As usual when we take a day off from blogging, All Hell Broke Loose®, including a flash flood in San Francisco that closed the Viz offices for a day. One staffer Tweeted this dramatic photo. Roland Emmerich, are you listening?
Last week, Viz made a low key announcement that they were now accepting submissions for original comics. The OG program has long been in place, but slowed down when the editor who was spearheading the effort, Marc Weidenbaum, left the company. Now Senior Editor Eric Searleman is leading the charge, and Deb Aoki interviews him about it:
Q: How will VIZ publish these comics? Are you thinking that these comics would be published as stand-alone graphic novels? Monthly “floppies?” Short stories for an anthology? Online publishing?
Eric Searleman: “We’re considering everything. The format will suit the material. For example, there’s no law that says our original comics need to mirror our manga trim size. Let’s mix it up.”
“We want to do something fun and fresh. Why bother otherwise? We want our books to be an alternative to what’s already out there. It’ll be hard work, but we are confident we can get it done. The bottom line is this: the quality of the comic takes precedent over everything else.”
Searleman says submissions aren’t open to just manga — art styles from Tite Kubo to Darwyn Cooke will be considered.
It’s been a while since this kind of open casting call for GNs was made by a major publisher. With such a wide open mandate, the results should be…interesting!
The submission release forms are available at the first link.
ULTIMO’s Stan Lee and Hiroyuki Takei, and IKKI editor Hideki Egami topline manga giant Viz’s presence.
VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry’s most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, has announced an exciting lineup of personal appearances, events and activities for 2009 Comic-Con International taking place July 22-26 at the convention center in San Diego, CA. VIZ Media will be located in Booth #2813.
Eagerly anticipated by excited fans will be an in-person appearance by Stan Lee and Mr. Hiroyuki Takei, creators of the historical collaborative project ULTIMO, in the VIZ Media booth for a signing session on Friday, July 24th at 2:15pm. VIZ Media will also welcome Mr. Lee and Takei-sensei, along with his editor, Mr. Takanori Asada, as part of the SHONEN JUMP Panel on Friday July 24th at 10:30am in Room#10. Panel attendees will receive an ULTIMO poster and SHONEN JUMP Magazine sampler featuring ULTIMO, while supplies last. ULTIMO is currently serialized in SHONEN JUMP Magazine, and is rated ‘T’ for Teens.
Also making an appearance will be Mr. Hideki Egami, Editor-in-Chief of Monthly IKKI magazine in Japan, at the IKKI Panel on Saturday, July 25th at 12:00pm in Room #3. In partnership with the VIZ SIGNATURE line of graphic novels, IKKI, home of some of the most innovative, bold and compelling series in the world of contemporary manga, is bringing the works of some of its top creators to the English-language audience via a groundbreaking online monthly manga magazine at www.sigikki.com, launched May 2009. Each month new chapters of featured series will be offered for viewing online in their entirety, for free; the first series featured was CHILDREN OF THE SEA by Daisuke Igarashi.
FREE cool things! FREE!
VIZ Media is offering the popular anime HONEY AND CLOVER on iTunes and until August 31, 2009 it’s a free download. Plus, every purchase of the complete first season of HONEY AND CLOVER will include a free, bonus episode download.
Based on the popular manga series created by Chica Umino (with over 5 million copies sold), HONEY AND CLOVER is a romantic comedy about a group of art school students who try to find their way through college. But when an innocent and talented 19-year-old girl enters their lives, things get a lot more complicated as love triangles result.
The HONEY AND CLOVER manga series was created by Chica Umino and has sold more than 5,300,000 copies in Japan. In 2003, the series won the 27th Kodansha Manga Award, Japan’s most prestigious comics award. The series was also adapted into an anime series in 2005 and finally into a live action film in 2006.
Leading manga publisher Viz has announced a new imprint — Shonen Sunday, named after and running content from the Japanese magazine of the same name. The line kicks off with Rumiko Takahishi’s RIN-NE; further titles will be announced in San Diego. PR below:
VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry’s most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, has announced the launch of a brand new imprint, SHONEN SUNDAY. Featuring the works of some of the top shonen manga creators in the world today, the Shonen Sunday magazine in Japan provides the content for this imprint. The magazine recently celebrated its 50th anniversary since its first issue arrived on newsstands in March of 1959.
