Digital Manga Has Trip for Aspiring Manga Creators

A press release from Digital Manga Publishing's "Pop Travel Japan":

Pop Japan Travel Presents “The Mind Over Manga Tour” for Aspiring Manga Artists & Art Lovers”

Pop Japan Travel, originator of the best pop-culture tours of Japan, is excited to announce the tour that every manga lover should join, the Mind Over Manga tour. On this amazing tour, you'll get to visit the land where manga originated, and go to a manga cultural event like no other, Comitia 90! At Comitia, amateur and professional artists alike create and sell their own manga called "doujinshi", and you can see the up and coming stars of Japan right there! Tour attendees can even make their own doujinshi to sell at Comitia, and Pop Japan Travel will take care of the table space and booth costs for it's attendees so that they can sell their own books to the Comitia 90 audience! Even if you don't make your own doujinshi, there's tons of things at Comitia to keep you occupied, and Pop Japan Travel will even make arrangements to visit a hot spring, or do some shopping once you've had your fill of the convention.

On the tour you'll also get to see the Toei Animation gallery, as well as do some shopping in pop-culture meccas Shibuya and Harajuku! On the optional tour extension* to Kyoto, you'll get to visit the amazing Osamu Tezuka Museum, to see amazing works by the proclaimed "Godfather of Manga". The Mind Over Manga Tour is a ton of fun, and you can check out the tour memories from last year on the Pop Japan Travel site under Tour Memories (http://www.popjapantravel.com/tours/memories)

The Mind Over Manga Tour takes place from November 11th-20th, and you still have time to sign up and join the fun! The tour signup deadline is October 9th, so don't miss the opportunity to join a group of fellow manga lovers, artists, and pop culture aficionados to participate in a cultural event that has been captured in multiple manga, and regarded the world over. The Mind Over Manga tour is $1988 plus tax and fuel charge. Or you can meet the tour group in Japan for a land only price of $1598. Contact Pop Japan Travel for more information at travel@popjapantravel.com, or visit us online at http://www.popjapantravel.com/!

Pop Japan Travel looks forward to having you join us for an amazing time in Japan.

DIGITAL MANGA'S POP JAPAN TRAVEL is the original and premiere provider of pop culture themed tours of Japan. Since 2003, PJT has operated more than 15 tours with themes focused on Japanese anime, manga, games and more. Pop Japan tours offer a careful balance of the hyper-modern world of J-pop culture and the rich traditions of ancient Japan, and PJT is the ONLY tour agency to provide exclusive experiences such as visits to anime and game studios, meetings with manga artists, and more. Pop Japan Travel tours are organized in cooperation with IACE Travel, one of Japan's largest travel agencies.

*Tour extension subject to extra charge. Contact Pop Japan Travel for more information.

Ku Klux Klowns, indeed

Truthout's William Rivers Pitt offers his usual excellent, pithy writing in his essay, Ku Klux Klown. It's about that ridiculous 9/12 rally, anti-tax (really anti-Black President ) protest put together by corporate pimp, Dick Armey, and championed by sobriety trainwreck, Glenn Beck.

Highlights:

Well, nobody said you have to be smart in order to become a hero to the far right. In fact, it helps to be dumber than a sack of hair, if only to match wits with the kind of people who were marching this weekend holding signs that read "Bury Obamacare With Kennedy." Stay classy, GOP.

Frum was being nice, actually, because he knows better than anyone what took place in Washington this weekend. It was a Klan rally minus the bedsheets and torches. These people don't even have enough shame to hide their faces anymore. If more Republicans like Frum don't come forward to denounce such activities from their right flank, that right flank is going to finish the job of taking over the GOP, and hard as it is to believe, this kind of obnoxious craziness is going to seem quaint by comparison to what will be coming next.

A Progression Christian on Regressive Christians

I'm diggin on this article at the Religious Dispatches website, written by Peter Laarman, on the "religion of whiteness." HA!

A highlight on nostalgia: A time when white men [could] take certain things for granted, like the right to be ill-informed and obtuse but still receive deference and some degree of social privilege.

Go. Read.

Hey, Kids! New Yu-Gi-Oh!

I just finished Yu-Gi-Oh! R, Volume 1 (Yu-Gi-Oh! (Graphic Novels))

I posted a review at the Comic Book Bin. I have to admit that I wasn't crazy about getting this in a box of review copies from VIZ Media's PR guy. When I first looked at the book, all I really noticed was the big "R." It took me a while to realize that it was a Yu-Gi-Oh! book; then, I was really in a bind. Ugh! Yu-Gi-Oh!

But I gave it a chance. I have to say that I wouldn't mind reading more...as long as I got them free. Ha!

