[ LIME MANGA PRODUCTION JOURNAL ]

Schwarzwaelder Kirschentorte! It's ALIVE!!!

2008-10-04T20:21:40Z

So my dearies...where to begin! The last post being 2007?! OMG....too long, much too long in between posts, days, whatevah...

A lot has happened as many of you are aware, or NOT! David and I are in Switzerland! Yes, home of William Tell, Isabelle Eberhardt, CHOCOLATE, CHEESE, The Geneva Convention and YES....CERN otherwise known as the BLACK HOLE experiment (layman's terms!) The END or the BEGINNING, Star Gates, Mayan Prophecy and once in a lifetime Galactic Movements and Alignments (no thanx, i don't need laxatives) depending on how you look at the CERN experiment. Could this be the bridge/wormhole that the Egyptians mention in the tale of Osiris...? AWESOME! I AM HERE! Or am I...?

So, work is slowly making it's way up on my priority list....don't tell David, it's not quite at the top, YET. How can one work with sooooo much beauty, excitement, HISTORY, unusual and UNIQUE archetecture, incredible, accommodating, thrilling and some of the most lovely people on the planet, Ooooh and the endless landscapes where Heaven clings to Earth with immortal strength!

K, the cute 'lil mountain goats do take the place of the mischievous raccoons of the USA and the martins/martens sneak in our sweet Swiss chalet only to play reindeer games with the dogs...Oh, excuse me huendli, that's little dogs in Swiss German btw, everything is diminutive in Swiss German, HOW CUTE!

Yes, the Swiss make EVERYTHING CUTE (i'm cute! I"M CUUUUUTE and I'll definitely make Santa's reindeer team this year!)

Lime Manga is still ALIVE and PUTTN' ON THE RITZ in a Young Frankenstein-ish kinda way! We are revamping EVERGREY and YARU (BOTH series are VERY much alive with a lot more in the way of plot and sub-plots, INCREDIBLE premise, deep character development and SUPERB art... if your into Vampires, Witches, Egyptian GODS, the Afterlife, Bi-shonen, Whoa-Shonen, Alle-Shonen...K, I'm getting corny as all get over (so eighties) but 'tis true and coming from the land of "I cannot tell a LIE" *cough, choke gasssp* I, my brethren, DO NOT LIE....after all it DOES come back!

We are also gearing up for FRANCE, ya heard of it...? A land where art is held in the highest of esteem, artists are acknowledged and worshiped for sharing their dreams, visions incredible story telling, skills, talent and well, it's kinda like that all around these here parts!

ART is NOT the first thing the government cuts in order to support...uuuh, well, I will NOT express political issues, morals and values here, after all this IS about entertainment and expression, love and life, all within the visual and literary arts!

Oooooo.....

Forgive me, I was amused, enmeshed and entangled in a daydreamy state inspired by the divine cantana of NATURE! The range and melody of the many cowbells on the misty glaucous countryside, the sweet, SWEET scent of the unwonted flowers of the aestival equinotical harvest and the nocturnally migrating songbirds all hold my willing soul captive...I have surrendered! If it's willing can it be captive...? Captivated...?

As some or none may have heard, we are working with some very PROMINENT and well established, TALENTED and INSPIRING artists in the U.S. and soon ALL shall be revealed! I KNOW Europe WILL fall in LOVE with the heartfelt works of these eternally bewitching souls. Of course we shall leave it to them to post their endeavours and much deserved accomplishments....it SHALL BE SO!

So, so....more to come, alles gut and here are a few pictures of the Heavenly Swiss landscape, me in a castle and Big Guy with my mom on the road!

Most positive thoughts and wishes of JOY, HAPPINESS, HEALTH and LOVE to ALL!

Mary ^_~

Pics from a recent trip with Mom:

NYAF, TOKYOPOP & PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY...OH MY!!!

2007-12-11T23:43:45Z

Well, I don't even know where to start! The NYC Anime Festival was AWESOME! We accomplished everything we set out to do and MORE!

So, first off the convention was fun, tiring but fun...why can't these shows start at midnight...? As I told kethylia, I'm the DON'T GO INTO THE LIGHT kinda grl. I usually do my best works between twelve and two a.m.....for real! Anyways, there were like, 10-15 thousand peeps who attended the NYC Anime Festival this year...good for us, we sold out of almost everything.

