Previously on Comics: The Manga Market Continues to Grow

Hello, everyone! It’s a new week, which means it’s time to catch up on what’s happening in the world of comics.

At NYCC, ICv2 presented an overview of the current comicbook market, complete with scenarios that could lead to its growth or collapse. Given that I remember when the North American manga market collapsed in the late 2000s, the latter makes me shudder. Dark times, dark times. Regardless, the discussion is worth a look because it touches on the tensions between the direct market and a reading demographic that obtains their comics from other venues. And speaking of the manga market, it grew for the third consecutive year with sales being up 13%. To no one’s surprise, One-Punch Man and Tokyo Ghoul helped lead the charge.

One Piece is a perennial favorite among manga readers (including me), but sometimes I just want to sit down with Eiichiro Oda and tell him to take it easy. This look at his work ethic reveals that he sleeps only 3 hours a night. Right?! I’m sure we’ve heard the horror stories about working as a mangaka on a weekly title, especially for Weekly Shonen Jump, but even the editorial staff can’t keep up with him. Get some sleep! I want him to finish One Piece healthy, happy, and not burned out. (Totally not looking at Naruto‘s Kishimoto or HunterxHunter‘s Togashi here. Absolutely not.)

So I don’t know about you, but I’m hyped for the premiere of RWBY volume 4 this weekend.

I’ve missed my team of monster hunting girls. Although if you’re current on the show, you’ll know that there are some problems. But with the new season coming up, it seems appropriate that VIZ is bringing the manga adaptation, which is a prequel, to the North American edition of Weekly Shonen Jump. The shonen manga genre is not exactly well-known for its predominance of female characters, so it’s nice to see an injection of girl power into the magazine.

Halloween is coming up, which means pumpkins, candy, and costumes. Here in the U.S. though, we’re a little on edge because we’re having a bit of a clown epidemic, so I’d like to end this week’s column with a balm to your soul: Britney Spears’ son dressed as Frieza from Dragonball Z. (We’ll ignore the fact that Frieza is a villain who destroyed a planet or two.)