The first series to launch from the first volume under this new imprint will be RIN-NE by Rumiko Takahashi, the first manga novel ever to be published simultaneously in Japan and North America, which will arrive on store shelves on October 20, 2009. Chapters of RIN-NE have been serialized online for free at www.TheRumicWorld.com on the same weekly schedule as it appeared in Japan’s Shonen Sunday magazine since May of this year. The Rumic World web site is the official North American destination for all Rumiko Takahashi-related news.
VIZ Media will be announcing new Shonen Sunday series for 2010 at its Manga and Anime panel at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con International on Friday, July 24th from 3:00-4:30 in Room 32AB. Other VIZ Media series that will move under the Shonen Sunday banner include INUYASHA, KEKKAISHI, CASE CLOSED, HAYATE THE COMBAT BUTLER, and YAKITATE!! JAPAN. Going forward, DVD products from the select series will also feature the Shonen Sunday imprint.
The imprint’s web site (www.ShonenSunday.com) will be updated regularly with exclusive content such as previews, trailers, news, and interviews and will go live on July 22, 2009.
Hm, what were we just saying about the print/online shift? Even as they cancelled SHOJO BEAT, Viz has announced the launch of a new online seinen (young men’s) manga anthology, Ikki, which you can read right here.
Kai-Ming Cha gets the scoop.:
In the wake of the cancellation of its print Shojo Beat manga fan magazine, manga and anime publisher Viz Media will launch IKKI, a new online magazine venture that will be used as promotional vehicle and to launch new works and to solicit feedback on whether to release some titles in print. Named after the Japanese manga anthology of the same name that is published in print form, IKKI will feature similar material found in its Japanese counterpart publication.
In Japan, IKKI magazine serializes seinen manga which caters to young men ranging in age from their late teens to college age and beyond. The American version of IKKI will feature chapters of a variety of seinen manga, but much like their other popular print magazine, Shonen Jump, Viz editors will select the best content for the American audience.
It’s worth noting that the first lead feature is Daisuke Igarashi’s CHILDREN OF THE SEA, (above) a very unusual manga by a Tezuka Prize winning cartoonist that would definitely go more under the “indie” header here in the States. Very much worth checking out.
GIve it a try — it’s free!
Predictably, the demise of SHOJO BEAT, Viz’s girl-focused magazine of serialized manga, is being discussed far and wide:
Alexander Hoffman:
The strange thing is though, that manga as a whole, is a comic sold to women (at least in your major book retailers). Shojo Beat is the heart of the girl’s comics movement, a collection of the “normal” girly magazine stuff with comics specifically written to be enjoyed by girls. And, when most of your bookstore market is the young female audience (who doesn’t have Twilight to distract them this summer), it seems like an inopportune time to cancel the anthology. More appropriately, it would seem, now is the time to give the anthology more press, more promotions, and try to tie it into product lines and get it into the hands of its chosen audience.
In contrast, Shonen Jump has received a lot of tie-ins with other products, giving it some cover recognition in stores, with its Yu-Gi-Oh! cards and other promotions. It also has Saturday morning cartoons to back it up, giving it more eye appeal to the younger crowd. Can we say that for Shojo Beat? Did it ever really get its chance to shine? Or was it more of a background player to the antics of Naruto and his other shonen buddies?
The Manga Critic:
More importantly, Shojo Beat was the kind of magazine that I wish had been available to me as a teen, not only for its great stories, but also for its funky, DIY vibe. Shojo Beat was one of the few teen rags that didn’t read like Cosmo, Jr. or Vogue High; its how-to articles were practical, its fashion column featured clothing priced under $75 (a real rarity, as any devotee of Elle, Vogue, or Seventeen will tell you), and its stories focused on the inner lives of girls, not just their shopping and grooming habits. Even their contests demanded more of readers than simply sending a postcard, as girls were asked to compose poems, draw pictures, and write essays, activities that other teen magazines stopped encouraging years ago.