David and I had two new books printed up for the show. We put the Live Journal posts into a diary format with new art and previews for book two of both YARU and EVERGREY! It was kinda cool 'cause we also included the story/concept along with character descriptions and illustrations.

A lot of very nice people stopped by to visit and chat it up...Oh, and thanks to everyone who picked up some of our goodies, support is EVERYTHING to us. So many nice comments about our work inspires us all the more!

Brigid Alverson from mangablog was like the first one over...so nice to see her again, I think I was all out of sorts when we spoke last year at MangaNext, so I'm glad to have reconnected. She did a very nice in depth interview with us. Calvin Reid and Heidi MacDonald (The Beat) from PW's Comic Week also stopped by and said that they were gonna publish Brigid's interview in the Publisher's Weekly Newsletter...WOW I can't believe Brigid actually made sense outta my words...I'm tellin' ya, I was like NON STOP!

Full report and photos after the cut!

Soooo...the news is official! Yes, Lime Manga has broken up with Tokyopop Germany! Gosh, I feel like a High School drama queen...no sir, it was a totally mutual split and on good terms no less!

We are really branching off into a new direction...it's funny, when meeting with Rob Tokar (editor-in-chief at Tpop) about licensing our properties EVERGREY and YARU, he said it was new territory, I mean licensing from creators...btw, we are publishers now as we have laid the foundation for publication in Europe as well as the US.

"Nice n slow, see, that's the way to do it, nice n slow". I think that was from a Flintstone cartoon...IT"S SOOOO TRUE! David and I figured we have low overhead so we can start small and move forward at our own pace. This IS what we wanted, to have TOTAL CONTROL over the actual publishing and promotion of our properties...we darn well know how to do it ALL, so we would be fools not to flex that brain muscle and experience!

David once told me that ya didn't want to be the pioneer 'cause they're the ones who end up eatin' dirt with arrows in their backs....Be the settler, it's much easier...K, David, so tell me, why is it ok to be the pioneer now...? I must admit, I do feel oogie, then I ask myself, why??? We have all the knowledge, we know all the people, we have the talent/creative abilities...and just about everything we need, so why be scared...Oh, NEW territory. Then I just change my thoughts replacing scared with excited and it's all better!

We also got to meet some very talented and established people in the Manga industry and see some old friends... svetlania and deedupuy of Dramacon fame stopped by...we were so glad to have finally met them both, it's so weird "knowing:" people from online and then meeting them in person. It makes it all so ...real.

REM (Tpop's Vamire Kisses and winner of the Kodansha Manga contest!!!) hung out with us for a while....She and David met online a while back, before her Tpop gig. They were talking about doujinshi, printing and manga...so it was very hip to meet her in person.

Then CB. Cebulsky, an old friend and now ueber-consultant to Marvel came by for a little business chatting and catching up. Looks like we're going to see him soon again in Angouleme. Check out his Blog Chesterfest for his extensive travel reports.

Well, those of you who know me also know that I could sit here and go on and on endlessly but work calls and believe me, there is a whole lot more of it!

A bit of an update on our site...David and I are revamping it plus we have new stuff to add and things to delete...Change is beautiful!

Anyways...all weekend our dear comrade, tonybanke (assist on our books) and I were trying to come up with sayings from our grandparents day like, I've been bamboozled or hoodwinked.....So, as they said in the good old dayz...Back to the drawing board!

Also, we just got in the article in Publisher's Weekly Comicweek newsletter. Brigid did a fantastic job putting everything in coherent order. You can check it out here: Lime brings new Twist to Global Manga

An now on to the photos:

I
Our booth set-up. Me and David!

Me and Anthony Banks!

Selling out fast...

Our new Evergrey & Yaru Diary books!

And some prints, we sold at the show.

Fun folks at Netcomics!

The always massive Tpop booth. Check out Rob Tokar in the red shirt to the left...

Our booth was right opposite of the Tpop booth. This was our view for the weekend...

Stephen from Vertical. Always in good spirits!

Ali at the Del Rey booth! don't know who's backside that is tho...

View of the artist alley before the rush!

Those crazy artists drawing for food.

LIME AT NEW YORK ANIME FESTIVAL!

