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Fantagraphics Steps into Manga Publishing
Indie comics publisher Fantagraphics Books is the latest comics house to add manga publishing to its list. The Seattle-based company known for such artists as the Hernandez Bros, creators of the acclaimed Love and Rockets series, and for historical collections like The Complete Peanuts, will roll out a new manga line starting in September.
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Comics Retailers Adapt to a Tough Economy; Look Ahead to Better Times
Once again, PW Comics Week talked with comics retailers from around the county—six direct market comics shops and two general bookstores—in our annual informal phone survey about the state of the comics and graphic novel marketplace.
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Amazon.com Removes Buy Buttons from Diamond's Publishers
In what is apparently an effort to correct the glitch that caused the wild discounting of graphic novels on Amazon.com, the online retailer has been forced to remove the buy buttons from all comics publishers distributed by Diamond Comics Distributors.
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Comics Briefly: 3/9/2010
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Life in Comics: Why San Diego Might Not Love Comic-Con
A couple of years ago, on the way to the San Diego airport, the taxi driver asked me and my co-workers if we had been in town for Comic-Con. Yes, we said, we were working. He asked how it was, and we gave the usual "fun but tiring" answer, adding that we were relieved it was over.
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Amazon, Diamond Deal with Aftermath of Computer Pricing Snafu
Amazon.com’s Top 100 Book List returned to reality—Kathryn Sockett’s novel The Help was back on top; the Wolverine Ominbus was gone—after a data snafu offered hundreds of graphic novel titles at eye-popping discounts.
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New look for Del Rey's Ben 10 and Bakugan Graphic Novels
While Del Rey manga is popular with serious manga fans, their top three sellers in bookstores, according to the 2009 BookScan data, were two series most manga fans probably never picked up—adaptations of Cartoon Network's Ben 10 and Bakugan animated cartoons. These three slim volumes (two of Bakugan and one of Ben 10) sold over 50,000 copies combined last year.
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Vertical To Publish Twin Spica Space Training Manga
Vertical, Inc, a New York City-based boutique publisher of all things Japanese, from hard-boiled crime to DIY crafts and cookbooks, will publish Kou Yaginuma's science fiction manga series, Twin Spica.
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March Comics Bestsellers
No surprise: Jeff Kinneys 2009 Wimpy Kid books, Dog Days and Last Straw hold down the top two slots; Naruto vol. 47 is next; followed by The Walking Dead: Fear the Hunters; Viz's Vampire Knight vol. 9 and Black Bird vol. 3; and Yen Press's Black Butler vol. 1. R. Crumb's Book of Genesis is next followed by Bill Willingham's The Great Fables Crossover at #9.
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Comics Reviews: 3/8/2010
The latest graphic novels by Dash Shaw and Jame sSturm are reviewed, along with several others.
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Amazon.com Glitch Offers Super Discounts on Graphic Novels
In what is being described as a computer glitch, Amazon.com's Top 100 Book List was filled with comics and graphic novels after a computing error heavily discounted hundreds if not thousands of graphic novel titles.
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Panel Mania
Originally serialized in the New York Times Magazine,
Gene Yang's Prime Baby is the delightful story of 8 year-old Thaddeus and his
annoying 18 month-old baby sister, Maddie. And no wonder she's annoying! Thaddeus
discovers that little Maddie is really a weird trans-dimensional conduit for
aliens—although turns out they are some of the most boringly pleasant aliens
ever. Prime Baby will be published in April by First Second Books. -
Panel Mania
In the strange retro British music scene of Kieron Gillen and Jamie Mckelvie's Phongram: The Singles Club, music is magic and Penny B. is a Phonomancer, urban pop-music obsessives who use the music like a magician to achieve their desires. The trade paperback will be published in March by Image.
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Comics Briefly
First Appearance of Batman, Priciest Comic Ever; Spider-Man Gets Fired; Staple Indie Expo Comes to Austin; Girl Comics #1 Signing At Jim Hanley's; ‘New York, The Super-City' Lecture; This Week @ Good Comics For Kids; and This Week @ The Beat
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Code Geass Manga Expands at Bandai
U.S. anime distributor and manga publisher Bandai Entertainment has acquired the licenses to two more Code Geass manga, all based on the popular alternate history SF anime series that features character designs by CLAMP. Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion Knights is a 5 volume anthology of original stories about the male characters of the series while Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion Queens covers the female characters of the series. Queens is also a five volume series and will debut in June of this year. Knights will debut in May.
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A Historian Takes on the Graphic Novel with Booth
The history of notorious presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth is examined in Booth, written by C.C. Colbert and illustrated by the renowned French artist Tanitoc, a graphic novel which First Second will publish on April 1. After touching on Booth's childhood and early career, the story centers on the months leading up to Lincoln's assassination and its aftermath. "This is a really fascinating book to be publishing right now, about a violent polarized country that echoes where we are today," notes Gina Gagliano, First Second's marketing associate.
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Even Graphic Novels Can Get a Kickstart
It began as a failed fan quest and turned into a visionary plan for arts funding. Kickstarter.com is a social networking platform that uses the internet to raise money to fund creative projects. Artists of all kinds-including a growing number of cartoonists-are starting to take advantage of it.
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Howard Cruse Returns with a New Edition of 'Stuck Rubber Baby'
When Howard Cruse's first and only original graphic novel, Stuck Rubber Baby, was published by DC Comics' Paradox Press imprint in 1995, it garnered great reviews, where it could get them, before it silently slipped away from a world that wasn't quite ready for it.
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Hicksville Returns in New Edition
Long, long ago in the early 1990's, Dylan Horrocks began to work on Hicksville, his graphic novel tale of a New Zealand town utterly devoted to comics. Hicksville earned widespread adoration from fans, as well as both Harvey and Eisner Awards, when it was released, and now Drawn+Quarterly has brought it back into print, with a new introduction by Horrocks.