Manga Xanadu:
So, it is with great sadness that I bid farewell to Shojo Beat. I never regretted reading any of it’s titles even if not all of them thrilled me. The magazine opened me up to a whole new world of manga that I probably wouldn’t have taken a chance on before. So thanks Shojo Beat for all the girly stuff you brought into my life. You will be sorely missed.
AND readers also sound off in the forum. All of these links shamelessly stolen from Brigid. Actually that last link contains news of other magazine shutdowns in Japan and in general, weakness in the paper subscription-based model.
Indeed, we weren’t going to comment on this story since there is surely a lot of business modeling that we’re not aware of; however, a recurring element from several of the various commentators LEAPED OUT at us like a scary, hungry grizzly bear, like this from Comicsgirl:
• It wasn’t a magazine I read or bought regularly, but I still liked it and I’ll be sorry to see it go.
• This disappoints me for a number of reasons, which I’ll get to in a moment, but I think it’s safe to say that overall this is fairly disheartening, especially for anyone that had subscribed to the magazine. I cannot say that I was one of those people, but it’s akin to when Newtype USA was canceled; something you enjoyed every month is now missing.
•Though I was never a regular subscriber, I’m sad to see Shojo Beat get the axe.
Do you see a pattern here? Like, everyone liked it but nobody paid for it? Slight problem. Or…back to this again. There are doubtless many reasons for SHOJO BEAT’s demise based on difficulties selling certain kids of material, but it shouldn’t be forgotten that it’s just a horrific time for magazine publishing in general out there.
Evelyn Dubocq at Viz is sending out the following statement regarding SHOJO BEAT, confirming that it is ending with the July 2009 issue.
Yes, the final issue of Shojo Beat magazine will be the July 2009 issue which is on newsstands June 16th.
We are very proud of the past issues of Shojo Beat magazine and the efforts of the entire team. The magazine developed quite a fan base but unfortunately in today’s difficult economic climate we felt the need to place our resources elsewhere at this time.
Of course all of our great shojo manga titles previously serialized in Shojo Beat magazine will still be published and available as graphic novels under the Shojo Beat imprint from VIZ Media.
Each Shojo Beat Subscriber will be receiving a free copy of the August issue of Shonen Jump magazine with the pertinent information on what their subscription/refund options will be.
Subscribers and fans of shojo manga can get the latest information on all new Shojo Beat titles and news by visiting www.shojobeat.com.
Xavier Guilbert makes the chart you all wanted , showing the original Tezuka characters from ASTRO BOY side-by-side with the Urasawa remakes from PLUTO. It’s mind-boggling the degree to which Urasawa has imbued Tezuka’s chipper, cartoony characters with a sense of sinister doom and unease, but you know, that’s why they call them great.
[Link via Johanna]
§ The Beat has obtained more information on recent layoffs at Viz. The two editors laid off were long-time vet Ian Robertson and Carol Fox, who also worked at Tokyopop in the past. Several other people from production were hit, including designer Carolina Ugalde.
Despite the unrelated departure of editor Marc Weidenbaum a few weeks ago, we’re told that Viz is still moving forward with its plans for original manga.
§ News sites and Twitter were abuzz all yesterday afternoon with news that seven more staffers were laid off at Wizard magazine, including SVP Joe Yanarella, operations manager Jodie Westhoff, art director Eric Goodman, associate editor David Paggi, and staff writers Kevin Mahadeo, Rachel Molino, and Steve Sunu. Yanarella was a long time veteran at the magazine and had taken over convention operations in recent years; Benji Dejohn will now run the Chicago and Philadelphia shows. Editors Mike Cotton and Andy Serwin remain on board.
ICv2 scored an interview with CEO Gareb Shamus, who said that the cuts were part of a move to working more with freelancers:
“What we decided to do was open up our freelance budget dramatically,” he said. “We have some really amazing writers out there that we wanted to be able to bring into the magazine.”
We also asked about the changes in conventions, where Benji Dejohn is now running Wizard’s shows in Chicago and Philadelphia. “Benji has event experience in his background and he’s done a good job in sales for us,” Shamus said of the move.
