On April 9th, Japanese yaoi publisher Leaf Shuppan posted an official statement on its homepage announcing that it has filed for bankruptcy on the 9th of April.

Icarus Blog has more information on the bankruptcy:

Yuuhi Publishing, described as a "major publisher of BL novels," has fired off its entire staff without warning...

*Yuuhi publishes BL novels under the imprints "Leaf" and "Ai."

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Gemini Jetpack, a manga and anime store located in Waterloo, Ontario, has announced that it will be closing its doors due to various reasons:

First up, is the vastly changed market place. When we started up, over 5 years ago, one of my motivations was that you couldn’t find anime anywhere. None. At least not the good kind anyway. Now, years later, anime seems to be on every network, with specialty anime devoted networks popping up all the time, not to mention Anime On Demand. And that's cool, but hurts business here of course.

Source: The Comic Reporter

Simon Jones of Icarus Publishing talks about the current state of the comics market and its effect on small publishers and artists in the article "Ramblings from a shameful publisher". The article touches on the recent CPM/Libre incident, doujinshi artists, as well as some inside information on Icarus Publishing itself.

Go! Comi is currently looking for a new background artist, pin-up artists, digital colorists, and new logo artists. Also according to the announcement: "if you're an artist living in Japan or will be moving there soon, send me a note. We may be looking for an artist who did not grow up in Japan but who lives there for reasons I -- as usual -- can't discuss. ;-)"

According to Monster.com, Digital Manga Inc. is currently looking for a new Licensing/Guest Relations Assistant and a new Production Associate.

Reuters.jp has published an article on the popularity of manga in the U.K. Following the success of manga in France, Germany and the U.S., more and more people in the U.K. are starting to have a better understanding of Japanese manga.

Manga such as Fruits Basket and Astro Boy are experiencing positive salesin the U.K., and works such as the Bible and Shakespearean plays are being adapted into manga.

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Aurora Publishing, a U.S. manga publisher founded in March 2006 by Japanese publisher Ohzora Shuppan, has signed a booktrade agreement with Diamond Book Distributors, who will be the distributor of its English-language graphic novels:

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"In Publishing Manga With Little Fanfare," Publishers Weekly's Kai-Ming Cha takes a in-depth look at manga publisher Fanfare, and talks about what to expect from the non-mainstream manga publisher in 2007.

Via: animeOnline

According to ICv2, both comics and graphic novels experienced a boost in sales in February, with "comics posting a healthy 15% year-over-year gain and graphic novels a solid 9% boost. The total dollars spent on both comics and graphic novels rose by 14% over February of 2006."

Dark Horse is pleased to announce the promotion of staff member Jeremy Atkins to the new position of Director of Publicity.

Atkins comes to the position with two and a half years of experience in sales, marketing and publicity for Dark Horse. During his tenure, he's handled publicity surrounding the adaptation of the 300 graphic novel to film, created partnerships with MySpace, and increased national media coverage of Dark Horse books, comics, and merchandise.

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