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Posts Tagged Vertical Inc

Chi’s Sweet Home’s Konami Kanata Announced As Guest at TCAF 2012

By Lissa Pattillo on Saturday, March 17, 2012

After a couple days of teasing, Toronto Comic Arts Fest has officially announced that the creator of Chi’s Sweet Home, Konami Kanata, will be a special guest at this year’s TCAF! Her visit to the Toronto-based event, marking her first trip to North America, is being arranged with the support of Vertical Inc who is publishing Chi’s Sweet Home in English.

“Konami Kanata will appear at TCAF on Saturday May 5^th and Sunday May 6^th 2012, at Toronto Reference Library. She will have a signing session each day at the Vertical Inc. booth, and will participate in programming each day. In addition, Ms. Kanata will be participating in a special event supporting the Tohoku Region, on the evening of Saturday May 5^th, with details to follow.” – TCAF Press Release

The Toronto Comics Art Festival is a free-to-attend event that brings in comic creators from around the world to display their works and interact with readers. Last year the event had two special manga guests – Usamaru Furuya and Natsume Ono. I’ll be attending the event again this year to stock up on amazing comics and prints, plus now hopefully be able to share a Konami Kanta spotlight as well. See you in Toronto this May, fellow TCAF-ers!

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Categories: News
Tags: Canada, Conventions, Manga, TCAF, Vertical Inc

PR: Announcing Konami Kanata at TCAF 2012

By Lissa Pattillo on Friday, March 16, 2012

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The Beguiling and Vertical Inc. present

Konami Kanata at TCAF 2012
The Toronto Comic Arts Festival welcomes the renowned creator of Chi’s Sweet Home manga!

The Toronto Comic Arts Festival 2012
At The Toronto Reference Library,789 Yonge Street
Saturday, May 5th, 9am-5pm
Sunday May 6th, 11am-5pm
Free Admission

WWW.TORONTOCOMICS.COM

TORONTO, Ontario– The Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) is excited to announce that internationally renowned manga creator Konami Kanata, author of the New York Times Bestselling Manga Chi’s Sweet Home, will appear at TCAF 2012 on May 5th and 6th! Kanata will make her first-ever North American appearance at TCAF 2012 in support of Chi’s Sweet Home, and she will be on panels, signing books, and participating in a special benefit fundraiser for the Tokhoku Region of Japan, still hard-hit following the great earthquake and tidal wave in March of last year. Kanata appears with the support of her North American publisher Vertical Inc., and TCAF sponsor The Beguiling Books & Art.

“Kanata-sensei’s work is really wonderful,” says TCAF Director Christopher Butcher. “While Chi’s Sweet Home is, on the surface, a series about an adorable kitten, in Japan it runs in a somewhat-edgy magazine aimed at adult men and women. The stories have a surprising resonance. While kids have immediately taken to this cute little Japanese cat, Kanata-sensei’s skill really makes these stories unique, and even occasionally profound. It will be an honour to meet her.”

Konami Kanata is a 25+ year veteran of Japan’s manga industry, with dozens of volumes of work that have sold millions of copies, and the characters of Chi’s Sweet Home alone have been adapted into two daily animated TV series, a number of merchandise lines, and even video games! Chi’s Sweet Home was also nominated for the Best Youth Comic Award at the Angouleme Festival in 2011. 8 volumes of Chi’s Sweet Home have been published in English by Vertical Inc., 7 of which are New York Times Bestsellers.

“Ms. Kanata was interested in coming to TCAF to meet all of her many North American fans, and to speak in support of the devastated Tohoku region of Japan,” continued Butcher. “This is also a very important cause to me personally, and so we are planning a number of initiatives including a special evening event to help raise funds on the weekend of TCAF.”

Konami Kanata will appear at TCAF on Saturday May 5th and Sunday May 6th 2012, at Toronto Reference Library. She will have a signing session each day at the Vertical Inc. booth, and will participate in programming each day. In addition, Ms. Kanata will be participating in a special event supporting the Tohoku Region, on the evening of Saturday May 5th, with details to follow.

Otaku USA: On The Shelf – March 7, 2012

By Lissa Pattillo on Friday, March 9, 2012

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Yikes, where did the week go?! For that matter where is the year going… can you believe it’s already mid-March? I’m not sure I can. At least there’s always the weekly manga buying trips to keep things evened out – time may be zipping by fast but I never seem to be able to get myself to the store fast enough to sate the need for new books.

