After a lag of a few weeks, “Naruto Nation” finally hits comic shops as Viz releases three volumes of the smash-hit series.

Don’t get too comfortable, though, because the same thing will happen next month. And the month after that. And the month after that.

But Naruto isn’t the only big release. This week also sees the much-heralded Tekkon Kinkreet omnibus edition, the return of John Ostrander to Suicide Squad, and the 100th issue of Daredevil.

For a rundown of the other titles Chris Mautner and I think are worth special mention, just keep reading.

As always, let us know your choices in the comments below.

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With the American holiday on Monday, all of comicsdom is thrown off-kilter: Geeks are staring forlornly in the windows of their local shops. Cats and dogs are living together.

Hey, maybe that explains why “Naruto Nation” hasn’t invaded the direct market yet.

Still, there’s plenty of good stuff to be found tomorrow (or Friday): Brian K. Vaughan begins his arc on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The sure-to-be-controversial “One More Day” storyline kicks off in Amazing Spider-Man. Ben Templesmith returns to 30 Days of Night. And DC ends The Outsiders, if only temporary, while restarting Infinity Inc.

For a rundown of the other titles Chris Mautner and I think are worth special mention, just keep reading.

As always, let us know your choices in the comments below.

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On her blog, Becky Cloonan walks through the process for creating the cover of East Coast Rising, Vol. 2, from thumbnail sketches to rough color mock-ups to final illustration.

Viz Media unleashed “Naruto Nation” last week, releasing three volumes of Masashi Kishimoto’s international phenomenon into the book market. So, it should surprise absolutely no one that all three cracked USA Today’s Top 150 Books list: Vol. 18 at No. 116, Vol. 17 at No. 123, and Vol. 16 at 131.

Meanwhile, the 17th volume of Natsuki Takaya’s Fruits Basket fell 42 spots at No. 76.

The USA Today list tracks all genres and types of books sold in some 4,700 brick-and-mortar and online stores.

“Naruto Nation” continues through the end of the year, with Viz releasing three new volumes each month to catch up with the Japanese series in time for the start of a major new story arc with Vol. 28.

The three new volumes of Naruto are due in comics shops next week.

Although Naruto Nation is unleashed on the bookstores this week, the direct market is spared the wrath of the spikey-haired ninja until next Wednesday. (I think.)

So, what’s that leave for comic shops? How about a big 50th-issue blowout for DC’s Teen Titans, a giant-robots parody from Jeffrey Brown, and the long-anticipated Mice Templar from Michael Avon Oeming?

All right, it’s a little quiet this week. Consider it the calm before the nine-tailed demon fox storm. Or something.

For a rundown of the titles Chris Mautner and I think are worth special mention, just keep reading.

As always, let us know your choices in the comments below.

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In its second week, the 17th volume of Natsuki Takaya’s Fruits Basket leaped 65 spots to No. 34 on USA Today’s Top 150 Books list.

According to Anime News Network, that’s the third-highest position for any volume in the series. Fourteen of the 17 volumes released in North America by Tokyopop have landed on the USA Today list, which tracks all genres and types of books sold in some 4,700 brick-and-mortar and online stores.

In April, the 16th volume of Fruits Basket reached No. 15, the best-ever showing for a manga.

Bleach, Vol. 20, and Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 14, both slipped off the chart this week.

Although things are fairly quiet on the single-issue front, it’s a strong week for collections, as we see everything from another volume in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer omnibus series and Mike Wieringo and Todd DeZago’s Tellos Colossal to an Amazing Fantasy omnibus and the Complete Peanuts 1963-1966 boxed set.

But that’s not to say there aren’t any monthly comics worth mentioning. There certainly are: The popular Sinestro Corps War continues in Green Lantern Corps #15. Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev kick off Halo: Uprising. And the second Mouse Guard miniseries debuts.

For a rundown of more titles Chris Mautner and I think are worth special mention, just keep reading.

As always, let us know your choices in the comments below.

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Natsuki Takaya’s Fruits Basket, Vol. 17, and Hiromu Arakawa’s Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 14, debut this week on USA Today’s Top 150 Books list, at No. 99 and No. 148, respectively.

Tite Kubo’s Bleach, Vol. 20, falls 55 spots to No. 140, while, after six weeks, the 15th volume of Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto drops off the chart.

The USA Today list tracks all genres and types of books sold in some 4,700 brick-and-mortar and online stores.

