Fantagraphics Forum

The other day I noted that Amazon was listing the manga Wandering Son as being licensed by Fantagraphics, and it came out shortly thereafter that Drunken Dream, a series of short stories by shoujo manga pioneer Moto Hagio, had also been picked up by Fantagraphics.

I waited to hear back from Fantagraphics on the matter before posting that one, but shortly thereafter official word came out: Fantagraphics is working with Shogakukan-- VIZ co-owner whose works are usually considered unavailable by other publishers --to start a full manga line that will be edited by Matt Thorn. Actually, the official word also says it will be "curated" by Matt Thorn, which along with the intriguing gender identity drama Wandering SOn should tell you a bit about the kind of line it will be.

Moto Hagio is considered by many to be the "founding mother" of modern shoujo manga, a member of the prominent "Year 24 Group" who debuted in 1969, and she continues to work to this day-- she celebrated her 40th year as a professional mangaka in 2009. However, relatively few of her works have been translated into English: the short story Hanshin was published in an issue of The Comics Journal, as well as the short story They Were Eleven. The single-volume shoujo sci-fi A, A' was released by VIZ Media some time back, along with two other stories.

Why am I talking up Hagio so much? Because it's also just been announced that she'll be a guest at Comic-Con International this year! You know what that means-- I'll (hopefully!) have a shot at interviewing her! I'm particularly curious on her perspective about how the manga industry has changed-- and how it's stayed the same! --since she debuted.

What would YOU ask someone like Moto Hagio?

Hooray, more old school shoujo manga.  At the same time, its kind of a risk since many manga fans prefer the more modern/current art style of manga.    Nonetheless, I look forward to reading Moto Hagio's work and I hope more of her work will be acquired.  I'm sure Matt Thorn will take good care of the translations as he's done for Est Em's work which I truly like reading.

I've been reading more and more links throughout the day, and honestly my hype just keeps going up. I can't really express how much I'm looking forward to being able to read these books now I know they definitely are coming... and as I just read Dirk Deppey's second post on it at TCJ, with the "No, this won’t be the last Moto Hagio book that we publish", its sort of left me with a bit of a silly grin.
(His comment on Wandering Son made me laugh too).

Small correction: They Were Eleven was published as part of the Viz anthology Four Shoujo Stories, not in The Comics Journal.