This week’s shipping list can be seen in my On The Shelf article for Otaku USA. Highlights include a new shoujo series from Viz Media – The Early and Fairy – and the end of one of my personal favourites, Twin Spica, from Vertical Inc. For the omnibus lovers out there, two shoujo series are also returning in their new, extra value-ridden formats this week – Skip Beat! and Hana Kimi.

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Categories: Features, News, On The Shelf, Release Lists
Tags: Kodansha Comics, Manga, Otaku USA, Skip Beat, Vertical Inc, Viz Media

Otaku USA: On The Shelf – February 29, 2012

By Lissa Pattillo on Thursday, March 1, 2012

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I’m still reeling over the last volume of XXXHolic (not bad… but not good?) so it’ll be nice to read some new books this week and give my brain something else to compute for a while. I’ve been doing some much needed early Spring-pruning of my bookshelves too so what better time to fill them back up again?

With some new BL from Digital Manga, the final volume of No Longer Human from Vertical Inc. and a new volume of Gate 7 from Dark Horse (don’t let me down, CLAMP!), we’ve got plenty to choose from and those are just my personal favourites. The full list of shipping titles is in this week’s On The Shelf article for Otaku USA.

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Categories: Features, News, On The Shelf, Release Lists
Tags: CLAMP, Dark Horse, Gate 7, June, Kodansha Comics, Manga, Otaku USA, Vertical Inc

Diamond Manga Previews: February 2012

By Lissa Pattillo on Wednesday, February 29, 2012

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I was a bit late picking up my Previews magazine this month so my apologies to the two of you who were wondering where the heck my second installment of Previews was (I kid! …don’t I?). So here I am taking advantage of that extra day – Happy Leap Day! This month’s previews didn’t have as much manga content as January’s but still lots of fun stuff to look forward to and order in at our local comic stores.

February 2012 Manga Previews Checklist (PDF)

You may continue reading at your own discretion for my thoughts, elaborations, random pictures and the Top 10 Selling Manga of December 2011 and Diamond Comics top selling manga of all 2011!

MangaNext 2012: Vertical Announces New Licenses, Artbook

By Lissa Pattillo on Saturday, February 25, 2012

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New Jersey is home to North America’s only manga-specific convention this weekend – MangaNext. Along with it’s impressive guest list (if only it didn’t cost me $6500 to fly down last minute!), the convention is also the platform for some manga industry news.

Vertical Inc‘s Ed Chavez is attending the event and had two new manga licenses to announce at the company panel today:

Heroman – Stan Lee & Tamon Ohta
Limit – Keiko Suenobu

Heroman is a five volume series written by Marvel-character famed, Stan Lee. The story is illustrated by Tamon Ohta, who I couldn’t find any works from prior aside from ANN’s credit for art in the Heroman anime. This is Stan Lee’s second direct collaboration with a manga-artist – the first being Ultimo, published in English by Viz Media. Heroman is about a boy named Joey who discovers a discarded toy in the trash only to then find himself fighting alongside it to become a hero.

Limit is a six volume, psychological shoujo series from the creator of the Tokyopop published Life, Keiko Suenobu. It’s a pretty solid indication right there what kind of series this is going to be coupled with it’s suspenseful sounding plot. The story follows a young woman named Kanno who has lived indifferently towards her school and classmates. She’s forced to see things differently when a bus crash leaves her and four other survivors trapped on a cliff.

Along with these two titles, Vertical Inc also licensed a novel titled Grey Men and, to the foreseen surprise of many on Twitter, the Queen’s Blade Complete Visual Collection artbook (fantasy fanservice that’s a hentai without the sex). Ed Chavez has mentioned in the past that he wants consumers to see Vertical as a more diverse publisher and something so different from their most well-known series is definitely getting that point across. ANN has more information available on these two acquisitions.

I didn’t see any news reported on Twitter from the con-goers on when these books are scheduled to be published but I’ll definitely be purchasing both Heroman and Limit when they’re available. A fun, innocent looking shonen and a thought-provoking shoujo both look great to me!