2007-11-28T17:01:51Z

OMG....Yes! The Art Trolls leave the studio! We will be attending the New York Anime Festival December 7th-9th at Booth 109!

We have been so busy working on the third books in our series, EVERGREY and YARU and have not been out in ages. All is well tho... We will have some fun stuff to sell at the convention.

David and I have put together illustrated diaries of both EVERGREY and YARU with a sneak peak of book two in each series. So if ya like Drop Dead (no pun intended) Vampires, Gorgeous Witches, Elegant (HOT) Egyptian Princes and Princesses and a good bit of the supernatural then stop on by!

I really dunno what else to say...WE ARE TOTALLY JAZZED! I'm freeeee ...k, Reality Check Mary!....only for a few days anyways!

Hope to see ya there!

Most positive thoughts to all!

i usually don't do these things...

2007-11-27T17:00:49Z

Dear Santa...

Dear Santa,

This year I've been busy!

Last Thursday I broke taniadelrio's X-Box (-12 points). In October I ruled Iran as a cruel and heartless dictator (-700 points). In November I ruled Asscrackistan as a kind and benevolent dictator (700 points). Last Wednesday I had a shoot-out with rival gang lords on the 5 near LA (-76 points). In March I gave madb0mber a kidney (1000 points).

Overall, I've been nice (912 points). For Christmas I deserve a shiny red ball!

Sincerely,
limemanga

EVERGREY TOKYOPOP USA RELEASE IN MARCH 2008!

2007-07-28T21:14:27Z

Well....we knew it but now a lot of other people know...EVERGREY is coming out in the USA in 2008!

Tokyopop USA will announce the exact date but we were told March 2008....who knows. It is funny 'cause there are so many different interpretations of what the story is about. One panel report on IGN.com mentioned something about Vampires and Elves. I'll clear it up right now...NO ELVES!

We love elves but this book does not feature elven content! It is a Gothic Romance...forbidden love, Vampires, Witches a touch of BL and a heavy dose of Fantasy!

The creators are Lime Manga: Mary Hildebrandt , writer and David Boller, artist!

So...my head is spinning...so sad, the only excuse I can give is working between Vampires, Egyptian Gods, Witches, Humans, Ghosts the Afterlife this life no life and all life....whatever..it's a wild ride for sure!

Enjoy a few pages from Evergrey, Book Two...

Vampires Armand, Darius and Xavier with their Lures (Lure: no longer Human and not yet a full Vampire). Calisto the long blond haired Lure belongs to Xavier.

Lures are created for the sole purpose of pleasing their Masters...they hold no rank within the Consanguinean Council of the Nostromo Vampire clan.

Xavier with Armand and his Lure Tristan.

COOL ARTICLE 'BOUT POP!

2007-07-13T17:20:49Z

I really LOVE my dad!

News Article about my dad!

Dad's best friend, Michael Uslan with Ray Harryhausen!

MANGA IN SWISS LAND!

2007-06-26T19:14:19Z

Our trip to Switzerland was an emotional one for sure. It is such an incredibly beautiful country...I felt like I was in a MIYAZAKI film the entire trip!

This is the view from David's dad's house.

5 min walk into the town of Mogelsberg....it is larger, not much tho.

We did manage to get out & about and just had to stop by the very popular comic book store, Comedia. The store is located in downtown St Gallen and has been there for over twenty years!

Vince and David...Vince was sooo jazzed, he said mainstream comic creators NEVER just walk in off the street.

Of course, I had to see if YARU was out (still have not received our copies from DE) and sure enough it was in the storefront window! We talked to the clerk, Vince and he said EVERGREY sold out immediately and is a great success! Yay! YARU also sold out but he will order more books for our return trip in August/September.

We checked out the shelves and found friends in Switzerland....SHUTTERBOX by Tavisha and Rikki!!! Vince said their book did well, too! So cool, I just had to take a picture!

Okay...I have severe brain fry so I'll post more groovy pics later...jet lag sucks!

SAD NEWS!

2007-06-19T14:13:07Z

We wanted to create a really nice post but we had to leave for Switzerland on short notice.

David's father, Hannes Boller passed away on June 10th 2007...same month and day my uncle Tim died. Hannes died like Tim, from complications due to diabetes which eventually lead to a heart attack and failure of his organs.