Welcome to a special late edition of “Can’t Wait for Wednesday”! Stupid real life always gettin’ in the way …

It’s Tokyopop’s week, as the publisher unleashes a whopping 25 titles, including nine new series. Compare that with DC’s 31 titles (only six of them are trade paperbacks/collections), and Marvel’s 21 (five trade paperbacks/collections). That’s a lot of manga.

For a rundown of the titles — and not only Tokyopop’s — that Chris Mautner and I think are worth special mention, just click “more.”

And, as always, let us know your choices in the comments below.

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Wrapping up the series, I caught up with Ben Roman to see how San Diego treated him. Roman, artist of TokyoPop’s I Luv Halloween and Image’s The Cryptics, also works for Gentle Giant Ltd.

You can read my pre-San Diego interview with him here.

JK: Overall, as a fan, how did Comic-Con go?
Ben: I’ve attended the con for the last six or seven years, and it’s amazing how much bigger it gets every time. As a fan, I love everything about the SDCC.

JK: Same question, but from the professional angle … how was Comic-Con? Did you make any deals, pick up any new projects or network with someone you’d been hoping to?
Ben: I went to SDCC just to have fun and meet up with old friends. My plate’s full with work through next year, so the pressure was off to pitch something to the publishers. No need to network this year; just have fun and booze it up.

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Although the results of Kodansha’s Morning International Manga Competition haven’t been officially announced, ComiPress reports that Tokyopop has leaked word that Rem, artist for the publisher’s Vampire Kisses: Blood Relatives, has won the contest with her manga Kage no Matsuri.

Rem will receive a $5,000 prize and have her manga published in the October issue of Kodansha’s Morning2 magazine.

“This is all very exciting! A very big deal for me!” Rem writes on her blog. “Now you know why I took Kage no Matsuri off of my website! As you can read from the flyer, Kage no Matsuri will be published in the October issue of Morning 2 magazine, a bi-monthly magazine with a hodge-podge of off-beat artists within. My work will be on the cover, and I’ll have a full page spread on the inside!”

Rem was the winner, with Clint Bickham, of Tokyopop’s first Rising Stars of Manga competition.

After a downbeat — okay, lackluster — week, comics spring back with some pretty solid releases. Ah, the resilience of funny books.

That creeping in-the-middle-of-things feeling I had last week is gone, as publishers unleash a handful of new series, ranging from a new BPRD at Dark Horse and a Black Adam miniseries at DC to Army of Darkness: From Ashes at Dynamite Entertainment and Andi Watson’s Glister #1 at Image.

And then there’s Vertigo’s new The Un-Men ongoing — essentially, a 25-year-old spin-off of a series that’s not currently being published.

Chris Mautner and I have tinkered a little with “Can’t Wait for Wednesday” this time around, pushing our picks of the week to the top. Other than that, it’s business as usual, with us highlighting what we think is worth mentioning, and you telling us your choices in the comments below.

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Variety looks at efforts by publishers like Dark Horse, IDW Publishing, Oni Press and Tokyopop to get their comic projects onto the big screen:

In many cases, publishers are licensing their properties, with producers spending up to $200,000 to option the rights.

But like Marvel Entertainment, which is looking to grab a bigger piece of the pie with next summer’s “The Hulk” and “Iron Man” after licensing such top properties as “Spider-Man” and “Fantastic Four,” publishers are looking to self-finance these projects.

The payoff could be huge.

That’s because pics based on comicbooks on average are earning more than pics based on any other source material, averaging around $215 million each, according to a study conducted by Variety that surveyed the sources for the top 20 pics for each of the past 10 years.

The trade paper talks with IDW’s Chris Ryall, Tokyopop’s Stu Levy and Devil’s Due’s Josh Blaylock, and gives a quick rundown of some of the film projects in development.

AKA Comics

Miscellaneous Adventures of Stykman #3: I’m picking my copy up in Chicago this weekend. Who wants to wait for it to hit the stores? But if you can’t get it at a convention, it’ll be worth the wait. This comic is fun and funny and deserves a long life.

Archaia Studios Press

Killer #5: It’s a great story. I’m entranced.

Okko: The Cycle of Water: I’ve been looking forward to the first collection of this wonderfully illustrated, beautifully realized fantasy series.

