In his latest Flipped column, David Welsh interviews Simon Jones from Icarus Publishing. In the interview Simon talks about his experience with Icarus Publishing, the U.S. manga market, and the need for niche publishers.

Also, over at Comixpedia Brigid Alverson interviews Audra Furuichi and Scott Yoshinaga, creators of the webcomic Nemu-nemu.

Reuters reports that Beijing is banning and seizing horror books to "protect the 'physical and mental health' of its youngsters." Among the books seized was Death Note, which appeared on China's national TV last week.

The new comic release list for May 16th 2007 from ComicList, compiled by MangaCast.

In an article titled "Total Minx: 'The Plain Janes'", Express looks at DC Comics' new graphic novel imprint Minx and Cecil Castellucci, author of the line's first release "The Plain Janes":

For the line's first release, DC turned to popular novelist Cecil Castellucci, author of three young adult novels. (Her latest, a punk rock YA novel called "Beige," came out last week.)

The people behind the free anime newspaper Janime have started a new publication called POPJNEO, while the podcast Anime Today reports that Otaku USA issue 1 is in the process of hitting the presses.

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According to the latest post on Champion Red Ichigo's news page, the new follow-up project to the manga My-HiME and My-Otome will be a new series titled Vita Sexualis, created by the "My-HiME Trio" (Yoshino Hiroyuki, Higuchi Tatsuhito, Sato Kenetsu) and Eeji Komatsu (Maburaho, Junk Force).

From the Mainichi Daily News comes an interview with Barefoot Gen creator Keiji Nakazawa, who talks about his work and how he came to create Barefoot Gen.

Tokyopop's Stu Levy has posted a sneak preview of Tokyopop.com's upcoming 2.0 design:

A few weeks from now we will go live with a 2.0 BETA for all of you to try. The profile section has a really cool design that I couldn't sneak out yet so waddle in anticipation for that one...

MangaCast translates the weekly Doujinshi ranking (05/12) in Japan according to Toranoana, and the weekly BL Doujinshi ranking (05/12) in Japan according to Toranoana's BL specialty store Princess Side.

Publishing Ivrea, one of the biggest publisher of Japanese comics in Argentina, has announced its plans to release Korean manhwa in 2007. While no other details have been disclosed by Ivrea, some launch titles that were announced inclde: Archlord (the first launch title), Cafe Occult, Forest of the Gray City and Baljak and Nabi.

Source: Papo de Budega