After pleading guilty to the charges last year, Christopher Handley has been sentenced to six months in prison for possessing manga drawings of “children being sexually abused,” Anime News Network has reported.

Handley was charged after the U.S. Post Office seized the following books, back in 2006:

Mikansei Seifuku Shōjo (Unfinished School Girl) by Yuki Tamachi (LE Comics)
I [Heart] Doll by Makafusigi (Seraphim Comics)
Kemono for ESSENTIAL 3 (THE ANIMAL SEX ANTHOLOGY Vol.3) by Masato Tsukimori et al (Izumi Comics)
Otonari Kazoku (Neighboring House Family) by Nekogen (MD Comics)
Eromon by Makafusigi (Seraphim Comics)
Kono Man_ ga Sugoi! (This Man_ is Awesome!) by Makafusigi (Seraphim Comics)
Hina Meikyū (Doll Labyrinth) by Makafusigi (Seraphim Comics)

These books all have drawings of minors engaging in sexual activity, including with adults and animals. According to ANN’s thorough coverage of the legal documentation, Handley’s interest in manga eventually “evolved” in the mid-’90s to ”fascination for images of young girls engaged in sexual activity.”

Handley’s trial had the backing for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which did back out following Handley pleading guilty to the charges. Handley said that if he had known these were against the law he would never have ordered them.

That said, the prosecution’s main argument does set my Spider-sense tingling: ”The works at issue do not even have arguable scientific, literary, artistic, or political value, such as Vladimir Nabokov’s famed novel, Lolita, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, or even Alan Moore’s recent, but controversial, graphic novel, Lost Girls. By the defendant’s own statements, the works for which he was convicted of receiving and possessing are clearly obscene.”

At that point, isn’t it all or nothing? Let’s even step aside the obvious argument of whether a drawing of an illegal act is the same as partaking the real thing — at what point do we start labeling the art as “valuable” or not? When do we start discussing motive for consumption? Will viewers have to own up to seeing Transformers 2 because of the sheer art and beauty of an eye-bleeding transformation, or because they simply find Megan Fox to be extremely attractive? Let’s discuss.

Ready for violence, death, and aliens? Well, you’ll have to wait a little bit on that, as the new teaser trailer for Gantz is just that — a tease, instead examining the book’s titular ebony sphere…

The Shinsuke Sato-directed film is due out sometime in 2011 in Japan — no word yet on when it’ll hit the States.

Apparently when you’re searching for Dragon Balls, letting it all hang out can get you into trouble.

Delmarva Now has posted a story about a library in Salisbury which seems to have had a problem with Dragon Ball, Vol. 1, after a fourth grader recently checked the book out of a school library. They passed out photocopies of the T+-rated book, with scenes apparently depicting:

In one, the protagonist, a young boy, pats the covered crotch area of a sleeping teenage girl before removing her panties. The same boy later appears naked in the bathtub and is naked when he performs flying jump kicks.

In another scene, a Peeping Tom watches a naked teenage girl as she takes a shower. Furthermore, the novel shows a teenage girl flashing a bearded man; and another man asking a girl about her bra size.

School Superintendent John Frederickson said that his initial reaction is to “say it’s coming off the shelves as soon as I can get a phone call back to the office.” Could this revive the manga-fueled debate surrounding Christopher Handley? What do you think?

I usually try to review a comic or two here on the weekends, but my review stack has gotten pretty out of control, so I figured instead of shaving a little off the top, I’d try to make a more sizable dent in it. So below you’ll find reviews of five comics and graphic novels from the last few months.

Empowered Vol. 5 (Dark Horse Comics) Adam Warren’s one-man graphic novel series has reached the point where reviewing each new volume seems a little beside the point. You’re either reading or your not, and if you’re not, you should be. Or at least, you should be if you like, love or maybe even loathe superheroes.

Empowered remains not only the funniest superhero comic on the stands, but also the most mature and sophisticated, which itself seems like a joke given the series’ start in superhero parody, shameless cheesecakery and bondage gags that would make William Moulton Marston blush.

