The following manga appeared on the USA Today Booklist Top 150 (PDF) for the week ending April 13th:

• #106 - Naruto, Volume 28 - Viz - (Last week: #82)

Also, Comicsnob posts the weekly online manga sales rankings:

• Manga Top 500: Week Ending 13 April
• Manga Top 50 Series: Week Ending 13 April
• Publishers' Scorecard: Week Ending 13 April
• Manga Midlist 500: Week Ending 13 April

A round up of the new comic release list and views for the week of April 16th 2008:

• ComicList: ComicList for 04/16/2008
• MangaCast: New Manga Release List - April 16, 2007
• Comics Village: Manga Village Pick 'n' Mix: New Releases 4/16/08

From Icarus Publishing's blog comes a preview (NSFW) of the adult manga that are shipping in May 2008 based on Diamond Previews.

Top 10 manga (4/15) according to Tohan:

1. Ouran High School Host Club (12)
2. Bleach (33)
3. Katekyo Hitman Reborn! (19)
4. Detective Conan (61)
5. Gintama (23)
6. BASTARD!! (25)
7. Vampire Knight (7)
8. Eyeshield 21 (29)
9. Gag Manga Biyori (9)
10. Hanma Baki (12)

Additional Rankings:

Read More »

From Otaku USA comes an interview (in podcast) with Stan Lee on his latest project ULTIMO.

Also, Okazu has an interview with Erin Subramanian, translator of the yuri scanlation group Lililicious.

According to Canned Dogs, artist Ishii Meguru was arrested in Yokohama for committing "indecent acts with a 15 year old girl through November and December last year for a total of 4 times.":

The article reports that Ishii Meguru was an artist for the novelized version of Higurashi no naku koro ni (though he only did some art for Ichijinsha's novel anthologies, the artist for the official higurashi novels is Tomohi), and that he was also popular among fans of gothic lolita.

According to MangaBlog, Word Balloons, a new group blog aimed at comics for children has been recently launched:

Recently, I became aware of a hole in the blogosphere: Nobody seemed to be blogging regularly about children's comics. I mentioned this to a couple of like-minded folks, and the next thing I knew, Word Balloons was born. [...] Word Balloons will go beyond manga to cover kids' comics in all their glory, including classy graphic novels, cheap and garish floppies, and even webcomics.

Recently the Japanese news program "Broadcaster" ran a report on the anniversary collaboration between Shonen Sunday and Shonen Magazine. Rumiko Takahashi's Urusei Yatsura was mentioned in the report as the key to Shonen Sunday's sucess in the 1980s.

Source: Rumic World

The nominees for the 2008 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards are up, and several manga can be found on the list:

Best Short Story
- Book by Yuichi Yokoyama
- Town of Evening Calm by Fumiyo Kouno

Best Continuing Series
- Naoki Urasawa's Monster by Naoki Urasawa

Best Publication for Kids
- Yotsuba&! by Kiyohiko Azuma

MangaBlog has the full list, and The Beat has a full report of the award.

In the latest installment of the Ninja Consultant podcast, "Show #58 - Manga Zombie and a Manga Panel at MoCCA", the NC crews introduce Udagawa Takeo's Manga Zombie and read its preface. Check it out!