He passed away in his favorite place on this planet, Greece.

A goodbye gathering was held Monday in his hometown of Mogelsberg.
Hannes Boller is survied by his sons, David and Manuel Boller.

David & Mary

LIME MANGA UPDATE!

2007-06-06T15:55:32Z

It's been a while since last post...I think.

Aaaarg...all work and no play! No complaints either!

Anyway, here is the cover for the Executices Women Book Cover! YAY!!!
All works collected in this beautiful tankoban...scheduled for release June 20th in France.

Page from YARU BOOK 2.: Nafarious Khal threatening his prisoner...OOOOO, scary!

YARU BOOK 2: Beezer and Ohm try to weasel their way out of a slip of the tongue. Hey, who wears the dress anyway? Better yet, who likes wearing the dress?

For all you Vampire lovers...scene from EVERGREY BOOK 2. Szandor's Coronation!

EVERGREY BOOK 2: Sairim (Witch Coven) shapeshift into their Animal Spirit Guides.

Enjoy...

SPLASH COMICS YARU SPECIAL!

2007-05-16T19:05:31Z

Splash Comics gave YARU a really nice Special Presentation!

Thanks Bernd! You're the GROOVIEST!!!

Splashcomics Yaru Special

YARU BOOK 1 ANIMATED TRAILER!

2007-05-04T19:41:00Z

Hallo, wie geht's! (Hello, how are you!)

Wow! We haven't posted in a while...all work and no play, I guess!

Well, our second series, YARU just hit the stores in Germany and were so excited! Hit the link to get first look at the trailer. I know, it's all German for now but the story telling is pretty solid.

YARU TRAILER

Enjoy!

BIG SHOGUN NEWS & COVER NO. 7!

2007-04-06T01:02:15Z

Only six issues into it's run, Shogun Magazine announces the first major overhaul of it's concept. Let me just say that it's a turbulent world out there and nothing is certain anymore. One of my major quarrels with the magazine has been the integration of many different genres into a magazine that, in order to be truly successful, needed to be really tight and focused on a specific core demographic. In the case of Shogun, the Shonen Jump audience, which consists mostly of young boys. As you can see with our project, Executrices Women, that would be a difficult to achieve.

So, the editorial has decided to split up Shogun Magazine into two separate magazines, Shogun Shonen and Shogun Seinen, with the possibilty of a Shonen Shojo being discussed. The format will also change to a smaller size of approximately, 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" and about 250 pages per magazine. It will carry a slightly lower price of Euro 4.50.

There is also word of some problems with the printer, which will delay the release of issue 7 until April 21and the subsequent issue 8 to the end of May. The June Issue 9 should be the first issue under the new concept and a new printer is being contracted as we speak.

Also, the first Executrices Women tankoban is scheduled for a June release.

And as if this wasn't enough, a new Shogun website will go live any day now with a slicker look and enhanced features.

And even more. The first mobile phone game, based on the Shogun property, Holy Wars, has been available and received favorable reviews in the press.

YARU MANGA PLAYER

2007-03-30T21:02:53Z

Tokyopop announced that our second series is now available in the Manga Player from their site. Unfortunately only in German but you might still getting a kick out of it. The book will be in stores late April....YAY!

Yaru Manga Player

(click on the Manga Player link on the left navigation bar)

Sorry for such a short post but working on three series simultaneously, Evergrey, Yaru and Executrices Women is all time consuming. But fun nonetheless!!!!

SHOGUN NO. 6 REVIEW AND PREVIEW FOR CHAPTER 2!

2007-03-09T20:50:36Z

Shogun No. 6 hit the stands officially last Saturday and by Wednesday I had already received my comp copies in the mail. Thanks to Guillaume, editor-in-chief of Shogun magazine. I think the magazine came out terrific with three new series debuting. The first reviews are also coming in and so far everyone seems to like the Executrices Women. I think it was a pretty big gamble from the editorial at Shogun to include and even feature a series very non-shonen in a magazine that mostly appealed to a younger core demographic. I think everyone involved is going to sleep a little

Here are a couple links to reviews and other fun stuff:

Review of Shogun 6 on JapanBar.com

The Executrices Women thread on the Shogun Forum in English

Executrices Women book out this June (Shogun Tankoban Schedule)

And here's a short 2-page preview for Shogun No. 7 (Executrices chapter 2) coming in April 2007:

You can also find us at VOX and Comicspace!