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Categories: Licensing, News
Tags: Conventions, Heroman, Manga, MangaNext, Stan Lee, Vertical Inc

Otaku USA: On The Shelf – February 22, 2012

By Lissa Pattillo on Friday, February 24, 2012

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One piece of good news this week – a new volume of XXXHolic! The sad news of the week – it’s the final volume. I’ve been buying the series since high school and it’s one of my favourites, if not my actual favourite, amidst CLAMP’s books over the years. I’ve heard people say the ending isn’t very satisfying but I’m going in with an open mind, and the glee of simply having another chance to drool over the beautiful artwork.

Along with the one series ending, Vertical Inc. has a new series (well, newly continued): GTO The Early Years (Vol.11) and Digital Manga is releasing the fifth deluxe re-issue of the boys’ love series, Kizuna. You can see the complete list of releases this week over at my Otaku USA On The Shelf article.

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Categories: Features, News, On The Shelf, Release Lists
Tags: CLAMP, Dark Horse, Del Rey, DMP, June, Kodansha Comics, Manga, One Piece, Otaku USA, Vertical Inc, Viz Media, Yen Press

Otaku USA: On The Shelf – February 9, 2012

By Lissa Pattillo on Wednesday, February 8, 2012

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There was no On The Shelf article last Wednesday because of a week without any new manga releases on my schedule list – how depressing was that? Well I guess we’ll accept those mini lulls now and again, especially with big release days like today following it up.

It’s Viz Media‘s big shipment of the month with nineteen new volumes of manga, including the first volume of A Devil and Her Love Song. You can read the full list of titles out this week over at Otaku USA’s On The Shelf article this week. Along with a slew of new volumes of shonen and soujo series, there’s also new volume of the well-loved Finder series from Digital Manga and two new of their Project-H books. Hopefully something for everyone – enjoy!

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Categories: News, On The Shelf, Release Lists
Tags: 801Media, A Devil and her Love Song, Bleach, Boys' Love/Yaoi, DMP, Hentai, June, Kodansha Comics, Manga, Manhwa, Otaku USA, Project-H, Toriko, Vertical Inc, Viz Media

Otaku USA: On The Shelf – January 11, 2012

By Lissa Pattillo on Friday, January 13, 2012

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Better late then never for me posting about this week’s new manga, right? Otaku USA has my On The Shelf article posted with the list of what new manga made it to bookstore and comic shop shelves this past Wednesday.

The list is short and contains the bittersweet final volume of Kannagi. It’s not the series last volume, just the last we’ll see of it from Bandai Entertainment after last week’s news. That coupled with Media Blasters and now remaining anime companies suing each other, I think the North American anime industry is in desperate need of a hug. Fingers crossed 2012 treats manga companies better. Either way, the best hug you can give either industry is a purchase so get out there and hug, er I mean buy, away!

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Categories: On The Shelf, Release Lists
Tags: Bandai, Manga, Otaku USA, Vertical Inc, Viz Media

Diamond Manga Previews: January 2012

By Lissa Pattillo on Sunday, January 8, 2012

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Diamond Comics is North America’s largest comic book distributor. If you have a local comic store in your area, it’s very likely they get their books from them. Every month Diamond releases a giant magazine, Previews, containing all the products they have – from comics, manga, DVDs and merchandise – that will be released starting in about two months’ time, giving retailers and buyers the chance to put their orders in before shipping dates.

I’ve been picking up the Previews magazines for years, oogling all the different books coming out from publishers and wondering how long until the stacks of Preview magazines I’ve yet to get rid of will crush me in my sleep. Starting now I’ll be writing about the different manga content published in Previews each month here on Kuriousity. This includes all the manga titles listed, the top Manga sellers as tracked by Diamond and mention of other things of interest I spot. With the small two month window, Diamond Previews has rarely been the source of new licenses but it’s a great reminder and showcase of all the books coming our way soon, plus the perfect time to get your orders in, whether through Diamond or at your online retailer of choice.

I’ll also be including with these monthly Preview posts a downloadable PDF that you can print off and check off the manga you’d like to order. Then it’s as easy as bringing it into your local comic or book store – wherever in your area that orders in through Diamond Comics! Currently the list is just the names and does not include the Diamond order codes. I’ve never come across a store that requires them for ordering but if yours does, let me know and I’ll include them on subsequent files:

January 2012 Manga Previews Checklist (PDF)

You may continue reading at your own discretion for my thoughts, elaborations, random pictures and the Top 10 Selling Manga of November 2011!