Gonzalo Ferreyra upped to VP Sales, Publishing & Home Video. He replaces Dudley Jahnke, who left last month. Moneka Hewlett is also now Director of Sales, Publishing, Sales, and Brian Ige
has been promoted to Director Of Sales, Home Video

Ferreyra assumes his new position immediately and will oversee all VIZ Media’s book publishing and home video sales efforts in North America and Canada. He will continue to report directly to VIZ Media’s President and CEO, Hidemi Fukuhara. In addition to Ferreyra’s promotion, Brian Ige, formerly Sales Manager, has been named Director of Sales, Home Video, and Moneka Hewlett has joined the publishing division as Director of Sales. Previously Hewlett held the Director of Consumer Marketing position for VIZ Media’s Magazines Division. Both Ige and Hewlett will report to Ferreyra.

Ferreyra brings to VIZ Media over 16 years of experience in the book publishing industry, and was previously Director of Sales for Home Video with VIZ Media. Prior to joining VIZ Media, he served as Director of Sales and Marketing for Ten Speed Press. His background includes working at Borders Group, Inc. in various capacities including Buyer and Associate Director of Bargain and Custom Publishing.

“We are pleased and excited to have Gonzalo Ferreyra take on this new critical role at VIZ Media,” states Hidemi Fukuhara, CEO of VIZ Media. “He has demonstrated and proven his expertise in handling the sales arena, and he will no doubt be as much of an asset on the publishing side as he was on home video. We are confident that these changes in the Sales department will continue to strengthen our partnerships with retailers and our distributor, Simon & Schuster, as we continue to build the future of Japanese manga throughout the world.”

“I am very excited to take on this new responsibility given my background in publishing sales,” adds Ferreyra. “Manga is the fastest growing arena in the publishing industry, and it’s great to be part of the continued growth of such best-selling titles as NARUTO, BLEACH and DEATH NOTE. The changes in the sales department, with Brian Ige and Moneka Hewlett moving into their new roles, will allow us to focus more clearly on the two product categories and better serve our retail partners. The wealth and diversity of all our titles allows us to grow and develop manga as a category and to continue to develop new readers for our shojo titles and key imprints. I look forward to making a substantial contribution to VIZ Media’s success on the publishing side while continuing to grow our home video business.”

Publishers Weekly has word of a personnel shift at VIZ:

Dudley Jahnke has left Viz Media and Viz CEO Hidemi Fukuhara has taken over his duties overseeing sales and marketing at the manga publishing house. Gonzalo Ferreyra will take over direct responsibility for book and DVD sales and will report to Fukuhara.

After a long search, DC has hired a VP for trade sales, Publishers Weekly reports. Sue Pohja, former v-p of trade sales for Langenscheidt Publishers, Inc. takes the post vacated by Rich Johnson, who left in June.

Pohja will also work with DC Direct, DC’s merchandising unit, to oversee sales and marketing of toys and collectibles to book and mass market retailers.

V-p of sales, Bob Wayne, who Pohja will be reporting to, told PW she was hired for her background in “fast-growing product categories,” and her ability to “provide suggestions to buyers on how to market, merchandise and promote in new, break-out ways.”

While Pohja has been responsible for sales and marketing for such Langenscheidt lines as Berlitz Travel and Reference and Insight Travel Guides, she also has book retailing experience. Prior to joining Langenscheidt, she was a buyer and store manager at Barnes and Noble.

Marc Weidenbaum, an early comics mole over at Tower Pulse! where he edited the back page comic strips, has been named Vice President Magazines and Editor-in-Chief of SHONEN JUMP Magazine and SHOJO BEAT Magazine, according to a press release at Active Anime.

Marc Weidenbaum started at VIZ Media as the Managing Editor of SHONEN JUMP and was promoted to Editorial Director, when he helped launch the successful NARUTO Collector series of magazines. Previous to joining VIZ Media he was an Editorial Director at Citysearch.com and editor at Pulse!, the magazine published by Tower Records, where among other things he edited the comics pages for a decade and founded Tower’s first online publication. He has edited comics that have appeared in such books as Adrian Tomine’s Scrapbook (Drawn & Quarterly) and Justin Green’s Musical Legends (Last Gasp). He also wrote the afterword for VIZ Media’s award-winning manga SEXY VOICE AND ROBO.

The Honolulu Star Bulletin look at Akira Toriyama’s DR. SLUMP. Toriyama is best known for creating the international blockbuster DARGON BALL Z, but his earlier creation, DR. SLUMP, is intelligible to even the more casual reader, a sometimes vulgar and yet warm comedy about a wacky doctor who creates a little girl robot — hijinks ensue, but because they live in a town populated by an amazing assortment of oddballs, the invention never flags.

[E]ven if Toriyama had never created “Dragon Ball,” his career still probably would have been deemed a success in the eyes of his Japanese audience. The reason: a pair of characters named after Japanese rice crackers, Dr. Senbei Norimaki and his robot girl, Arale Norimaki. (Yes, the name technically should be “AraRE,” but Toriyama’s drawings of her show her name written on her cap and bag in English with an “L” instead of the second “R.”)

“Dr. Slump,” which ran in Weekly Shonen Jump in Japan from 1980 to 1984 and now is being translated and released in America by Viz, was Toriyama’s breakout hit. Unlike the harder-edged action/sci-fi tone that much of the “Dragon Ball” series takes, “Dr. Slump” has a much more lighthearted feel to it. When the first page shows Arale’s head yawning while on the assembly table and saying “Bo-ring” as Senbei works on her, you know you’re in for quite a ride.