So the big news of last week was the announcement of Fantagraphics’ new manga line, edited by Matt Thorn. While Fantagraphics is most well known for publishing some of the most innovative and challenging graphic novels of the past few decades, Thorn’s presence means that the line is in good hands. Not only is he a professor at Kyoto Seika University, he was a manga editor and translator at Viz, where he worked on “Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind,” and spearheaded the drive to bring classic shoujo manga to our shores in the form of the “Four Shoujo Stories” and Moto Hagio’s “A, Aʹ.” That the line will be starting off with a “sampler” of other Hagio stories titled “A Drunken Dream and Other Stories,” is telling of his involvement and a very good thing for manga fans. Thorn was instrumental in getting an interview with Hagio for The Comics’ Journal’s “Shoujos Manga Issue” and based on what I’ve read of her work, I find it easy to believe that she’s second only to Osamu Tezuka in terms of significant manga creators in Japan. That we’re getting more of her is only a good thing.
The other manga that was announced, Takako Shimura’s “Wandering Son,” doesn’t really grab me in the same way. Aside from the fact that it’s about youths with gender identity issues (and that it’ll be getting an anime adaptation later this year) the most significant thing about it is that Fantagraphics is choosing it as one of the initial titles for its manga line. I don’t think it’ll be bad, but I’ll be waiting for the word-of-mouth reaction before I think about picking it up. Speaking of specialty manga lines from other publishers…
