As you all know, the manga blogosphere exploded yesterday with the news that Fantagraphics is launching a new manga line, edited and curated by Matt Thorn. Thorn is widely acknowledged as the west’s leading authority on shojo manga, particularly the works of The Year 24 Group/Magnificent ‘49ers, very little of which has ever been translated into English.

For shojo fans (and indeed serious manga fans as a whole) this announcement is beyond exciting, a fact plainly demonstrated by the massive outpouring of joy between manga bloggers and fans yesterday afternoon on Twitter. Many have expressed speechlessness over the news. At The Manga Curmudgeon, David Welsh is keeping a running list of blog reactions and official news.

In the wake of the initial announcement, both Fantagraphics and Matt Thorn have come forward with further details, including a list of stories Read more…

I’m sure by now everyone has heard the news about Nick Simmons’ alleged (and meticulously documented) plagiarism in his fledgling comic, Incarnate. For those who haven’t, Deb Aoki has a collection of links and Twitter conversations here in her blog. As you’ll see from her post, discussion of plagiarism has segued into discussion of piracy. I was foolish enough to wade into the comments section yesterday evening, which turned out to be frustrating, exhausting, and really nothing else.

As I mentioned to someone later on Twitter, I was not nearly as anti-scanlation when I entered the conversation as I was when I left. In the end, the pro-scanlation crowd had turned me against them to the point where I not only could no longer see any merit in what they were saying, but was frankly disgusted by the idea of being part of the same fan community. I have some examples to share, but first, a confession: Read more…