The Comics Reporter and comics212.net looks at the nominees for the Angouleme Essential Awards, the prize of which will be handed out at the Festival International de la Bande Dessinee. Manga nominated for the award are:

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SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Jan. 12, 2007) – MySA.com, the online portal for the San Antonio Express-News, has posted its winners of the 2006 Commie Awards, which honors the best and worst in comic books for 2006.

Resident geeks and hosts of the weekly Geek Speak Comic Cast, Chris Quinn, René A. Guzman and Sean M. Wood list their picks in an online podcast accompanied by a video montage of the winning work.

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The Wild Side, a German BL manga publisher, is looking into becoming a general manga publisher:

The Wild Side has decided to do some branching out. Aside from Yaoi and Shounen Ai we also want to publish mangas with other adult oriented themes like Shounen, Horror, Thriller, Action and so on. The stories should be mature and well thought out, sex is optional.

Source: Deutsche Mangaka

Between January 21st and February 2nd, a commemorative exhibition called "Japan's Power of Expression" will be held to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Japan Media Art Festival. The celebration event will take place at the newly established national fine arts museum in Roppongi, Tokyo.

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MangaCast translates the weekly Doujinshi ranking in Japan (01/20) according to Messe Sanoh, compiled by Akiba Blog (NSFW).

According to a press release (PDF), Sega Toys will release a limited edition (3,000 sets only) 200-volume miniature set of Osamu Tezuka's manga beginning January 27th. The manga set, 4.45 x 3.65 centimeters in size, will be sold for 73,500 yen.

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From The Anime Blog comes an interview with Chinese doujinshi artist Yang Fan, who drew illustrations for Chinese magazines such as Comics King and XinGanXian, and is currently working on tarot cards for Sega's online game Three Kingdoms.

Also featured is an interview from December 2006 with an artist who goes by the name Apricot.

From ANS:

Japanese publishing house Shimanaka has announced putting steps in motion to begin the dissolution of the company as of January 10th. Degrading sales are cited as the reason. Shimanaka was known for printing its "Island Comics Primo" masterpiece series of manga reprints by authors including Shotaro Shotaro Ishinomori, Fujiko F Fujio, Reiji Matstumoto, Monkey Punch, Go Nagai and others.

Korean Comics: A Society Through Small Frames, an exhibition sponsored by the Korean Society, will take place at the Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library from January 16 to March 16. The event will feature "83 framed works by 21 of Korea's most talented cartoonists, drawn over a period of 40 years. It includes work by artists from both South Korea and North Korea."

Visual novel developer/publisher KID (Kindle Imagine Develop), creator of visual novels/dating sims such as Pia Carrot he Youkoso, Memories Off, Ever 17, and Ai Yori Aoshi, has filed for bankruptcy. However, according to a blurb on KID's official site, there still may be a chance for their near-completed games to be released.

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