For over a year now, Yotsuba&! fans have been agitating for the sixth volume of the adventures of the little green-haired girl, but the annoucement of its imminent release came from an unexpected quarter: Yen Press, which has taken over the license for volume 6 and subsequent volumes from ADV Manga. While the Yen Press booth was one of the busiest on the floor (possibly because they were giving away free copies of Yen+ magazine), publisher Kurt Hassler took a few minutes to talk to me about how Yen snagged the license and fill in a few more details about their plans for the books. (Incidentally, Kurt pronounces the title of the book as many of the cognoscenti do: Yot-su-BAH-to, with the last syllable coming from the Japanese word for “and.”)
Yen honcho talks Yotsuba&!
The MangaBlog Interview: Glenn Kardy
“We’re a niche within a niche.”
That’s how publisher Glenn Kardy describes his company, Japanime, publisher of the Kana de Manga and Kanji de Manga language books and the Manga University how-to-draw series. Up till now, Japanime’s niche has been instruction, but this year the company is varying its line quite a bit, bringing fiction, gift books, and a new type of guidebook into the mix.
Japanime is based in Japan, with office space in a converted restaurant near Tokyo where Kardy sometimes holds meetings sitting in a tatami room. From there, he and his team produce books designed by Japanese artists to appeal to an American audience. Their newest offering, Moe USA, is a twist on global manga: An Original English Language manga by a Japanese artist.
I spoke to Kardy recently about Japanime’s new direction.
MangaBlog special: Interview with Mark Crilley
Back in July, I interviewed Mark Crilley, the creator of Akiko and, more recently, the four-volume graphic novel series Miki Falls, for this PWCW article. Mark was so interesting that I really wanted to run the interview in full—so here it is.
UPDATE: I finally got the pictures in at a reasonable size. Enjoy!
Creator Q&A: Bettina Kurkoski
Bettina Kurkoski is an artist who really loves her art—and her cats. Bettina is the creator of My Cat Loki, and she also does commissions and other art through her own company, Dreamworld Studio. I talked to her at Anime Boston about working with Tokyopop and the evolution of My Cat Loki.
Interview: Stephen Robson, Fanfare/Ponent Mon
The British publisher Fanfare/Ponent Mon has built a reputation in the U.S. for publishing the greatest manga you’ve never seen. Their books are well regarded but hard to find in bookstores, so when Publisher’s Weekly’s Kai-Ming Cha picked the Fanfare title The Building Opposite as the best manga of 2006, the reaction from the blogosphere was a resounding “Huh?”
Having been frustrated myself by hearing so many great things about books I could never seem to find, I went directly to the source: Stephen Robson, who pretty much is Fanfare. In a lengthy transatlantic chat via phone and e-mail a few weeks before NYCC, Stephen explained the difference between Fanfare and Ponent Mon, why his books are so expensive, and what it’s like being on the ground floor of the nouvelle manga revolution.
Interview with Kurt Hassler
Just before the holidays, I had the opportunity to chat with Kurt Hassler, who recently left his job as graphic novel buyer at Borders (a gig that got him named Most Powerful Person in Manga) to start a graphic novel imprint for Hachette, together with former DC VP Rich Johnson. In addition to his work on the retail and editing side, Hassler is the writer of the Tokyopop series Sokora Refugees (under the pen name Segamu) and a children’s book, Diva v. Poe.