New Steve Jobs Biography Manga Starts

Mari Yamazaki’s new manga series, comicalization of Walter Isacson’s Steve Jobs biography “Steve Jobs”, began today on Kodansha Kiss Magazine. (Please check my Japan Times column last week introducing three Steve Jobs manga.) Yahoo! Bookstore offers free preview of the first half, 17pages. You may read it here, though texts are all in Japanese. The… Continue reading New Steve Jobs Biography Manga Starts

Mangajet Makes Your Tweet Into A Comic-style Illustration

Mangajet [J] is a new Japanese service which let you make a Japanese manga-comic style illustration with provided characters, background images, baloons with your text. The generated comic strip can be saved and shared on Twitter. Following to the Japanese manga standard, text will be written in top-to-bottom direction so Western languages won’t fit well,… Continue reading Mangajet Makes Your Tweet Into A Comic-style Illustration

Twitcmap – Twitter-based Masssive Comic Market Directory

Twitcmap [J], run by a illustration sharing community Tinami [J], is a web service to try to make a huge map of the world’s largest self-publishing comic fair “Comic Market” [J], which is held twice in a year in Tokyo, in a user-generated style with utilizing Twitter. Comic Market official says that there are over… Continue reading Twitcmap – Twitter-based Masssive Comic Market Directory

Japan Airlines To Start The World’s First In-Flight e-Comic Next Spring

Japan’s national carrier Japan Airlines(JAL) announced the world’s first digital manga(Japanese comic) service “Sky Manga” on board with one of the nation’s largest publisher Shogakukan and digital publishing company eBook Initiative Japan [J]. The new service will be a part of new Boeing 787 debut on JAL. The service will start from March 2012, 90… Continue reading Japan Airlines To Start The World’s First In-Flight e-Comic Next Spring

ex-Livedoor CEO Takafumi Horie To Start Mahjong Comic From Jail

Takafumi Horie, an ex-Livedoor CEO who is in Jail since June 9 this year in violation of the Securities and Exchange Law, aka Horienmon, was announced to start a new manga series on fortnightly mahjong (wikipedia) comic magazine Kindai Mahjong [J]. There are two mahjong-only comic magazines in Japan. People playing mahjong is decreasing, but… Continue reading ex-Livedoor CEO Takafumi Horie To Start Mahjong Comic From Jail

Andamul Releases “Itazurana Kiss” Social Game For GREE

Andamul [J], in coordination with Peer Digital Communications, has released a social game for Tada Kaoru’s young lady manga, “Itazurana Kiss” (Tease Kiss), Itazurana Kiss ~ Another Story ~ [J], for GREE. “Itazurana Kiss” is a series which appeared in “Bessatsu Margaret” (manga magazine) in the 1990’s.  The total number of comics sales in Japan… Continue reading Andamul Releases “Itazurana Kiss” Social Game For GREE

Manga Authoring Software “ComiPo!” English Version Released

At the Tokyo Game Show, a variety of businesses and organizations other than game companies have displays. This comic book software “ComiPo!” [J, E] is one of them. “ComiPo!” is released by the ComoPo! production committee, (Web Technology Com Corp., committee chairperson: Keiichi Tanaka), and it’s a program that’s like, “Even though I can’t draw… Continue reading Manga Authoring Software “ComiPo!” English Version Released

eBook Initiative Japan Goes IPO

eBook Initiative Japan Co., Ltd., who runs Japanese online e-book mall eBookJapan [J], announced that their IPO at Tokyo Stock Exchange Mothers section has been approved [J]. The planned date is October 28. eBookJapan started selling online book since year 2000, when the company was established. The site now boasts 50,000 e-books, 80% of which… Continue reading eBook Initiative Japan Goes IPO

Major Publishers, Novelists And Cartoonists Pressures Over 100 Book-Scan Agents

According to ITMedia [J], Internet Watch [J] and others, 7 major Japanese publishers (Kadokawa Shoten, Kodansha, Kobunsha, Shueisha, Shogakukan, Shinchosha and Bungei Syunjyu) and 122 known authors of novels and manga reportedly sent a question letter to over 100 companies who are selling so-called “Jisui”(自炊) service. “Jisui” originally means “self cooking” in Japanese, but in… Continue reading Major Publishers, Novelists And Cartoonists Pressures Over 100 Book-Scan Agents