The Fanatic by PW newsletter

With details of manga at BookExpo 2019 and more:

A Great Time for Manga Fans A growing array of diverse content—from LGBTQ content to classic reprints and horror—and the growth of streaming anime are driving manga sales. more BookExpo 2019: Graphic Novels For Everyone From the presence of comics writer Majorie Liu, co-creator of the Eisner Award-winning graphic novel series Monstress, on the star-studded adult author breakfast panel, to coauthors Wendy Xu and Suzanne Walker's queer fantasy graphic novel Mooncakes and the launch of DC’s book-focused adult and young reader imprints, BookExpo 2019 welcomed established and new comics publishers, as well as librarians, retailers and fans looking for new works. More The Battle Against Evil Continues in the New Installment of ‘JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure’ In April 1999, Jotaro Kujo travels to a town in Japan called Morioh to find a young man named Josuke Higashikata, the secret love child of his grandfather, Joseph Joestar. Upon finding him, Jotaro is surprised to learn that Josuke also possesses a Stand. After their strange meeting, the pair team up to investigate the town’s proliferation of unusual Stands! (Sponsored) more Profile: The Comics Universe of Jaime Hernandez Nearly 40 years ago Jaime Hernandez and his brother Gilbert launched Love & Rockets, a pioneering and iconoclastic publication filled with comics stories set in equally brilliant, though separate fictional worlds. This year Jaime has released two books: Is This How You See Me? featuring Maggie and Hopey, the two stars of his ongoing series, and now Tonta, a return to the teenage hijinks of his early stories. Both works feature his irresistible artwork and unforgettable storytelling. More Review: The Queens of Animation by Nathalia Holt If you love animated films but have never heard of such pioneering women as Grace Huntington (hired by the Disney story department in the 1930s) or the artist Sylvia Moberly-Holland (she supervised key sequences in Fantasia and Bambi), then Holt’s engrossing and long overdue history of Disney’s forgotten female writers and animators is the book for you. No surprise, it’s a shameful catalogue of the forgotten contributions of talented women in a workplace rife with misogyny, sexual harassment and stolen credit, but it also restores them to their much-deserved place in history. Review: Let's Make Ramen by Hugh Amano and Sarah Becan What could be better than combining the Japanese dish of ramen—noodles, pork, and eggs swimming in a tasty soy broth—with comics? Maybe reading this delightful comics cookbook while eating a steaming bowl of ramen. The coauthors have created a fun and easy-to-use guide to ramen heaven that explains seasoning, recipes for broth, the various styles of ramen, making noodles, the savory mojo of the dish and more. Becan's drawings are colorful and fun will make you hungry while you’re trying to read. More Review: Broken Places and Outer Spaces by Nnedi Okorafor Acclaimed science fiction author Nnedi Okorafor (Binti) was once a promising young athlete. But a diagnosis of scoliosis and a subsequent surgical procedure to correct her spine left her paralyzed. In this collection of essays, Okrafor eloquently examines how this traumatic experience shaped her view of the world and focused her talents on writing and on science fiction. Okorafor recovered from paralysis and these essays connect her triumph over a terrifying personal circumstance to the “transformative power of imagination.” The Fanatic has also included an excerpt from LaGuardia, Okorafor’s forthcoming graphic novel, in this issue. That’s All Folks: Do you like animation, better still, do you love animation? Then pay regular visits to dot + line, a site devoted to animation cofounded and coedited by my esteemed colleague, PW news editor John Maher, and, Eric Vilas-Boas, managing editor at Hyperallergic. The site has everything you want to know about the news in animation, including interviews, feature films, anime, TV animation, a free newsletter, you name it. And the site has just been redesigned and rebooted so it’s looking kind of shiny. Focus On ‘The Tale of Genji’: Manga artist Yamata Waki, whose 1989-1993 manga adaptation of Murasaki Shikibu’s celebrated 11th century novel The Tale of Genji is part of the Met’s current exhibition on the Japanese literary classic, will speak about the novel and her other works on June 8. Manga In the British Museum: The British art magazine Apollo takes a good look at the sprawling exhibition on Japanese comics, or manga, currently on exhibition in the British Museum. Whither iTunes?: Ok, iTunes is gone but what comes next? Oh, there’s an app for that, says Apple Insider. Melissa Got it Goin’ On: Acclaimed tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana has a new album entitled Visions. She’s Chilean, plays straight ahead and her sound has been compared to Sony Rollins and to George Coleman, who she studied under. Buy it, stream it, whatever. You will dig, says PopMatters and me. VIEW ALL This Week on the More to Come Podcast This week the More to Come crew—Calvin Reid, Heidi “The Beat” MacDonald and Kate Fitzsimons—discuss Heidi’s visit to the Diamond Retailer Summit in Las Vegas; Calvin and Kate examine the controversial merger of Lion Forge and Oni Press and the ensuing layoffs; the cohosts look at Bookscan's 2018 sales figures and the growth of the North American graphic novel market; the abrupt end of writer Tom King’s tenure writing Batman; and the cohosts finally get to offer their personal reactions to Avengers: Endgame and Game of Thrones. More In this engaging graphic novel, Nebula Award winning sci-fi author Nnedi Okorafor wittily turns New York City’s LaGuardia Airport into LaGuardia Interplanetary Airport and into a pointed allegorical indictment of the U.S.’s current bigoted anti-immigrant policies. Set in a future in which Nigeria has welcomed and benefited from extraterrestrial immigration (although not without conflict), Nigerian-American doctor Future Nwafor Chukwuebuka flees from Lagos to New York where she grew up. She is pregnant but she is also smuggling an intelligent plant-like alien species—a refugee, in other words—that is on the run from warring factions of its own kind. Okorafor has captured the absurdity and calamity of our current political moment and her artist cocreators capture it all in vividly rendered and richly colored drawings. LaGuardia by Nnedi Okorafor and artists Tana Ford and James Devlin will be published in July by Dark Horse/Berger Books. Click the image above to view the full excerpt. PW Comics World and The Fanatic Editor: Calvin Reid More to Come podcast cohosts: Kate Fitzsimons, Heidi MacDonald and Calvin Reid Podcast Producer: Kate Fitzsimons PW Graphic Novels Reviews Editor and Star Gazing cohost: Meg Lemke Follow us on Twitter at @PWComicsWorld and on Facebook. Send advertising questions about this e-newsletter to: cbryerman@publishersweekly.com For additional assistance, contact us by email or at the address below. Publishers Weekly, 71 West 23 St. #1608 New York, NY 10010 Phone 212-377-5500 Copyright 2019, PWxyz LLC