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…bibliographic notes about manga…

Archive for March, 2009

Kuwata Jiro’s Bat-manga

This year’s manga seminar just ended. As in past years, it seems like we were just getting into a stride. The end came too soon. Well all I can do at this point is start thinking about next year’s course. I asked the students for input and got some great ideas.

One of the questions I always face is about where to start, how far back to go in constructing this 1-credit, 10-week course. This time we started with Tezuka’s Black Jack (OSU catalog). That was a big hit, so I’m going to keep it for next fall’s course. However, I am thinking to assign Kuwata Jiro’s Bat-manga (OSU catalog) as the first week’s reading. There’s an interesting article about it on the Valdosta Daily Times web site by Dean Poling, “COMICS: Batmanga”

Meanwhile, Ohio State’s holdings of Kuwata Jiro’s works are expanding with the acquisition of the Manga Shop Series. We’ve received a grant from the North American Coordinating Council on Japanese Library Resources’ Multivolume Sets Project recently to purchase a second (circulating) copy of the first 150 volumes in that series — and OSU will continue to purchase a 2d copy for volumes being published into the future. The second set is on order now. Meanwhile, Mayumi Kamata (GA working in the Cartoon Research Library) is already cataloging the first set that arrived about a month ago.

Add comment March 16th, 2009

Helen McCarthy: Veteran otaku

Helen McCarthy was in Kuala Lumpur recently to give a talk about Tezuka Osamu. In KL she was interviewed by Elizabeth Tai of the Malaysia Star who wrote an article — Veteran Otaku: How did an English lady get hooked on a Japanese phenomenon some three decades ago?

OCLC’s new “Worldcat Identities” provides an overview of how widely Helen McCarthy’s books are collected in libraries worldwide. Many are at Ohio State, but not the newest one (yet).

This quarter Sarah Kniss, a senior at Ohio State, has been indexing McCarthy’s book. 500 Manga Heroes and Villains, on Carmenwiki to help improve access to the book, connect it with the manga in our collection, and encourage people to look more closely at characters in manga. That’s a great way to start doing research into manga. This is part of a larger project in which Sarah is exploring “professional writing” while promoting Ohio State’s manga collection.

Add comment March 8th, 2009