher, such as Dark Horse. [The Washington Times]

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Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Yaoi Press

Legal | Yaoi Press Publisher Yamila Abraham was arrested Monday in Las Vegas on federal fraud charges related to online sales of an "herbal" alternative to recreational street drugs. Authorities claim the product contained no herbal supplements and was actually composed of dextromethorphan hydrobromide (DXM), the active ingredient in over-the-counter cough suppressants. The charges date from 2005 and 2006, when Abraham operated the mail-order website Pleasureherbs.com.

If convicted, Abraham, 34, could face up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each of the seven counts of mail fraud, up to one year in prison and a $250,000 fine on one count of misbranding a drug, and up to two years in prison and a $250,000 fine on one count of introducing goods in domestic commerce by means of false statement. She also could be forced to forfeit property from the proceeds of the crime up to $186,680 and any equipment used to make the drugs.

On the Yaoi Press blog, Abraham asked for everyone to "please keep a cool head, and have faith. This situation is not going to end Yaoi Press. Don't believe the hype." She stressed that she will continue to appear at conventions, including this weekend's OtakuMex in Albuquerque, New Mexico. [Las Vegas Sun]

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Robot Reviews: Those wacky Asian countries and their crazy comical books

X-men: Misfits

X-Men Misfits Vol. 1
Story by Raina Telgemeier and Dave Roman. Art by Anzu
Del Rey, 192 pages, $12.99.

Grafting the X-Men onto a shojo manga template isn't a half-bad idea, considering the soap opera antics of the series back in its heyday (and indeed, even today). The problem lies in that Telgemeier and Roman have grafted too much of the template onto this comic, so that none of the characters have any room to move beyond their narrowly defined roles. It's way too slavish to shojo cliches -- Anzu apparently never met a chibi she didn't like. There's some amusement in seeing Angel gussied-up Bishonen style or Beast looking like Totoro's second cousin, once removed, to be sure. But its adherence to shallow formula is just as bad as the dull exposition and fight scenes that make up most modern X-Men comics. Too bad. I was really hoping for something that blended the best aspects of both Western and Eastern comics, not something that swapped out one set of cliches for another.

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Everyone's A Critic: A round-up of comic book reviews and thinkpieces

Sandman

Let's try to run through some of the more notable links of the past several days. My apologies if this is old news to you or I missed something.

• Kicking things off, I should note that the gang at the Hooded Utilitarian are offering an in-depth analysis of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. In order: Noah Berlatsky, Ng Suat Tong,  Tom Crippen and Von Marlowe.

• Ken Parille looks at the work of his fellow blogmate Tim Hensley, specifically his Wally Gropius series: "I can’t think of another cartoonist who approaches space -- and what we might call 'spatial color' -- in such a rigorously strange way."

• Abhay Khosla talks about comics by way of crime novels:

So: a year from now, if we’re unlucky and Vertigo Crime no longer exists, and some so-and-so is screeching that “None of youse fools on the internet people could have done better because we are geniuses who thought of EVERYTHING” … I would suggest that maybe one thing they could have done differently is launched their crime line with crime fiction…? Just a silly thought.

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Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Marvel

Publishing | Kim Masters casts a spotlight on Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter, who stands to make about $1.5 billion in the Disney-Marvel deal: "Perlmutter is a man of mystery in Hollywood and beyond — go ahead, try to find a picture of him. He’s so committed to keeping things secretive that a studio source says Perlmutter attended the premiere of Iron Man disguised in glasses and a moustache — though it’s unclear how anyone would have recognized him if he’d just come as himself. In Monday’s conference call with investors about the deal, Perlmutter’s voice was never heard." [The Daily Beast]

Publishing | This announcement, made over the weekend, was nearly lost amid the Disney-Marvel mayhem: Japanese publishing giants Shogakkan and Shueisha, co-owners of Viz Media, have purchased two European distributors of anime for an undisclosed amount. Paris-based Kaze and Berlin-based Anime Virtual will be merged into Viz Media Europe in September. [Variety]

Publishing | The shutdown of anime distributor and manga publisher A.D. Vision appears to be complete, as the company announces the last assets of its ADV Films division have been transferred to other companies. [Anime News Network]

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What Are You Reading?

Love and Rockets New Stories #2

Welcome, welcome, welcome to another round of What Are You Reading. I am very pleased this week to say that our guest is Jeet Heer, the peerless critic and historian who, when not writing introductions for Little Orphan Annie or Krazy Kat collections, can be found at the Sans Everything or the Comics Comics blogs.

Jeet and the rest of the crew have been reading a lot this week and are eager to share, so get clicking on that link pardners.

