Welcome to another Manhwa Monday! With June now upon us, it’s time to take a look at what’s coming out in print this month. It’s a fairly lean month for manhwa, but there are some real goodies in the bunch.
First of all, from NETCOMICS, comes the debut print volume of There’s Something About Sunyool, the latest from Youngran Lee, author of Click and a host of other NETCOMICS titles. Like 100% Perfect Girl, Sunyool is being released simultaneously in the US and Korea. This kind of arrangement is something Japanese manga fans have been begging for, yet NETCOMICS seems to have received very little attention for their trouble.
And speaking of 100% Perfect Girl, its final volume (11) comes out in print this month as well. Though this title is not a favorite of mine, it (like Sunyool) is yet another manhwa series for grownup women in NETCOMICS’ catalogue, something else they’ve been very generous about with not much fanfare. For those who still haven’t noticed, check out these titles, plus 10, 20, and 30, Full House, Please, Please Me, and Small-Minded Schoolgirls.
Yen Press also offers up two titles this month, both personal favorites. First, volume seven of Very! Very! Sweet, a quirky, adorable sunjeong series that easily lives up to its name. Who doesn’t love a girls’ comics heroine whose most defining traits are extreme frugality and a love of cats? Also quirky and adorable is volume four of 13th Boy, the only comic I know of featuring a talking cactus who occasionally transforms into a love-struck teen boy.
This week in reviews, Julie Opipari looks at volume one of Raiders (Yen Press) at Newsarama. Susan S. checks out volume six of Very! Very! Sweet at Manga Jouhou. And at Comic Attack, Kristin Bomba reviews volume four of Sarasah.
Also, some very sad news. Last week, Francis Metcalfe, known online as Tiamat’s Disciple, passed away after a long battle with cancer. TD was one of just a handful of manga reviewers who regularly reviewed manhwa, and he was linked to often from this column. He will be greatly missed. Brigid Alverson has more information at MangaBlog. You can also find my short, obituary-like writeup at Examiner.com.
That’s all for this week. Don’t forget to read up for this month’s Manhwa Moveable Feast!
Is there something I’ve missed? Leave your manhwa-related links in comments!
Hak Foo says
June 8, 2010 at 10:05 pmMy 24 won: Honestly, one thing which burned me on Netcomics is the lack of a clear future for a given series. Online? Print? Who can say? I liked Emperor’s Castle; tracked down the three volumes they printed, including one with a religious tract and a strong smell of head-shop stuck inside, then found I’m expected to rent the rest on my PC. I don’t like the format jump— mostly the ‘rent’ aspect, so I will remain stalled in Chunhoo’s story forever.
They should do a deal with Lala or something to allow a print-on-demand copy for the physical-book obsessed; I’d pay $13 or so for a one-off.
Melinda Beasi says
June 8, 2010 at 10:09 pmActually, I’d love it if they started a print-on-demand deal as well. I have been pretty content to read things on their website, but I’m a big re-reader and I don’t like the time limit on the rental.
Ahavah says
June 10, 2010 at 3:32 pmUgh! I’ve been waiting for print versions of “Two Will Come” forever…releasing a few print volumes and then making the rest of those series available online-only is a big tease, and exactly the opposite of what all the other publishers (namely, Viz) are doing these days. I’d love to read more of their manga, but not being able to get a prnt copy of a book (especially when my main source of manga/manwha are public libraries) is a big, frusterating pain.
On another note, when are those promised omnibus editions of Goong coming out? I heard about them a while back; is there a definite release date yet? Thanks!
Melinda Beasi says
June 11, 2010 at 7:31 amI suspect that NETCOMICS’ reluctance to put things out in print is due to small demand. The more we talk these titles up, the better chance we’ll have of seeing print runs!
I don’t have info on the Goong omnibus at the moment, but let me see what I can some up with. I’ll let you know!