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The main conflict at the heart of Kimi Ni Todoke (Viz) has a problem that will be familiar to anyone who’s seen very many American teen movies. Fifteen-year-old Sawako Kuronuma is extremely unpopular at school, and said to look like the scary little girl in Ringu, thus frightening all her classmates.

Yet just as Rachael Leigh Cooke with long hair and glasses is just as beautiful as Rachael Leigh Cooke with short hair and contacts, Sawako’s obviously drawn as a very pretty girl and, in fact, her attractiveness is part of the plot—Kazehaya, the most popular boy in class, is apparently secretly in love with her.

Manga-ka Karuho Shiina, who obviously has a lot more leeway than a Hollywood director, gets around that dilemma by keeping Sawako’s physical features consistent, but often framing her the way the villain or monster in another manga might be framed.

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I think we can all agree that there are few things in this world as cool as comic books, and that one of those things is probably dinosaurs. This explains why comic books about dinosaurs tend to be fairly awesome, and Hitoshi Shioya’s Dinosaur Hour, a recent offering from the Viz Kids line, is no exception.

Yes, it’s a kids book (recommended for kids ages 9-12 on Amazon), and yes, it’s educational, but don’t hold any of that against it. It’s also a pretty funny sketch comedy starring various dinosaurs from various periods of prehistoric history. The comedy is all physical or character driven, to the extent that the dinosaurs are able to develop personalities in their few page appearances, and is otherwise pretty much realistic and naturalistic.

Basically, it’s a slice of life comedy starring a bunch of dinosaurs.

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Probably the coolest thing you’ll see on the web today right here. Sorry to apoil the internet for you the rest of the day, but this is just too cool:

In honor of Gundam’s 30th Anniversary, they’ve built a life size model. Unfortunately, this means a war between Earth and the Space Colonies is bound to happen soon, so any teenagers out there in Tokyo should get ready to stumble upon this behemoth and have some natural intuition on how to use it. Everyone else, just drool at the awesome, and click through the link above for more pictures of this bad boy.

[via Twitter]

The website Topless Robot (*hee hee hee*) along with Dragonball The Movie are both reporting that James Marsters has confirmed that he will begin filming a sequel to Dragonball Evolution as early as late this year.

Wait a second… James Marsters was in the Dragonball movie? James Marsters, the guy whose presence saved the last couple of seasons of Buffy from completely jumping the shark after the Scooby Gang left for college? The same James Marsters that kicked ass as Braniac on Smallville? This James Marsters?

Come on, dude. You’ve built up enough geek credibility between Buffy, Angel, and Torchwood to get roles in better movies than that. How about lobbying for the role of Hawkeye in the upcoming Avengers movie? Or maybe you can get your old pal Joss Whedon to talk Time-Warner into making a Starman movie? You’d be great as Jack Knight.

And another thing: A Dragonball sequel? Sure, why not? Don’t let the fact that Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 13% fresh rating, or the fact that it only made $54.7 million worldwide, despite having a budget of allegedly $100 million, stop you from making what will likely be a horrible film that even the makers of Ishtar will laugh at.

Your ever-lovin’, blue-eyed Peter David has been busy, according to his blog.

Working with Ben 10, David has not only written an episode titled “In Charm’s Way,” but has also a Ben 10: Alien Force manga with Del Ray called “Ben Folds Four.” Which will be Rockin’ the Suburbs, for all you music fans out there…

Meanwhile, some big news is that David has been asked to get snikt-snikt-bub on with some additional issues of Wolverine: First Class. And finally, he teases that another limited series will be announced at NYCC…

The Korean production company SSD has signed an agreement with Fox TV Studios to produce a live-action version of the manga City Hunter, ICv2 has reported.

The adaptation of the Tsukasa Hojo manga, which will star Korean actor Chung Woo-sung, will be filmed in English and distributed worldwide. According to SSD, the 13-episode order will be the first U.S. TV drama to be headlined by an Asian actor.

The series, which follows “sweeper” Ryo Saeba as he cleans up his city from crime, has inspired four animated series, several television specials, as well as a 1993 live-action film starring Jackie Chan. Yet the current backers, Fox TV Studios, are no slouches, either, having produced acclaimed series such as Burn Notice and The Shield.