SHOGUN NO. 6 COVER REVEALED!

2007-02-20T19:07:22Z

Shogun revealed the official cover for their sixth issue. The cover is, as you may have guessd by Lime and the issue will introduce Executrices Women to the world. No sale date has been announced yet. Stay tuned...

For those of you who speak French, you can participate in the Shogun Forum thread about EW here:
Shogun Forum

limemanga @ 2007-02-13T21:05:00

2007-02-14T02:05:36Z

Create your own visitor map!

LIME JOINS SHOGUN MAGAZINE!

2007-02-03T20:44:04Z

We are pleased to announce that with March's Shogun issue 6, Lime and David Boller will be teaming up with acclaimed writer Nicolas Meylaender for the a brand-new manga series called Exécutrices Women. You probably knew that this was coming, especially since we have been early and persistent proponents of Shogun Magazine, the first ever professional Global Manga coming out ot of Paris.

Exécutrices Women

Four girls and four friends for life: Manon, the shy, clumsy and short-sighted blonde is a videogame producer; Jade, a neat freak with chestnut hair, is the ringleader and a district attorney; Alix, the career oriented redhead and man-eater is a TV reporter; Léa, the insecure dreamer with black curls is the art director in an advertising agency. Confronted with professional and emotional troubles, they will do whatever it takes to further their carriers and their identities as independent women. Goodbye Executive Women, now it is the time for Exécutrices Women.

Nicolas Meylaender was born in Marseilles, France, and has a dual French and British nationality. He started to work in the videogame industry (Sony, Atari) in 1994 as a bilingual scriptwriter and game designer and as a storyboard artist for games such as The City of Lost Children, Escape O.D.T., Tintin, Lucky Luke… He scripted the French Darkness comic-book published by Semic in 2004 and has translated several series for Semic (100 Bullets), Delcourt (The Goon, Sam&Twitch) and Bamboo (Imaginaries). An independent consultant, he is also a scriptwriter and graphic artist for the French studio MAKMA and currently works for Atari on the videogame adaptation of the acclaimed comic-book series Lanfeust de Troy published by Soleil which will be released for Christmas 2007 worldwide. He’s also busy scripting “Exécutrices Women”, a monthly manga serial he created for Humano’s Shogun Magazine with art by talented David Boller and Studio Lime. Nicolas lives and works in Paris.

David Boller was born and raised in Zuerich, Switzerland and attended the Joe Kubert School of Graphics and Cartoon Art in New Jersey. After graduation he worked for Marvel, DC, Acclaim, Wildstorm, Top Cow and Warp Graphics on a variety of titles such as Spiderman, Batman, Witchblade, Magic the Gathering and Elfquest. 1996 saw the publication of his own creation KAOS MOON by Caliber. The acclaimed urban fantasy around a medium and her beautiful astral alter ego was also serialized in the German HEAVY METAL magazine and was collected into two graphic novels by Alpha Comics. As part of Studio Lime David is currently working two successful series for Tokyopop Germany, Yaru and Evergrey. With prolific writer Nicolas Meylaender he’s also busy woking on a monthly manga serial for Humano’s Shogun Magazine, called “Executrices Women”. David lives and works with his wife Mary Hildebrandt in New Jersey.

The adventures of the four Parisienne women will be cronicled in monthly installements in Shogun Magazine and will also grace the cover of it's sixth issue. A paperback release is planned for June 2007 from Humano/Shogun. Check out a five page preview behind the cut.

Exécutrices Women 5 Page Preview:

EVERGREY VAMPIRE LADIES!

2007-02-02T22:19:07Z

Check out those two sexy vampire ladies from the Nostromo (Evergrey) clan. These are not actually going to be part of the story but could be considered concept art. Enjoy!

Shogun Magazine Number 5 Cover and News!

2007-01-30T19:39:37Z

Today, Shogun unveiled the cover for their fifth issue. There seems to be no new series in this issue but I can pretty much promise you that there will be at least one brand-new series in the next issue. How do I know that? Well, you're gonna have to wait for my next post, probably tomorrow for a major announcement.

