Tempe, Arizona and Tokyo, Japan-June 20,2009--"We couldn't be more honored to be a part of Manga Impact," says Heather Russell CEO of Rinkya Inc. "Those of us who have believed that Japanese animation is a true cinematic art form, cannot help but look upon this as a giant step fore ward in recognizing the art we love and believe in."

Manga Impact is a joint event between the Locarno International Film Festival and Italy’s National Cinema Museum in Turin, with the sponsorship of Swiss Life, and the contributions and collaborations of the Japan Foundation, Japan's NFC (National Film Center), Kawakita Memorial Film Institute, and Japan's leading Internet shopping service, Rinkya, Inc.

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From Papo de Budega comes an interview with Queenie Chan, creator of Tokyopop's The Dreaming, which is also being released in Brazil by Lumus.

Fluid Friction Comics is a Hong Kong-based comic company that releases titles in English and Chinese internationally across the world.

Fluid Friction is perhaps one of the first companies in the world to have formed "a true East meets West team with local Chinese and Western artists and writers working seamlessly side by side to produce truly unique products." Below is an interview with Spencer Douglass, Fluid Friction's business development manager, who talks about Fluid Friction, its view of the comics market, as well as plans for the future:

Please introduce yourself.

My name is Spencer Douglass and I am the business development manager at Fluid Friction Comics. My job entails overseeing the production and timelines for the comics, setting up distribution across the world, organizing all the marketing, working with retailers to promote directly to their customers, handling PR, setting up and running our exhibits at various comic-cons and bringing in partners to work with us on things like possible films, games, TV series, merchandise, mobile content, etc.

So I suppose you could say I am essentially a "comic salesman." :-)

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Launching this summer in India, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, USA & UK, Fluid Friction Comics have announced that the first issue of their debut series DevaShard: At First Light will feature the artwork of world famous artist Simon Bisley on the cover.

Simon Bisley made his name in the comic book world with his work on 2000AD in the 1980’s and especially on the characters Slaine, the Horned God and Judge Dredd. From there he went on to work on a wide selection of the world's best known comic books, including Batman during the 1990's at which time he was specially selected to portray the Dark Knight when he was being reinvented as the darker hero we know today. Other important titles he has worked on include the Heavy Metal fantasy art magazines, X-Men and later Wolverine.

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The winner of this year's World Cosplay Summit has been announced. According to JBC Publishing, the company that promoted WCS in Brazil, the winning team is the team of Gabriel Niemietz and Jéssica Campos, who cosplayed as the robot Jango and Jo from Burst Angel.

Source: Papo de Budega

HONG KONG'S FIRST EVER INTERNATIONAL GRAPHIC NOVEL

Launching the first issue of their debut title DevaShard across America in September 2008, Hong Kong based company Fluid Friction looks set to revolutionise the comic book and graphic novel industry.

In the long history of comics and graphic novels in Hong Kong, no one has previously attempted to launch a truly international product. However, with 6 markets initially (HK, Singapore, Macau, India, USA & UK) and many more to follow, Fluid Friction looks to be the first to release its graphic novel worldwide and simultaneously in English & Chinese.

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ANN points out that Kodansha's Morning 2 website has leaked news of the winner of the 2nd Morning International Manga Competition. According to the preview of the next issue of Morning 2, the winner is Fairy Tale by Taiwan's Meng-Lin Yu.

Deadline of the 3rd M.I.M.C. is September 30th, 2008.

Also, MangaCast has a "surprising" report on the latest issue of Morning 2.

Jiji Press reports that UNIQLO, a Japanese casual clothing store chain, is planning on bringing its manga and anime T-shirts overseas:

Fast Retailing hopes to boost sales of the manga and anime T-shirts by luring more overseas customers who seek after Japanese pop culture as "Japan Cool." [...] In France, Fast Retailing on Monday opened a time-limited T-shirt shop at Galeries Lafayette, a major department store in central Paris. [...] UNIQLO's adult-size T-shirts are priced between 1,500 yen and 1,900 yen in Japan. [...] In 2008, the company aims at selling more than 12 million T-shirts worldwide. It operates UNIQLO shops in Britain, France, Hong Kong, mainland China, South Korea and the United States in addition to Japan.

Source: MangaCast

According to Active Anime, the 9th International Manga Summit will be taking place in Kyoto, Japan this coming September:

This year's summit theme called "Environmental Innovation", will attempt to pursue and inform society about environmental conservation through manga with three sub-themes focusing on Global Warming Prevention, Dietary Education, and The 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle).

The Associated Press looks at the popularity of mobile commerce in Japan.

TMC.net reports that Devil's Due Publishing is collaborating with uclick to make their comics available to mobile phone users.

Finally, the Manchester Evening News has an article titled "How did Manga take over the world?" that looks at the popularity of manga around the world.