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Everyone's A Critic: A roundup of comic book reviews and thinkpieces

Hellboy: Seed of Destruction

• Pop Matters has an interesting essay comparing Mike Mignola's Hellboy series with the similarly themed Italian comic Dylan Dog.

As characters, they could be satanic siblings, or infernal in-laws: Hellboy, the Hades-born offspring of a witch and a demon; and Dylan Dog, in love with an undead woman who was likely his mother, and battling his nemesis, the devil, who could be his father. Despite their fantastic and often horrific circumstances, at heart each character is a working-class hero, just trying to get the job done.

• Sean Collins grapples with All-Star Batman and Robin: "The thing really is (to quote Grant Morrison's Mad Hatter) very much cleverer than its rep as a goddamn-Batman meme generator would indicate."

• Curt Purcell continues his ongoing look at the Blackest Night series and superhero decadence in general.

• Matthew Brady enjoyed Lamar Abrams' Remake: "It's pretty ridiculous stuff, but always funny."

• Greg McElhatton declares Neil Kleid's The Big Kahn "easily Kleid’s best work to date as a writer."

• Brian Hibbs was shocked — shocked I tell you — to discover that Archie #600 was a fun read: "I mean, I'm certainly a "Betty Man", and that makes a lot more sense to me than Veronica, but Mike Uslan's script here is remarkably crisp, as well as filled with real drama and pathos."

• Katherine Dacey on Ooku: The Inner Chamber: "For all its dramatic and socio-political ambitions, volume one isn’t nearly as daring or weird or pointed as it might have been. If anything, it reminds me of a BBC miniseries: it’s tasteful, meticulously researched, and a little too high-minded to be truly compelling."

• Kinukitty reads the yaoi manga Black Sun and says "I can't even think about this title without kind of flapping my hands and sputtering a bit."

• Rob Clough reads and reviews more minicomics, something we all should do more of.

• The Daily Cross Hatch on Johnny Ryan's Prison Pit: "True enjoyment of this volumes ultimately seems to fall on a willingness to embrace the complementary sensibilities of 'aw, fucking gross' and 'oh, fucking sweet,' ”

• KC Carlson reviews Looking for Calvin and Hobbes by Nevin Martel, a book I was completely unaware of until now.

• Finally, Tim O'Neil has some thoughts on what makes The Thing so awesome.

Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Superman #1

Legal | A federal judge has ordered Warner Bros. and the heirs of Jerry Siegel to make another attempt at mediated settlement in their prolonged dispute over Superman. The parties will file a joint report on Sept. 18 outlining their efforts. [Jeff Trexler]

Crime | Authorities in Colorado say two brothers at the head of a massive methamphetamine ring were planning to use classic comic books to launder money. Police seized comics worth at least $500,000 when they arrested the suspects. [The Denver Post, The Associated Press]

Publishing | As Tokyopop gears up for its new online initiative, and King City finds new life this week at Image, Don MacPherson checks in with Brandon Graham and three other casualties of the manga publisher's 2008 implosion: Ross Campbell's The Abandoned, Eric Wight's My Dead Girlfriend and Becky Cloonan's East Coast Rising. [Eye on Comics]

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SyFy adds Urasawa's Monster to anime schedule

Monster

News of this trickled out earlier in the week, but now Viz Media makes it official: The animated adaptation of Naoki Urasawa’s psychological horror series Monster will debut on Oct. 12 as part of the SyFy network's "Ani-Monday" programming block.

Episodes will debut each Monday and then be rebroadcast a week later on SyFy's sibling network Chiller.

Urasawa's critically acclaimed manga follows Dr. Kenzo Tenma, a brilliant young neurosurgeon, as he pursues a psychopath whose life he once saved. The thriller was adapted by Madhouse as a 74-episode anime series that aired from April 2004 to September 2005 in Japan.

Read the press release after the break.

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Robot reviews: Children of the Sea Vol. 1

Children of the Sea, Vol. 1

Children of the Sea Vol. 1
by Daisuke Igarashi
Viz, $14.99.

Despite the "Older Teen" rating emblazoned on the back cover, Children of the Sea -- at least the first volume anyway -- struck me as being more like a traditional children's (or young reader's if you prefer) book. To wit: a plucky young girl via a chance encounters meets remarkable characters and is introduced to a fantastic world where danger and dark mysteries await.

The all-ages vibe I was getting off of the book was confirmed when my seven-year-old daughter snatched it out my hands (after asking politely of course), devoured it in about an hour and then immediately started drawing her own story about magic people that lived under the waves. None of this is meant as a criticism. My point is simply that manga-ka Daisuke Igarashi is dealing in some very recognizable archetypes here, of the sort that Hayao Miyazaki frequently dabbles in, for instance, and that of all the books in Viz's Signature line so far, this seems to have the broadest appeal, at least in terms of age.

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