Here's the content of the fifth issue to be on newstands probably next week:

004 S-Files : Evangelion
006 Kult-Ur : le système ABO
008 Geek-Chic : le sport
012 Adam Warren
016 Yonkoma
020 B.B Project Chap.2
060 Holy Wars Chap.5
086 Kairi Chap.3
116 Love’INC Chap.5
132 Kenro Chap.3
163 Sanctuaire Reminded Chap.5
192 Lolita HR Chap.4
233 Breath Effect Chap.5
262 Underskin Chap.2
292 Tengu Do Chap.2
322 Lost Scion Chap 3
338 SONDAGE

Also, I'm preparing a mulit-part essay about the state of Global Manga, including a list of the top ten GM publishers worldwide and an prediction where it's all heading. Stay tuned!

Thank You!

2007-01-26T20:36:29Z

We just want to thank everyone for the support on EVERGREY! It continues to pull in high ranking on Amazon and the reviews are awesome! Hope everyone is enjoying the live journals for Ethan, Jessie, Szandor and Kyrania! (Check user page for info)

A lot exciting things have been happening in between the books, sometimes transformation can be quite painful! Please have fun looking at a few pages from book two...hmmm, a bit of Vampire shounen-ai???

Shogun Magazine Number 4 Cover and News!

2007-01-07T21:34:57Z

As of issue 4 Shogun has a new and improved format. It clocks in at an amazing 340 pages with 11 séries for 4,90 € (about $ 6.50 !) with better paper. I received issue 3 last week and the paper was already upgraded from the first two issues.

This is the content for the issue 4 :

p004 B.B PROJECT Chap.1
p044 KENRO Chap.2
p074 GEEK CHIC : Yukito Kishiro
p077 SANCTUAIRE REMINDED Chap.4
p104 LOVE’INC Chap.4
p128 HOLY WARS Chap.4
p150 MIND Chap.3
p166 THE S-FILES : Berserk
p172 KAIRI Chap.2
p202 YONKOMA
p203 ANARKY Chap.4
p233 BREATH EFFECT Chap.4
p268 THEMANGA : Le marché du manga
p270 UNDERSKIN Chap.1
p300 TENGU DO Chap.1
p330 CONCOURS « LES MECHAS »
p338 SONDAGE

Shogun has now an offical blog (http://shoguncityblog.blogspot.com). Only in French but you can get there latest news right away. Word from the editor-in-chief Guillaume Dorison is that even if a serial doesn't perform well during it's first run in the magazine, Humano will still publish the paperbacks two to three times a year. With about 20 original series currently in production, Humano is now the second largest publisher of Global Manga worldwide. Tokyopop creators might be interested to hear that there is a true alternative for their future projects.
More very soon...

New Evergrey blog!

2006-12-31T22:42:36Z

Well, David and I have been thinking of a way to keep readers interested in Evergrey inbetween books...WE GOT IT! It's all still work in progress but we've given the main characters their own live journals.

http://community.livejournal.com/evergrey_manga

Yes! Now everyone interested can find out the details of the lives of our characters! You can follow them as they grow throughout the story, sneak a peak into personal experiences, read their private or not so private thoughts, fill in the missing pieces and possibly uncover secrets within the story!

Everyone is welcome to support, comment or give advise to Jessie and Ethan...they are kinda new to the whole livejournal thing but they are catching on fast!

Have a Great New year!

Lime Manga!

NEW LIME SERIES: YARU!

2006-12-02T16:25:49Z

Hey All!

Well, our second "Global" manga has just been announced! Yaru ( Golden Fields of the Egyptian Afterlife) is being published in May 2007 by Tokyopop Germany!

Our first book, Evergrey has been getting great reviews and good sales, so we're excited to see how the response is to Yaru. We had so much fun working on both titles even though I was still on dialysis and within the same year David gave me one of his kidneys. It was a struggle, healing from the transplant, adjusting to immuno suppression and going to and from the hospital in NYC for the past two years. During this time Joachim Kaps and the rest of Tpop Germany played a huge part in our healing proccess. I cannot even imagine what it would have been like had they not granted us this wonderful gift of creating the two series.

Thank you, Jo!

The Story:

Rae, a young skater girl with a troubled past, has a crush on Billy, a popular high school football player. Only problem, he just happens to be dating the hottest cheerleader in Oldwick High. The jocks have been targeting Rae and her friends frequently for their unconventional taste in clothes, music and just about everything else. For some, high school is living hell.