One day cute high school girl Rui’s father brings home a friend from work, the dreamy young marketing statistician Igarashi. Instantly smitten, Rui soon launches a plan to get close to Igarashi: The next day she asks her father if he can hire a statistics tutor for her, so she can learn more about his job.

“The tutor could be one of your workers,” she helpfully suggests. Tears of pride running down his face, her father skips off to make it so.

On the first day of her lessons, however, she runs down the stairs to meet Mamoru Yamamoto, who lives closer than Igarashi and is also good at teaching. But not only is he not Igarashi, he’s a hopeless geek: His hair is messy, his glasses make his eyes look huge and bug-like, he is more interested in shojo than Rui is, and he even absent-mindedly wears one shoe and one sandal on one occasion.

Oh, the irony! Rui soldiers on though, thinking that if she masters statistics she can impress her true love later, and she is slowly won over by the young teacher’s knowledge of statistics, his growing indifference to her school girl charms (playing hard to get—works every time, guys!) and the fact that he looks pretty hot without his glasses.

It’s hardly the most original or compelling storyline really, but given that it occurs in The Manga Guide To Statistics (No Starch Press), which is, for all intents and purposes a math text book, well, it’s certainly the best romantic dramedy I’ve ever read in a math text book (Although, come to think of it, some of the word problems I encountered in school involving trains speeding in different directions did have a certain air of mystery about them…)
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Hey all!

Do you have one of those annoying friends who likes to e-mail you played-out Chuck Norris jokes?

If so, have them check out this video of Bruce Lee playing ping-pong with nunchucks.

No, it’s not real footage (thank you, CGI technology!), but they don’t need to know that, do they?

Comics readers will find several things to be thankful for this week, including the debut of the new Umbrella Academy miniseries, the end of the “R.I.P” storyline in Batman, and the long-awaited Body Bags one-shot.

(Yes, I know Thursday is Thanksgiving only in the United States, but you can still be thankful for something — like, say, the arrival of Mesmo Delivery in comics shops.)

If you’re looking for more books to keep you entertained between parade viewings, food courses and football games, Wednesday also sees an American Elf collection, another Captain America Premiere Hardcover, Scott Morse’s Tiger Tiger Tiger, and … Tijuana Bibles.

To see what other titles Chris Mautner and I think are worth mentioning, just keep reading. As always, let us know your choices in the comments below.

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Imagi has released the first teaser for its computer-animated adaptation of Astro Boy, based on the classic manga and anime series by Osamu Tezuka. You can watch the trailer after the break.

Directed by David Bowers, the movie features the voices of Freddie Highmore, Nicolas Cage, Kristen Bell, Nathan Lane, Matt Lucas, Bill Nighy, Eugene Levy, Donald Sutherland and Scarlett Johansson. Astro Boy opens on Oct. 23, 2009.

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– Alison Bechdel and Harvey Pekar, together at last.

– Steve Duin has some good news about underground cartoonist S. Clay Wilson, who has been in ICU for the past several days.

– Ada Price talks to Dave Gibbons about his new book, Watching the Watchmen.

– Looks like it’s official: Naruto Nation 2009 is totally a go.

– Sam Thielman looks at the significance of Alan Moore’s run on Swamp Thing in light of the new super-fancy collection coming out soon.

– Over at Stars and Stripes, Gary Trudeau answers some of his critics.

– Van Jensen talks to Mike Allred about the revamped Red Rocket collection.

– Here’s my idea of a fun time: Dan Nadel, Gary Panter and CF sitting around, talking about art and comics.

– Did you know About Comics is 10 years old this year? I didn’t. Chris Murphy has a recollection.

– Sandy Bilus is giving away a copy of Alan’s War over at his blog.

– Oscar Pedro Musibay looks at the Comics Galaxy event that was held at last weekend’s Miami Book Fair.

– Frank Santoro considers the new Popeye collection.

If I’m running a little late this week, blame it on the winter weather. Or, at the very least, the avalanche of comics based on movies, television shows and video games.