Shamus also spoke to the site about increased competition from Reed Exhibitions starting a Chicago show, but pledged to stay the course.
§ Finally, as widely reported, the great newspaper crisis has claimed its first (but probably not last) victim: The Rocky Mountain News will cease publishing today after nearly 150 years. Among the 200+ staffers cut loose are editorial cartoonist Ed Stein and sports cartoonist Drew Litton.
Viz Is a last minute surprise at WonderCon:
VIZ Media has received a last minute opportunity to support the WonderCon show (sister-show to San Deigo Comic-Con) in San Francisco this weekend as an exhibitor this year.
VIZ Media will be in booth # 835 highlighting our two expanding imprints - the VIZ Signature imprint and the VIZ KIDS imprint.
VIZ Signature is the company’s dynamic outlet for classic and literary manga titles aimed at more mature and sophisticated readers - some of the titles included are 20th CENTURY BOYS, PLUTO, BLACK LAGOON and VAGABOND among others.
Also featured at the show will be VIZ Media’s VIZKIDS imprint, which is designed for younger readers.
Some of those titles to be featured at the show include; POKÉMON, LEGEND OF ZELDA, DRAGONBALL EVOLUTION Chapter Books, NARUTO Chapter Books and more
Technorati Tags: WonderCon 09
§ At PW Comics Week, Ada Price surveys s bunch of comics retailers o see how they’re doing and the old “cautious optimism” line is used again. But “selectivity” may be the word we all deal with the most in these trying times.
Much like their customers, retailers are being very careful with ordering inventory. Thornton said that in the past he would order a book, “if it looked cool, I’d try it out. Now if I’m not 100% sure [I can sell it], I don’t order it.” Meltdown Comics’ Rosa said that rather than order 100 titles, now he only orders seventy to seventy-five. Furthermore he said he is “cautious of taking chances on new things,” so instead of ten copies of a small press book, Rosa said he will cut down and take five or six.
Forbidden Planet’s Ayers echoed the others. “I’ve tempered newer stuff and take less chances, stick to the stalwarts. I’m doing my job wrong if the store is left with lots of [unsold] stuff.” Rosa concurred. “I’d rather deal with a sell out than be stuck with an expensive product that I can’t sell.”
The entire article is really must reading, as it covers what is selling in a variety of locales.
§ And David Welsh has a tidbit about Diamond’s delisting a bunch of Viz manga. It appears this was not Viz’s idea, however:
The same source also stressed “these manga titles are still being published, and will still available through other substantial channels such as Simon & Schuster, Baker & Taylor, Ingram, AAA Anime and others.”
UPDATE: Brigid Alverson goes straight to the source:
MangaBlog: Are these volumes going out of print?
Evelyn Dubocq: No.
MB: What other retail channels will carry them?
ED: Simon & Schuster, AAA Anime, Baker & Taylor, Ingram among others MB: Some of these series, such as Bastard and Prince of Tennis, are still ongoing.
Do you plan to continue releasing new volumes of these?
ED: There are no plans at this time for discontinuing these series
Tina Anderson at Gynocrat writes that Viz’s plan for original manga has been put on hold, following the departure of guiding editor Marc Weidenbaum:
Weidenbaum’s departure has been confirmed independently, but the fate of Viz’s original content line would leave a huge gap. Tokyopop’s once-aggressive original manga program has dwindled to nothing, as, for instance, a post from Becky Cloonan regarding the second volume of her well-received EAST COAST RISING makes clear:
And a lot of you are probably wondering, “Oh, Becky! When O when is East Coast Rising v2 coming out?” and to that I can only say I don’t know. I have kept quiet since they decided not to print it last year, but I’m very close to finishing it; about 30 pages away from completion, I’m just waiting on the “go” from TP. Every time I think we get close to making a deal, something happens that makes it seem like it won’t go through, so right now I’m just waiting. Hopefully I’ll have some good news about it soon, but in the meantime I’m treating it like a pet project that one day I might see printed…
Viz’s entry into the original field was seen as a huge move by the giant — and the talent is certainly there to produce some interesting books. Let’s hope the program is on hold and not scuttled.