More Jack Kirby Estate Links

Jack Kirby's heirs (his four children) are seeking to reclaim the copyrights on the characters Kirby co-created for Marvel Comics back in the early 1960's as reported by several sources last week. Here, are some more links related to that story:

Kevin Melrose of Robot 6 at Comic Book Resources:
http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2009/09/jack-kirbys-heirs-seek-to-reclaim-copyrights-to-some-marvel-characters/
Melrose update:
http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2009/09/confirmed-jack-kirbys-heirs-want-a-piece-of-spider-man/

Nat Gertler on the bad assumptions about the Kirby estate's rights reclamation efforts: http://www.gertler.com/nat/tv/?p=1425

The Hollywood Reporter's blog:
http://www.heatvisionblog.com/2009/09/jack-kirby-lawsuit-details.html

I Reads You Review: LOVE SHARE (YAOI)

Creator: Aoi Kujyou

Publishing Information: June Manga, paperback, 198 pages, $12.95 (US)

Ordering Numbers: ISBN: 978-1-56970-759-3 (ISBN-13); 1-56970-759-6 (ISBN-10)

Boys’ love (or “BL”) is a genre of manga for women, although some stories are appropriate for teen readers. BL depicts love between two male characters. Boys’ love has two subsets: shounen-ai stories depict romantic love; yaoi also portrays romantic love between males, but is generally graphic in its depiction of sexuality.

Love Share is a yaoi manga from creator Aoi Kujyou. This story of ex-lovers does feature depictions of both romance and sexuality, but I’d call those depictions more rowdy than graphic. The two leads seem caught in a storm of passions, and like a passing storm, Love Share ebbs and flows in its powers to be engaging and gripping.

Love Share is the story of Matsuyama Kazushi and his on-again, off-again love Izumi Ogiwara. Kazushi has always been level-headed and hard-working. Izumi came into Kazushi’s life when he was still in high school, and while Kazushi may never have wanted his life to be taken over by the carefree rogue, he couldn’t resist Izumi. However, Izumi likes to run away when things get serious.

As the first chapter begins, one of Izumi’s lovers has confronted him, which Kazushi, now Izumi’s ex, witnesses. Suddenly, Izumi seizes the opportunity to be back in Kazushi’s life, and Kazushi reluctantly, at first, allows the fires of their passion to burn again. After a strange phone call, Izumi disappears again, but this time there seems to be more to it than just Izumi’s need to leave before a relationship turns serious. Kazushi is determined to solve the mystery, because if he doesn’t, he believes that whatever is troubling Izumi might make him leave for good.

It’s nice that Aoi Kujyou is willing to take a basic plot – a young man restarts a relationship with his ex-lover – and turn it into something more – the reason for the lover’s failure to commit are not shallow. The problem is that Kujyou isn’t willing to engage the potential in her story. She might establish motivation, but she executes the story in a way that conveys impressions rather than character and drama.

It’s even in the graphix (sequential art as storytelling). Kujyou draws vistas in which figures morph into cityscapes into sketchy close-ups of the characters. There are pages in which the individual panels look like stills from a flashy music video, depicting a torrid love scene. Love Share features elegant graphic design and the compositions emphasize style over drama. Love Story is as pretty as it could be, but it is not all it can be.

B- is the grade for Love Share (Yaoi)

Del Rey Manga Info on "The Secret Saturdays" Film-Comics

Press release from Del Rey Manga:

THE SECRET SATURDAYS: THE KUR STONE – PART 1

After the successful debut of the Ben 10 Alien Force and Bakugan Battle Brawlers film-comics in Fall 2008, Cartoon Network Enterprises and Del Rey Manga are bringing the hit property, The Secret Saturdays, to comics form with THE SECRET SATURDAYS: THE KUR STONE PART 1.

Christina Miller, vice president, Cartoon Network Enterprises says, “The Secret Saturdays features great animation and action, two qualities that lend themselves to a rich publishing program. As a key part of the brand’s consumer products launch this fall, we look forward to building on the success we have had to date with Del Rey Manga to create a strong The Secret Saturdays publishing program.”

The Secret Saturdays series, which debuted in October 2008, found its home on Cartoon Network’s “Action Fridays” animation block, and its combination of family life, fantastical creatures, and action-packed adventures appealed to a large audience. The Saturdays, a family of cryptozoologists, dedicate themselves to protecting secret artifacts and mysterious, hidden monsters, cryptids, across the world. Their adventures – which take them from ancient ruins to bottomless caves – have led to encounters with some of the weirdest and wildest creatures on the planet. In THE SECRET SATURDAYS: THE KUR STONE PART 1, Zak Saturday and his parents, Doc and Drew, must rely on their powers and their knowledge of cryptids to stop the nefarious V.V. Argost from recovering the dreadful Kur Stone, and stop him from unleashing an ancient evil on the world.

“With its rich characters and intriguing stories, The Secret Saturdays is the latest Cartoon Network series to achieve widespread international popularity,” says Mutsumi Miyazaki, director of licensing and acquisitions for Del Rey Manga. “We believe that this new film-comic will bring new fans to The Secret Saturdays, and we look forward to building further success for the franchise while expanding our strong partnership with Cartoon Network.”

The Secret Saturdays 1: The Kur Stone

Del Rey Manga

August 25, 2009

ISBN 978-0-345-51694-7; $7.99 [END]