This article from the Japan Times
provides an overview of the Manga/Graphic novels market, including
some information about the European market that doesn’t seem to get much press on many of the US comics sites when they talk about the recent explosion of manga. I had no idea that there were German shoujo manga digests.
There’s a mention of Marvel’s manga cash-in Tsunami line, which I haven’t checked out, mostly because I’d rather just read regular old manga, instead of manga-style Namor the SubMariner, even if it is partially written by Andi Watson. It will be interesting to see if the Tsunami line sells as well as tokyo pop manga when it hits the bookstores.

The author of the Japan Times article concludes,
“While I found the North American edition of “Shonen Jump” quite attractive and accompanied by lively translations (many other American manga and manga
magazines are available at Tower Records in Shibuya), the works themselves are of little interest to anyone without a Y chromosome or beyond the age of 12!”

This just makes me want to scream, because I would guess that there are plenty of girls who enjoy shonenmanga. Naruto has a huge fan network, for example. And there will be plenty of girls over 12 checking out Shonen Jump when it previews Ruroni Kenshin.

The new johnny chase commercials for T-Mobile Sidekick that have been playing over and over again on cartoon network and mtv are produced by Production IG, the folk who worked on Ghost in the Shell, Blood: the Last Vampire, and Jin-Roh. It’s the first time I’ve seen anime used as a marketing tool for such a major company, and it’ll be interesting to see if this continues as a trend. (^_^)