Comic World News

April 22, 2008:
CWN and the Grand Finale! -

February 4, 2008:
In Conclusion - David ends his CWN run with Tezuka's MW from Vertical

February 2, 2008:
Acting Like You Have Nothing to Prove -

February 2, 2008:
The Shoegazer Returns - A New Year Begins, And Our Narrator Makes A Pledge

January 30, 2008:
Tim's Reviews -

September 13, 2007:
Wizard World Chicago Loot, Part One - Stykman, Empty Chamber, the Ztarian Saga, and yes, Little Bunny Foo Foo

February 15, 2007:
I Come Not to Bury Nick Cage... - But to mourn the death of my punchline

November 20, 2006:
The End - Rich's last Chicks & Romance

November 8, 2006:
Joann Sfar's Klezmer - And a Front Racks Hiatus

October 4, 2006:
This Month's Guest: Dave Gibbons - From the pages of Elephantmen!

September 18, 2006:
Back in Berlin - or How I spent my summer

July 29, 2006:
KICKING UP A STORM - An interview with David Lloyd

June 19, 2006:
You Ain't Never Had A Friend Like Me. - Graeme looks at Spidey's "genies"

December 18, 2005:
Disappointed - Sad news for fans of Busiek's CONAN, Stephen King, and others

December 13, 2004:
JUSTICE UNPLUGGED 2 at last !!! - By Fabrice Sapolsky & Xavier Fournier

December 2, 2004:
THE TWELFTH AND FINAL STEP - Say it ain't so, Dan.

November 23, 2004:
The importance of editing -

September 29, 2004:
Mystery and Conundrum indeed! - Where in the world is Jason Pomerantz?

September 13, 2004:
Hello and Goodbye and Hello Again - Change is in the air at CWN and it smells sweet.

August 12, 2004:
The Rise of the Web Toon - New Business Model or Dumb Luck?

July 30, 2004:
The Name Says it All... - Spin Doctors revamp Boomerang.

July 27, 2004:
Bigger Isn't Always Better -

June 8, 2004:
Pre-emptive Strike: MoCCA Arts Festival - Looking forward to the con, rather than looking back at it

The Layer Method
Our top Secret time-saving technique for creating and merging balloons and tails in Illustrator.

Friday, September 3, 2010

In the Summertime

I�m not as fond of summer as I used to be when it constituted a break from school, back in the days when microwave ovens were still novel. Now it's just an unpleasantly hot stretch of months where I have to mow the lawn. But it is peak season for manga and comic related activities, so I would be remiss if I didn't run through some of the highlights.

I always find myself looking for new and different air-conditioned spaces during the summer months, and museums provide an excellent alternative, especially with extensive manga exhibitions on offer:

Through September 9: The Asian Art Museum in San Francisco hosts Tezuka: The Marvel of Manga all summer long, offering visitors a chance to "(d)iscover the artist who started an international phenomenon and learn why manga is more than just your Sunday funny pages." Viz is collaborating with the museum to offer a special Manga Lounge for visitors to the exhibit.

Through June 29: Shojo Manga! Girls' Power! looks at the vibrant history of Japanese comics for girls. The exhibition is currently housed at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. It will relocate to the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Los Angeles from August 18 to 26.

Not satisfied with the slate of summer blockbusters scheduled for your local Cineplex? More interested in manga bestsellers than the latest Harry Potter flick? You may be in luck.

June 22 to July 8: The New York Asian Film Festivalwill screen the live-action adaptations Death Note and Death Note: The Last Name. (Screening dates and times to be announced.)

Several new reference books are headed our way over the summer months that will undoubtedly be valuable additions to the mangaphile's library:

June 30: Eisner judge and graphic-novel loving librarian Robin Brenner provides a valuable resource for colleagues looking to expand their holdings with Understanding Manga and Anime (Libraries Unlimited). Knowing Brenner�s style and interests, I'm guessing the book will be intriguing for non-librarians as well.

August 7: Jason Thompson has assembled an absolutely invaluable shopper's guide to manga and provided plenty of informative essays along the way with Manga: The Complete Guide(Del Rey). The title isn't bluster; Thompson has reviewed every manga series currently available in English.

September: Frederick L. Schodt, author of Manga! Manga! and Dreamland Japan, tightens his focus to the work of Osamu Tezuka with The Astro Boy Essays: Osamu Tezuka, The Mighty Atom, and the Manga/Anime Revolution (Stone Bridge Press).

If your idea of an alluring summer destination is a crowded convention hall, the season is heating up:

June 29 to July 2: Manga and anime fans with gather in Long Beach, California for Anime Expo 2007. Publisher and producer panels abound, along with tons of screenings and special events.

July 20 to 22: All the action isn't happening on the West Coast though, with Otakon returning to the Baltimore Convention Center.

July 26 to 29: I've heard that, as every tourist visiting Egypt should ride a camel at least once, every comic fan should attend the San Diego Comic-Con International before they die. I haven't been sufficiently persuaded as to the wisdom of that myself, but that shouldn't stop you.

August 18-19: Doesn't it figure that the one summer event I really want to attend falls right when I've got other commitments? It's too bad, because the Toronto Comic Arts Festival has a great line-up of guests.

If you just want to stay inside and read, there are a number of exciting series debuts and special events headed your way, even without the spate of announcements that are generated by con season. Tezuka fans should be particularly pleased:

*

Vertical will release Tezuka's Apollo's Song in June. Like Ode to Kirihito, the series will be published in a single, 500-page-plus chunk.
*

To celebrate its second anniversary, Viz's Shojo Beat magazine will include an excerpt from Tezuka's classic, Princess Knight, in its July issue.
*

I'm a big fan of Yuji Iwahara's Chikyu Misaki (CMX), so I'm delighted that Tokyopop will launch another of Iwahara's works, King of Thorn, in mid-June.
*

It's always interesting to see how a new publisher launches their imprint, so I'll be keeping an eye out for Aurora's inaugural release, Chihiro Tamaki's Walkin' Butterfly, due out in mid-July.