Precocious Curmudgeon

May 2, 2008

Librarians rule

Filed under: Contests and giveaways, Linkblogging — davidpwelsh @ 2:31 pm

If you can’t make it to your local comic shop for Free Comic Book Day, you can catch the spirit all month long over at Dave Carter’s Yet Another Comic Blog. He’s sponsoring his fourth annual Free Comic Book Month:

“That’s right, free comics! Each day of May I’ll pick someone to receive a free comic, taken from my personal collection: duplicates, things I have in trades, and other stuff. My goal is to match up people with a comic that they haven’t read but that they may like. My tastes are wide and varied, so chances are I’ve got a comic for you.”

Go take a look!

April 30, 2007

Because a day just isn’t long enough

Filed under: Contests and giveaways, Linkblogging — davidpwelsh @ 11:22 am

Dave Carter has kicked off his third annual Free Comic Book Month at Yet Another Comics Blog:

“That’s right, free comics! Each day of May I’ll pick someone to receive a free comic, taken from my personal collection: duplicates, things I have in trades, and other stuff. My goal is to match up people with a comic that they haven’t read but that they may like. My tastes are wide and varied, so chances are I’ve got a comic for you.”

It’s easy to enter and fun to read Dave’s announcements of who’s receiving what and why.

March 11, 2007

Stars search

Filed under: Contests and giveaways, Tokyopop — davidpwelsh @ 4:59 pm

There’s some really solid work in Tokyopop’s Rising Stars of Manga People’s Choice competition. Some entries have lovely, accomplished art, and others have nicely crafted, imaginative scripts and stories. These are my five favorites, though:

Ares Maier by Daniel Lucas Cross: It’s great-looking and makes really good use of the short format. I particularly admire how well Cross pulled off the twist ending.

B is for Bishie by Margaux Hymel and Russell Herrick: Superb teamwork from Hymel and Herrick here, combining a perversely funny premise with pitch-perfect art. It got my vote.

Bloomfield Memory by Yujin Chung Moon: The premise is familiar, but Moon executes it with style, verve and sincerity, and the art is just breathtaking.

Minion by Alyssa Farris: Steam of consciousness and dream logic are difficult to evoke in a coherent narrative, but Farris seems to have just the artistic arsenal to pull it off.

The Cacti Boys by Sarah Adams and Christine Wu: Of all of the submissions that suggested a larger narrative, this is the one where I really want to know what happens next.

March 12 is the last day to vote.

March 8, 2007

On the Rising

Filed under: Contests and giveaways, Linkblogging, Tokyopop — davidpwelsh @ 10:06 am

Brigid has the details on Tokyopop’s seventh Rising Stars of Manga Competition, and there are some aspects of this year’s event that really jumped out at me.

“Eight winners will share equal prizes, taking the top spot in one of eight different genre-based categories: Action, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Romance or Sci-Fi.”

This strikes me as a terrific idea. All of these genres require different skill sets and showcase talents in unique ways, and it seems like it will give Tokyopop a chance to compare apples to apples. (And even among apples, there’s still tremendous variety. Pink Ladies! Grannies Smith! Golden Delicious!) It still must have been kind of mind-bending to categorize them, What if somebody submits a comedy-fantasy-romance? Or a horror-sci-fi-mystery? Maybe they should add an “Uncategorizable Fusion” genre next year.

It’s pretty amazing that the competition has grown to the point that they have enough submissions to present eight different $1,000 awards, plus $500 for the People’s Choice. Twenty-four finalists are vying for the People’s Choice prize, and you can view them and vote here.

Now I just have to overcome my archaic resistance to reading comics online to sample the contestants’ work.

March 2, 2007

Quick manga links

At MangaBlog, Brigid chats with Yen Press guru Kurt Hassler about the imprint’s possible manga magazine and other schemes so crazy they just might work.

TangognaT is celebrating the fourth anniversary of her blog by giving away some awesome books.

The Beat points to T. Campbell’s sum-up of the webcomics panel at the New York Comic Con, with plenty of focus on Netcomics and its business model. The recently announced Netcomics/Yaoi Press partnership is one of the things that has (not safe for work) Simon Jones wondering if digital delivery’s time has finally come.

