•Old Boy Wins Eisner Award: This year at Comic Con, manga awards were given their very own category, namely "Best U.S. Edition of International Material - Japan."
The winner during the award's first year? Old Boy, by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi, which is currently published by Dark Horse. Other nominees were After School Nightmare by Setona Mizushiro, Antique Bakery by Fumi Yoshinaga, Monster by Naoki Urasawa, and The Walking Man by Jiro Taniguchi.
Monster was also nominated for the "best continuing series" award, which was eventually won by DC's All Star Superman. Head over to ANN for news of OEL nominations and more.
[Source: Anime News Network]
•SDCC Reveals New Manga Licenses: Several publishers chose to unveil new licenses at Comic Con this year, and Anime News Network has the list. So, without further ado:
Viz Media:
Death Note: Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Case (novel)
Ral Ω Grad the Blue Dragon manga spin-off.
The Record of a Fallen Vampire
Switch
Nightmare Inspector: Yumekui Kenbun
Gun Blaze West
Slam Dunk
B.O.D.Y.
Ion
Kanshaku Dama no Yuuutsu (retitled Short-Tempered Melancholy)
Time Stranger Kyoko
Broccoli Books:
Nui!
Tokyopop:
.hack//G.U.+ (manga)
.hack//XXXX (manga)
Dark Metro (manga)
Devil's Bride (manhwa)
Fever (manhwa)
Harukaze Bitter Bop (manga)
Hotel Africa (manhwa)
J-Idol Audition (manhwa)
Kannazuki no Miko (manga)
Mamotte Shugogetten! (manga)
Martin & John (manhwa)
Monochrome Factor (manga)
Princess Chaos (manga)
Rolling (manhwa)
Shin Megami Tensei (manga)
Silver Diamond (manga)
The Third (manga)
Too Long (manhwa)
Vassalord (manga)
V.B. Rose (manga)
Your and My Secret (manga)
White Night Melody (Taiwanese Comic)
Tokyopop / Blu:
Fallen Moon (manga)
Koi cha no Osaho (manga)
Seven Seas Entertainment:
Akatsuki-iro no Senpuku Majo
Girls Life (novel)
Girls Revolution (novel)
Hayate Cross Blade
Yen Press:
Sundome
Kieli
Kaze no Hana
Del Rey Manga:
Fairy Tail
Genshiken Fan Book
Hell Girl
Me and the Devil Blues
Dark Wars: A Tale of Meiji Dracula
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Psycho Busters (light novel)
CMX Manga:
Crayon Shin-chan
Flat Earth Exchange
A Girl Who Runs Through Time
Shirley
Teru Teru Shonen
[Source: Anime News Network]
•Dark Horse and CLAMP reveal "Mangettes": Every so often, you wish manga-ka and their publishers over in Japan would acknowledge their international readership more than they currently do. While the rest of the world does eventually end up receiving a large quantity of manga from Japan translated into English and other languages, we tend to end up getting the short end of the stick when it comes to publication schedules. Often, the best series won't make their way overseas until about six or seven months after being published in Japan.
The reasons for this are fairly obvious. Translating, editing, printing, publishing ... it all takes a good deal of time. But what if a collaboration between a manga-ka and an overseas publisher was to be formed beforehand? Would that help make things better? Dark Horse seems to think so.
Dark Horse joins with world-renowned creators CLAMP to welcome fans into a new era of manga
Last year Dark Horse celebrated its twentieth anniversary of publishing original graphic works by some of the world’s greatest creators. Next year, Dark Horse celebrates their twentieth anniversary of publishing manga in English. This year, at San Diego Comic-Con Dark Horse is proud to announce that these two commitments held for so long have come together. Dark Horse will have the honor of publishing a new original manga created by Satsuki Igarashi, Mokona, Tsubaki Nekoi and Ageha Ohkawa.—the manga-ka all-female supergroup known to their millions of fans worldwide as CLAMP. These four brilliant writers and artists work together to produce award-winning, best-selling manga, including RG VEDA, X, Chobits, Tsubasa, and xxxHOLiC.
CLAMP’s original manga with Dark Horse will be launched simultaneously in the United States, Japan, and Korea. The story will come out in a small digest consisting of about eighty pages each, which will then be collected into trade paperbacks with bonus material. CLAMP and Dark Horse are coining the bilingual term Mangettes to describe this innovative new format for manga distribution. This digest format, or Mangette, signifies CLAMP's personal wish to reach their large international readership by now speaking to them directly as artists through Dark Horse, and on a basis of equality with their Japanese fans.
CLAMP and Dark Horse chose the term Mangettes to describe this revolutionary format, whose Japanese pronunciation, mangetsu, means “the full moon.” The two kanji in mangetsu also have the individual meanings of “fulfilled” and “monthly,” reflecting what will be a monthly appearance of each CLAMP Mangette.
According to CLAMP, “Mangettes are a completely brand new experience for us, too, and we’re really happy to be working on this. And we’re really looking forward to the day when we can bring you this new story from CLAMP, and the day when we can meet our fans face-to-face to hear what you think about Mangettes!”
“Dark Horse has made original comics for over twenty years; our editors have seen the hard work of individual Japanese creators in every manga we’ve ever brought over. Now we’re going to work just as hard to meet the trust CLAMP has placed in Dark Horse to publish their original work,” explains Mike Richardson, president and founder of Dark Horse. “Thanks to CLAMP, Dark Horse is today a manga publisher in a complete sense. After two decades of experience in adapting licensed editions of manga released previously by Japanese publishers, we will now become the original publisher of CLAMP, creators at the top of the manga world.”
Soon to come, details on CLAMP’s exciting new story.