Over at Comics Worth Reading, Ed Sizemore reviews PLUTO: URASAWA x TEZUKA, Volume 1, the mash-up reimagining of Astro Boy by Naoki Urasawa, master of the psychological thriller. PLUTO is the first great comic we’ve read in 2009, and if you find the idea of Astro Boy cloying, don’t worry. Imagine David Fincher remaking Pinocchio and you get the idea.
Let me start by saying that this series is completely accessible to any reader. You don’t need to have read any of Tezuka’s works to enjoy Pluto. However, for fans of Tezuka, like myself, there is an added pleasure of seeing one master of the manga medium interpret another. And I confess to geeking out trying to imagine how Urasawa will draw such odd-looking Astro Boy regulars as Dr. Ochanomizu (he’s the one with a nose as big as his head).
It’s a vision of robots we don’t see really see here in the West.
Urasawa takes us deep inside a world where robots are considered persons with full legal and civil rights. He does it so simply; we follow Gesicht in his day-to-day investigation of the murder cases. As Gesicht goes about his inquires we discover that robots get married, go on vacations, go to the doctor for annual physicals, are permitted to adopt human children, etc. It’s fascinating to see robots and humans interacting as equals. To see a world where robots are treated as ordinary citizens and just another part of the population. It’s a vision of robots we don’t see really see here in the West.
Related: a three-part interview with Urasawa:
Q: Do you mean that from the start of your career you’ve looked at it from the standpoint of a “producer”?
Urasawa: That might be a close description. When it comes to graphics, I’ve had an abnormal sensitivity for it since I was a kid. For example when I was in elementary school and I watched the “Star of the Giants” cartoon, I somehow knew it was done by four or five teams. I’d worry about stuff like, “If I consider the rotation, next week’s work will be by that team. Next week’s going to have some good scenes, but can that team handle it?” I was an annoying kid (laughs).
Via PR: Viz has announced a new line of SF/fantasy books. The initial rollout includes The Lord of the Sands of Time by Issui Ogawa, All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, ZOO by Otsuichi, and Usurper of the Sun by Housuke Nojiri. We are loathe to guess where anything Japanese is concerned, but these would seem to be “light novels” of the type that are immensely popular in Japan: books that usually feature a fantasy element aimed at teens and young adults. PR below:
VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry’s most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, has announced the launch of a brand-new imprint called Haikasoru, which will publish an array of contemporary Japanese science fiction (SF) and fantasy stories for English-speaking audiences. This is the first time an imprint with a dedicated focus on Japanese SF has launched in North America.
Haikasoru is scheduled to publish twelve books a year and launches in the summer of 2009 with four titles: The Lord of the Sands of Time by Issui Ogawa, All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, ZOO by Otsuichi, and Usurper of the Sun by Housuke Nojiri.
Haikasoru will be helmed by Nick Mamatas, a respected author of science fiction as well as an editor at VIZ Media. Mamatas is the author of two novels, which have been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award and Germany’s Kurd Lasswitz Prize.
“I’m thrilled to be a part of this new imprint,” says Mamatas. “Haikasoru is making history with the future. Finally, SF is going global.”
BTW, Viz has broken the comics industry wide open, debuting their incredible YELLOW BAGS at this show. Demand is high.
We will not be the only blogger this week to deny the greatness of Kazuo Umezu’s Cat Eyed Boy ! No sir. Not when Jakala, Dacey, Welsh and Mautner are doing it. No sir. Cat-Eyed Boy is disturbing and creepy and wonderful. Big ups to Viz for bringing it out in this sturdy, handsome two-volume set.
We just received this secret message from Viz….
How cool are American cartoonists? So cool that they are publishing them in Japan!
Felipe Smith (MBQ) will have a monthly series starting in Morning 2 next month. (The ads for it are reproduced above, courtesy of Ed Chavez who writes:
His manga is going to be on the cover of the June 21 issue of Morning 2 magazine (extremely rare for a debut) that will be followed by 6 color pages and around 40 pages in his first chapter.
this is incredibly rare for an American cartoonist, and shows that the cultural trade deficit is going down just a tad. Brigid has a bit more and a link to a great Myspace blog by Smith.
