The is the final ComiPress update. All news posts, articles, and other contents will stay as they are, available for viewing for as long as ComiPress still exists.

All comments have been closed, and users can no longer create new accounts. Also, inquiries regarding site content or news will no longer receive a reply.

It's been five years since the launch of ComiPress, and it has certainly been interesting. Go here for a brief history of the site.

The original goal of ComiPress, to help create and grow the English manga news scene, has been achieved, so now we will rest. As far as manga is concerned... read on!

Is ComiPress dead? No. ComiPress is simply taking an extended break. When will this break be over? We do not know, but when we feel it is time to come back, we will. Until them, it has been fun!

So, seeing as how this will be our last post for a long while to come, below is a pretty long rambling by the ComiPress staff, about the site's history and various other things. For those who do not like to read long ramblings, just skip to the end.

ComiPress was originally created as a sub-site for Manga Jouhou April 17th of 2006. Manga Jouhou began seriously reporting manga news around the beginning of 2005. In the early 2000s, the online anime news was well-established, with heavy-weight news sites like AnimeNewsNetwork, AnimeNewsService, and many smaller sites and blogs.

The online manga scene was a completely different place. Aside from the occasional manga news found on ANN and ANS, there were no big sites dedicated exclusively manga news. There were some good places for manga fans though, AoD's manga forum was a great gathering place, review sites like MangaBits were interesting, and there were some blog-like sites such as Little Harlock's Newslog and Natsume Goushin Ryu Dojo. Later, Love Manga and Irresponsible Pictures became two of the first successful manga blogs to hit the manga blogosphere, they should not be forgotten (and it's a shame they never got featured in Backstage, although both came veeeery close to). Anyone still remember Animania Japan? Or a time when Brigid's MangaBlog was just a side blog for Manga4Kids?? A forum post by Isaac Alexander in the early 2000s describes perfectly what it felt like at the time (the post was made several years earlier than some of the references used here):

Dedicated Manga News Sites

Does anyone know of any websites on the web that is in english devoted to manga news? About the closest I could find were anime news sites.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com
or
http://www.animenewsservice.com

Sincerely

Isaac

Although Manga Jouhou was a major scanlation hub at the time, we'd like to consider it one of the first "big" English site to dedicate itself to manga news. The times at Manga Jouhou were great, and one of the many "great" moments we've had was when we reported the X hiatus situation before ANN did, which resulted in the following post by ANN's dormcat:

I asked the question to Ageha Ohkawa in person on behalf of ANNers, yet the interview article, finished exactly four weeks ago, is not yet posted (scheduled to be posted tomorrow)....

Seeing ANN got beaten by a major scanlation hub is really disappointing.

That, along with many other things, helped give us the will-power to continue working. In mid-2006, due to a difference in opinion on the future of Manga Jouhou, ComiPress split off and became its own site, with the goal still being "working toward a site that would be the ANN of manga." Of course, that probably never really happened. Had we stayed with Manga Jouhou, that may have been possible, but that's all in the past, and there's no point in thinking about "what if's."

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It's been a while since something new came out of this site... are we dead? Not really, we're just on a really long hiatus... but taking a look around, the manga news-reporting scene has changed a lot in the past few years, and the (hopefully unique) service that we once provided is a lot more common now, so much so that perhaps our service is no longer required. We thought it'd be a good time to announce that we're going on an super-extended break/hiatus.

So what to do before we go into hibernation mode? ComiPress is not only known for its news and articles, but also for the various projects we've worked on, such as Backstage, ComiPedia, and so on. So we thought, perhaps we should present one final feature for the manga community.

Did you know ComiPress used to be a part of Manga Jouhou? That's right, we were once a sub-site of MangaNews.net until MJ's chief news editor at the time decided to turn CP into a full-fledged news site. Having our roots in a site known for its news and scanlation release-tracking, we thought our final feature should pay homage to that root.

This is actually a project that was started waaaaay back when we were still a part of MJ, when we wanted to do a History of MangaNews as part of the then-Backstage feature. Things fell apart and nothing was done, and the project remained one of our more ambitious projects that was never finished... until today.

Without further ado, we present to you, The History of Scanlation.

First things first, this is NOT INTENDED TO BE A COMIPRESS PROJECT, at least not in the same way as ComiPedia and Backstage. Some of those who worked on the project are involved with us, but the site is really intended to be more of an independent site, something standalone by itself, not affiliated with any site or organization. Keep this in mind as you read the below comments, which are from those who worked on this project.

Scanlation is a pretty big part of the online manga scene, if you use the Internet and read manga, more likely than not you've heard about scanlation... but how much do you REALLY know about scanlation? Since scanlation isn't something that anyone would consider legal in any reasonable way, not many sites actively discuss the topic, so unless you're in the scanlation scene, you're likely oblivious to a lot of the inside happenings and history of this activity.

This feature aims to provide a (again, hopefully) objective view of the topic, we hope both fans and people from the industry will find this feature some what interesting. We do not intend to use it to promote scanlation, nor do we intend to specifically criticize any individual, we simply try to provide some information that someone might find useful or interesting.

Once again, we thank all those who have helped out. Check back later for a more detailed "Good night" post before ComiPress goes into hibernation.

To all those who asked the question, the reason CP is not reporting on many manga-related news is because our staff is on vacation. If things go well, regular news reporting should resume this September in one way or another.

We'd like to thank everyone who sent us "ready-made" news and articles and press releases and such, so to keep our site not completely dead this summer :)

Back to watching the Olympics!

During the past few weeks, you may have noticed a slow down in news here on ComiPress. After operating day after day for over 2 years, the staff here at ComiPress decided it's time to close the door and call it quits...just kidding! Although we're not going the way of the dodo, this summer, CP's news staff will be taking a well-deserved break in order to recharge their editorial batteries for the cold weather that is sure to follow.

Of course, this doesn't mean there will be absolutely nothing posted here all summer. Articles and long news posts on special manga-related events (if they happen, that is, ho ho) will still be posted, but the everyday run-of-the-mill news posts that you all know and (hopefully) love will be gone until after August.

In the main time, do visit these sites to to quench your desire for all things manga (think of this as our unofficial summer-online-manga-reading-list):

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And the reason...

ComiPress is proud to announce the debut of its newest column, Panelosophy. Written by Chloe Ferguson, Panelosophy will look at the philosophy behind manga here and abroad.

So...who is Chloe Ferguson?

Chloe Ferguson is an occasional columnist, sometimes blogger and always reader. Besides writing the Panelosophy column for ComiPress, she cranks out the occasional review for Manga Life and does her own thing at Shuchaku East. She likes any titles that can be qualified as "comeuppance theater," but is generally game for anything if it's good.

Our sister site LightNovel.org is currently looking for new Japanese translators. If you love light novels and knows Japanese, please contact us here. If you love light novels but don't know Japanese, feel free to contact us anyway as LN.org is also looking for a few contributing writers.

ComiPress is currently looking for a Chinese translator who will be working on one of our upcoming projects, if you're interested, please let us know. (??????????????????????????????,????????????,??????????????????)

Last but not least, if you like manga and love to write, we're currently looking for new contributing writers, contact us here!

So we have a blog now...where did it come from, and where will it go? (and why does it look so ugly?) Find out in our blog's inaugural post!

Welcome to the 2007 Talk Like A Pirate Day! Yarr, t' wondrous day where gramma be thrown out t' window, and a good ole yarr be thrown into every sin'le sentence.