Boy, I categorized the hell out of this one, didn’t I? Fear my flagrant abuse of WordPress functionalities!

January 1, 2007

Starting the new year right

Filed under: Contests and giveaways, Vertical — davidpwelsh @ 1:56 pm

Just when I thought I couldn’t be any fonder of Vertical, I learn from ChunHyang’s blog that they’re giving away some galley copies of To Terra.

October 28, 2006

Waiting for the trade?

Filed under: Contests and giveaways, Media, Sales — davidpwelsh @ 1:51 pm

Simon Jones notes a MangaNews translation of an article on the current state of the Japanese manga market: floppies down, trade paperbacks up. (Okay, maybe you can’t really call manga magazines “floppies” from a purely structural perspective, but you know what I mean.)

I always thought that the magazines were a loss leader — cheaply produced and designed as a driver for the profit-generating tankoubons. Still, that figure — a 70% decline in magazine sales since 1995 — is kind of heart-stopping, isn’t it? In addition to a resurgence of rental stores and used book shops, the article points to a couple of different forces:

“The reduction of the tendency of the manga magazine sales confirms that there is a flow of manga readers turning to tankobon. Whether it be to school or work, the manga magazine market may have been taken up by a more mobile content market. On the other hand, mobile phone manga delivery service has enlarged. The mobile phone market will probably be significant to the future manga markets.”

So are cell phones replacing the printed anthology? Is this another step towards the paperless society? Or at least the cheap-paperless society?

*

Oh, and you have until 8 a.m. tomorrow to enter Tom Spurgeon’s Ode to Kirihito contest.

October 25, 2006

Kirihito contest

Filed under: Contests and giveaways, Vertigo — davidpwelsh @ 7:59 am

Tom Spurgeon is giving away copies of Vertical’s no-doubt peerlessly produced edition of Osamu Tezuka’s Ode to Kirihito. That is all.

October 20, 2006

Friday mangablogging

Filed under: Bookstores, Contests and giveaways, Linkblogging — davidpwelsh @ 12:18 pm

There are two recent reviews up from Brigid at MangaBlog. First up is Kye Young Chon’s Audition from DramaQueen. Second is David Roman’s Astronaut Elementary from Cryptic Press.

MangaCast’s Ed Chavez looks at some character-driven manga: Saijyo Shinji’s Iron Wok Jan! (DrMaster), Kaoru Mori’s Emma (CMX), and Key Young Chon’s DVD (DramaQueen).

Speaking of MangaCast, they’re sponsoring a contest. Simply imagine your imminent death, dredge up your most profound regret, and maybe win a copy of Reborn! (Viz – Shonen Jump Advanced). This is the point where I should say, “Enter now, or you’ll regret it for the rest of your life!”

The love for Drifting Classroom (Viz – Signature) keeps on coming, this time from Katherine Dacey-Tsuei at PopCultureShock.

ChunHyang sees people who see dead people in the second installment of a pre-Halloween manga spook-a-thon, mentioning many of my favorites in the process.

And now a question that comes from an e-mail conversation I was having with John Jakala. In your experience, which chain bookstore has the best manga selection? I find Barnes & Noble reliable, and the local Books-a-Million oddly always has the largest selection of Juné books, but for variety and selection, I’d have to vote for the Borders up in Pittsburgh. Of course it’s an hour away.

Edited to add: It sells a bajillion copies, but it doesn’t get reviewed that often. Bill Sherman takes a look at “the loudmouthed spud,” Naruto (Viz - Shonen Jump), at Pop Culture Gadabout.

October 7, 2006

Love manhwa

Filed under: Contests and giveaways, DramaQueen, IceKunion, Netcomics — davidpwelsh @ 2:32 am

David Taylor at Love Manga wants to introduce you to the wonderful world of manhwa. He’s sponsoring a Manhwa Competition, and all you have to do is tell him why you want the titles that are up for grabs from publishers like DramaQueen, Ice Kunion, and NETCOMICS.

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