According to ANN, ADV is suspending its anime/manga magazine Newtype USA after the "February issue" (which could either be the official February issue or the March issue that will be released in February) and is planning to replace it with a unnamed new magazine:

Representatives of A.D. Vision (ADV) have contacted retail partners to inform them that the February issue of Newtype USA is to be the last. [...] According to reports from those contacted by ADV, the company is planning to replace Newtype USA with another magazine. No information about the new magazine is currently known.

Source: ANN

Adult manga publisher Icarus Publishing has released its 2007 year-end report:

Gross sales in 2007 increased 17.41% over 2006, which amounts to a money sack approximately twice the size of an ordinary money sack. 38.24% of our gross sales came from Diamond. As the graph indicates, profits are soaring at Icarus.

In the latest issue of PWCW, Kai-Ming Cha and Ed Chavez interviews Kio Shimoku, mangaka of Genshiken: The Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture.

Also available is an article by Calvin Reid titled "Tor Books, Seven Seas Together at Last," which looks at Tor Books' joint venture with manga publisher Seven Seas Entertainment.

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ANN reports that Seven Seas president Jason DeAngelis has confirmed two new acquisitions made by Seven Seas:

• Inukami! by Mamizu Arisawa and Mari Matsuzawa
• Kuro Majo-san ga Touru!! (novel) by Hiroshi Ishizaki

From Bookslut comes an interview with librarian and recent Eisner Award judge Robin Brenner, who authored the book Understanding Manga and Anime last summer. Also included is Robin Brenner's list of the top 10 manga of all time.

Source: ANN

Jari Chevalier from Living Hero writes in to announce that Living Hero will be conducting an interview with Dan Pink, who recently announced his intention to write a career guide manga titled The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: the Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need, towards the end of February:

I'm writing to you and others in advance to give you a chance to participate in the formation of the interview questions. Just type your question into the question box widget on the right column of the page.

TangognaT reports that Nominations for Cybils, a "Children's and YA Bloggers' Literary Awards," have been announced. One manga, Yotsuba&! Volume 4 by Kiyohiko Azuma, was nominated in the Elementary/Middle Grade category.

Via: MangaBlog

From the Yaoi Press blog comes the "2007 Wrap-up," which looks at the state of Yaoi Press in 2007, as well as plans for 2008:

Our greatest success was Dark Prince vol. 1, which had the highest preorders and lowest initial returns of any title to date.

Our greatest failure was the comic books. Without book store sales the comic book line was unsustainable.

Celebrating its first anniversary, manga blog Shuchaku East is giving out a free copy of the manga Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms:

Of course, no blog anniversary is complete without freebies. I'm going to offer you a gratis copy of what is without a doubt the best-book-of-2007-that-no-one-read; even if David Welsh couldn't convince you to shell out for copy of "Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms," I'll take it upon myself to ship you one fo' free. Yes, that's right; free.

In his latest blog post, Del Rey Manga's Dallas Middaugh has listed his top 10 manga of 2007:

1. Phoenix: Sun by Osamu Tezuka
2. Parasyte by Hitoshi Iwaki
3. Genshiken by Kio Shimoku
4. Monster by Naoki Urasawa
5. Emma by Kaoru Mori
6. MPD Psycho by Eiji Otsuka and Sho-u Tajima
7. The Drifitng Classroom by Kazuo Umezu
8. xxxHOLiC by CLAMP
9. Guru Guru Pon-chan by Satomi Ikezawa
10. Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service by Eiji Ohtsuka and Housui Yamazaki

Source: Active Anime