But fate works in mysterious ways and when Rae happens to receive an ancient Egyptian talking board from the local witch, Ophelia, she intends to enlist the help of the spirit world for her own purposes.

Talking Boards are commonly used to connect to the spirits of the deceased. But Ophelia cautions Rae to always follow three important rules. Only conjure up the energy of one spirit in particular, communicate with positive intentions and always, always close the session with good-bye.

Caught up in the excitement, unintentionally ignoring the advice of Ophelia, Rae stumbles upon three lost souls, Beezer, Ohm and Victoria-Rose. These three hapless ghosts were trapped outside of the ethereal realm when Rae opened the door by mistake. In order to find their way to the afterlife, the ghosts had stolen the very powerful Spirit Map from Ramun Khalid, an evil, thieving, demonic ghost from Ancient Egypt. But their inexperience with the map led them to commit some fatal errors and instead of arriving in paradise they were trapped in a small and stuffy cell, unable to free themselves.

Thanks to Rae, they are finally free again, their problems are far from over. Beezer, Ohm and Victoria- Rose still don't know how to use the Spirit Map and if things aren’t bad enough, they are now being hunted by Ramun Khalid . Rae doesn't really know what to make of the three bumbling ghosts either, ever since they entered her world the distance between her and Billy has grown and it seems the rest of her life is falling apart, too.

Will these spirits help to make her dreams come true or did she open the gate to something more sinister?

Shogun Magazine Review and Cover!

2006-11-18T23:15:15Z

Soon after I posted the cover for the third issue of Shogun they changed the cover image. So here is the new, definitive cover for issue three:

A couple days ago I also received the first two issues of Shogun in the mail. The magazine is quite thick and reminds me a lot Shonen Jump in it's outer appearance. I really can't believe I'm actually holding an OGL anthology in my hands. The one thing nobody thought could be done but here it is...

As with most revolutionary products, there are things that don't work out right from the start. Starting with a couple production mistakes in the first issue and couple serials that are not up to the standards of the other series. A lot of fans voiced their opinion on the Shogun Forums and as I understand a couple series are being removed as of issue 3. One criticism was that most of the serials weren't manga enough but season two starting next year is supposed to include more mangaesque series. There is a preview at the end of issue one for the second season and some of the titles seem quite promising.

In the beginning of the magazine is also an editorial section in full-color that talks about a variety of manga-related subjects. It covers a lot of ground, from explaining some basic terminology issues to tutorials.

I'm not going to review each and every serial but will say that the first two serials in the first issue, Mind and Holy Wars, definitely leave the strongest impression. Both are shonen/fantasy-oriented and are playing very well with the core demographics of a newsstand magazine. At the other end of the spectrum, Breath Effect that is so awful that it's almost good again. A lot of readers were complaining/wondering about this series on the messageboards. This one needs to go...fast...
Which brings me to my next point. Like in the Japanese Shonen Jump, Shogun contains a mail-in form to vote for your favorite series. This is supposed to determined which serials were going to be continued and get a tankobon release. No surprise then that the results in the second issue show Mind and Holy Wars as the clear front runners.

In summation, Guillaume Dorison and Humano deserve huge kudos for their valiant efforts in catapulting OGL and it's creators forward into the true mainstream of newsstand distribution. Let's hope the noble experiment will catch on maybe even grace the US OGL landscape in one form or another soon (which, by the way is not even that far fetched. Humano still has an office in LA (kinda dormant though).

Shogun Magazine News!

2006-11-09T02:56:43Z

A couple months ago I posted quite a bit of news about the new OGL anthology magazine Shogun from French publishing giant Humano. The first two issues have come out and reactions seem mostly positive. Most promotional activity seems right now limited to the Paris area conventions and events but I'm sure as time goes on, word will get out beyond France. Supposedly there was some struggle with the technical aspect of manga printing. Imagine you'd have to produce 1200 DPI art for two formats and two different sizes, the magazine as well as the tankoban. But it looks like they got most of the snafus fixed with the second issue. The first manga volumes are supposed to ship in January 2007 with new volumes every four months.

Below the covers of issue 2 (shipped November 1) and 3 (shipping November 30).