MEANWHILE, Chris Butcher has the scoop on Viz’s move to publish original graphic novels, via a chat with editor Marc Weidenbaum…and for those of you readying your submission, here’s some info:
[He] made it pretty clear he had no interest in submissions right now. “Maybe in a few years we’ll open it up to submissions,” said Marc. “But right now I just want to see already completed work. What you’ve done, what you’re capable of.” So if you’re sitting on the world’s best manuscript for a 3400 part serial about a new level of Super-Saiyan, can it. At least for a little while. But I do have to say that Marc seemed quite genuine about wanting to see published work and specifically mentioned webcomics, mini-comics and self-pub’d work as well as professionally published material…
Viz will not have a booth at the show but they have a manga lounge and a lot of movie screenings and panels, one featuring Stan Lee, although it is press only.
VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry’s most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, has announced its plans to participate in a variety of exhibits, special events, programming, panels and related industry roundtable discussions at the 2008 New York Comic Con, taking place April 18-20 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Manhattan. New York Comic Con has emerged as the East Coast’s biggest and most popular pop culture convention covering the latest in comics, graphic novels, anime, manga, video games, toys, movies, and television.
Stan Lee really is EVERYWHERE. Details of ULTIMO, his manga collaboration with Shamen King creator Hiroyuki Takei will be announced at New York Comic-Con. The announcement will be press only, although some fans can win seats at the panel. The series debuts the same day, April 18th, with a 32 page prologue in the first issue of the new Japanese Jump SQ and concerns two giant fighting figures — Vice and Ultimo — who hover over Farmless City and hold its fate in their hands. You can read all PR in the jump.
Viz has a 32 page preview of Takehiro Inoue’s SLAM DUNK up to read. You should.
Via John Jakala, who compares the current translation to the one from Gutsoon a few year’s back.
Codey Porter, 10, has died after playmates buried him headfirst in a sandbox — an act inspired by Naruto’s ability to bury himself in the ground. Despite the tragic and horrible circumstances — his friends buried him in fun and didn’t realize he was really in trouble when he began struggling — the initial news reports are going fairly lightly on the cartoon connection:
Among media watchdogs and those who research the effects of television on children, the anime program [Naruto] has created barely a ripple.
“To my knowledge, there is no research specifically targeting anime,” said Doug Gentile, director of research for the National Institute on Media and the Family. “But what we do know is that media in general do have a very large effect on people.”
Nor is this a modern-day problem. People have been imitating television shows since the 1950s, Gentile said, recalling how boys jumped off garage rooftops, wearing towels like capes and pretending to be Superman.
The major difference today, he said, is that violence is often portrayed more realistically than, say, the TNT bombs that characterized “The Road Runner Show” or “Tom and Jerry” cartoons of a generation ago.
“A lot of the aggression in ‘Tom and Jerry’ is not easy to copy,” Gentile said. “You won’t have access to a ball of TNT to stuff in your brother’s mouth, but you might have access to a sandbox. It’s a horrible tragedy, but it’s not surprising that at some point somebody is going to try almost anything they see.”
Viz has announced officially nine new titles for the second quarter, GUN BLAZE WEST, HARUKA: BEYOND THE STEAM OF TIME, NIGHTMARE INSPECTOR: YUMEKUI KENBUN, B.O.D.Y, FAIRY CUBE, THE RECORD OF A FALLEN VAMPIRE, ROSARIO+VAMPIRE, GIMMICK! and CAT EYED BOY. Most of these have been up on Amazon for a while, but the most interesting (to us, anyway) is probably CAT EYED BOY by horror great Kazuo Umezu. Descriptions of all nine in the jump.
Bryan Lee O’Malley unveils his cover for SHOJO BEAT and reveals several other cool things inside the magazine.
Can you say “watershed”?
But will the little girls like it?
Technorati Tags: Ameri-manga, Bryan Lee O’Malley
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