Angel, Battlestar Galactica, Dead Space, Doctor Who, Halloween, Heroes, Star Trek, Star Wars, Street Fighter II, Transformers, The X-Files, World of Warcraft — they’re all represented on shelves this week.

If those aren’t your thing, there’s also an omnibus edition of Jack Kirby’s The Demon, a Walking Dead oversized hardcover, a collection of Stan Lee’s old monthly columns, Mark Waid’s debut on the Brand New Day-era Amazing Spider-Man, and yetis. Well, at least one yeti.

To see what other titles Chris Mautner and I think are worth mentioning, just keep reading. As always, let us know your choices in the comments below.

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– Harry N. Abrams plans to publish Barry Deutsch’s acclaimed Webcomic Hereville in book form. Brigid Alverson has details.

– Steve Duin provides an update on S. Clay Wilson’s health. Short answer: “His condition has not improved significantly.”

– “There’s an exotica Americans find in my stories that’s lost on Israeli readers:” Nisha Gopalan interviews Israeli cartoonist Rutu Modan about her new book Jamilti.

– Colleen Doran is looking for a few good cartoonists to help her review data for the Graphic Artists Guild Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines.

– Kai-Ming Cha has a great interview with editor Sean Michael Wilson about Top Shelf’s upcoming AX anthology. “We’re selecting it from the 10 year archive so we’re talking about some 20,000 pages. That’s a lot of stuff to choose from.”

– Peter Sanderson celebrates the 20th anniversary of Sandman with a look back.

– Sanderson also looks at the new Vertigo Encyclopedia.

– The Daily Cartoonist reports that editorial cartoonists Steve Greenberg and Lee Judge are being laid off from their respective newspapers.

– Things to do: David B and Igort will be at the Beguiling in Toronto this Saturday.

– Other things to do: Kim Deitch will be doing a Q&A event with Bill Kartalopoulos at MoCCA tomorrow night. From the pr: “In a unique and wide-ranging conversation, the two will discuss Deitch’s work and
career to date.  Deitch will preview images from his current works in progress and field questions from the audience.”

– Joe Sacco offers an insightful review of Guy Delisle’s Burma Chronicles.

If you’re a fan of comics with spines, this is a good week for you.

Image Comics brings out the first volume of the Ted McKeever Library and a new printing of Bill Sienkiewicz’s Stray Toasters, while Dark Horse collects the “Wolves at the Gate” storyline from Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight. Marvel returns to Civil War with a 512-page hardcover, and gives Hulk the premiere treatment.

DC Comics, meanwhile, releases the much anticipated collection of James Jean’s Fables covers titled, appropriately enough, Fables: Covers by James Jean.

On top of that, there’s another volume of CF’s Powr Mastrs, the beginning of Kevin Smith’s Batman: Cocophony, and a complete set of Kia Asamiya’s Junk.

To see what other titles Chris Mautner and I think are worth mentioning, just keep reading. As always, let us know your choices in the comments below.

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Plot synopsis released for X-Men Origins: Magneto

The latest issue of Production Weekly includes a plot synopsis for David Goyer’s planned X-Men Origins: Magneto — one that includes an altered role for a certain bald telepath:

“The original X-Men film began with a prologue that showed the character as a child being led to a concentration camp by Nazis and that is the period in which the Magneto film will take place. This setup will allow a future villain to at least flirt with the designation of protagonist since the character will be seen almost exclusively in his formative years. The storyline will heavily involve Professor X, the wheelchair-using X-Men leader. That character was a soldier in the Allied force that liberated the concentration camps. The professor meets Magneto after the war and while they bond over the realization that they are alike in their special powers, their differences soon turn them into enemies.”

According to David Bentley of the Coventry Telegraph, an early draft of the script featured Charles Xavier as a staff member at an Israeli hospital, not as an Allied soldier.

It’s unclear when Magneto will begin production. In August, Goyer said he hadn’t decided whether to tackle this project or The Invisible Man next.

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Pink Tentacle has an array of images of contemporary Japanese artists riffing on some classic Osamu Tezuka characters.