From Canned Dogs comes an story about the troubles of Wakaki Tamiki, a Shounen Sunday manga artist responsible for series like Seikesshou Albatross. According Tamiki's latest blog post, he is extremely short on money at the moment, with less than 10,000 yen in his bank account:

He would have no money to pay the utilities bills, but he managed to get an advance from Shounen Sunday for the manga that's starting serialization in the next issue.

Kodansha has recently opened a comic portal website called Kodansha Comic Plus (講談社コミックプラス).

Source: Ultimatum

From IGN comes an article that looks at Japan's current independent manga scene:

The doujinshi market has gotten big enough in recent years that it serves as a sort of "minor league" for the professional manga ranks. Many well-known creators nowadays got their start doing amateur productions.

According to Active Anime, the 9th International Manga Summit will be taking place in Kyoto, Japan this coming September:

This year's summit theme called "Environmental Innovation", will attempt to pursue and inform society about environmental conservation through manga with three sub-themes focusing on Global Warming Prevention, Dietary Education, and The 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle).

Type-Moon has updated its official website with the announcement of a new project: Mahoutsukai no Yoru - Witch on a Holy Night.

The story will be based on an unpublished story written by Type-Moon co-founder Kinoko Nasu. For more background on the story, visit here.

According to the announcement, more information will be revealed in the TYPE-MOON Ace magazine and TECH GIAN June issue, which will be released on April 21st.

The Icarus Blog has posted responses to some questions asked by the fans regarding how the company worked. The questions answered include:

• How do you choose which books to license? What is the process behind it?
• Why don't you translate the sound effects?
• Why don't you do direct sales to retailers/distribute through ___ company?
• When is Blue Eyes 4 coming out!?

ANN is reporting that Viz Media will be releasing a manga adaptation of Nintendo's Legend of Zelda this October:

Read More »

The Associated Press looks at the popularity of mobile commerce in Japan.

TMC.net reports that Devil's Due Publishing is collaborating with uclick to make their comics available to mobile phone users.

Finally, the Manchester Evening News has an article titled "How did Manga take over the world?" that looks at the popularity of manga around the world.

From Okazu comes an interview with Tokyopop Editor Hope Donovan.

In the latest issue of PWCW, MangaBlog's Brigid Alverson talks to DramaQueen in "DramaQueen Relaunches."

Finally, Post-Gazette talks to Undertown writer Jim Pascoe.

Via: MangaBlog

The following manga appeared on the USA Today Booklist Top 150 (PDF) for the week ending March 30th:

• #52 - Naruto, Volume 28 - Viz - (Last week: #39)
• #65 - Fruits Basket, Volume 19 - Tokyopop - (Last week: #34)

Also, Comicsnob posts the weekly online manga sales rankings:

• Manga Top 500: Week Ending 30 March
• Manga Top 50 Series: Week Ending 30 March
• Publishers' Scorecard: Week Ending 30 March
• Manga Midlist 500: Week Ending 30 March

Also, ICv2 has posted BookScan's top 20 graphic novels for March.