Boom! Studios

X Isle, Vol. 1: Another great series collected. Perfect blend of modern-day suspense and ‘50s scifi-horror.

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It’s the week after San Diego, which generally means a big headache and comedown for the comic industry in general – or, if you work for Wizard, time to start prepping for Wizard World Chicago in two weeks’ time. Me, I thought that this year’s SDCC was fun if relatively missing the kind of news that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stick up in shock and/or excitement. You may disagree – go and check the headlines from the con to make up your own mind, or check out the floor buzz courtesy of Vaneta Rogers (Alternatively, listen to John Siuntres’ Word Balloon podcast from the show).

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It may simply be a post-Comic-Con malaise, but this seems like a pretty low-key week for comics.

Oh, sure, there are some notable comings and goings: Marvel wraps up its successful Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born miniseries — with three covers and a sketchbook, no less! — while kicking off another installment of Shanna the She-Devil. Dark Horse ends another Conan miniseries. And DC takes another stab at the Metal Men, while welcoming an 89 percent less slutty-looking Supergirl (thanks to a new creative team).

But overall, it feels like we’re well into the middle of things as we trudge toward autumn: another issue of Word War Hulk, another issue of Countdown, and countless trade paperback collections.

For a rundown of the titles Chris Mautner and I think are worth special mention, just click “more.”

And, as always, let us know your choices in the comments below.

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While the official unveiling of the armor from the Iron Man movie seemed to cause a stir, the big news of Day 3 came from Dark Horse, which announced a deal with the CLAMP collective to create an original shojo series for release beginning in 2009.

The agreement, which gives Dark Horse its first shojo title, calls for the manga to be released simultaneously in North America, Japan and South Korea. The publisher will release the series in a new format that it calls “mangettes,” 80-page digests that will come out on a monthly schedule.

The four-woman CLAMP team is known for such popular titles as Cardcaptor Sakura, Chobits, xxxHolic, Legal Drug and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle.

Vertigo confirmed it will publish a graphic novel from singer-songwriter Neil Young, based on his 2003 album Greendale. He’ll collaborate with writer Joshua Dysart and artist Sean Murphy.

And Marvel unveiled the creative teams for its now three-times-a-month Amazing Spider-Man series.

More Comic-Con coverage:

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With all the excitement of the looming Comic-Con International, with its usual round of project announcements and exclusive agreements, let’s not forget that new comics come out this week. Like clockwork, or something close to it.

You’d think it would be a quiet week for releases, but Wednesday will see a new issue of All-Star Batman and Robin – only two months or so after the previous issue! — more of World War Hulk and its tie-ins, at least three of Warren Ellis’ creator-owned projects, and the latest installment of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8.

For a rundown of the titles Chris Mautner and I think are worth special mention, just click “more.”

And, as always, let us know your choices in the comments below.

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Although superhero comics and genre movies and TV shows dominate Comic-Con International, there is a significant manga and anime presence, as publishers like Del Rey, Seven Seas, Tokyopop and Viz and producers and distributors like ADV Films and FUNimation stake their claim in San Diego.

That, of course, means there’s plenty for manga and anime fans to take in during the convention. I won’t be going — I’m on monitor duty at Blog@ Central — but if I were, here are five things I’d likely do:

1. Have books signed by Japanese creators who rarely appear in the United States: This year sees signings by Yoshitaka Amano (Vampire Hunter D) and Yasuhiro Nightow (Trigun) at the Dark Horse booth, Arina Tanemura (The Gentlemen’s Alliance †, Full Moon) at the Viz booth, and Ryusuke Hamamoto (Neon Genesis Evangelion, Sea Sir Sun) at the Image Comics booth. The Amano and Nightow signings are ticketed events, so grab a Dark Horse employee for details.

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After years of trying to break into the comic book business, artist Ben Roman’s big break came not by networking at a convention or through endless submissions, but by meeting the right person at Kinko’s. Now Roman’s work can be seen in Tokyopop’s I Luv Halloween, written by comics veteran Keith Giffen, and in The Cryptics, written by Steve Niles.

And this week you can see him in San Diego. I spoke with him to find out how he got started in the business, what he has planned for this week and why he had decided to give away some of his original artwork from I Luv Halloween.

JK: Give us a little background on your career — how you got started in comics, what you’ve done in the past and what you’ve been working on recently.
Ben Roman: I moved to L.A and started working at a Kinko’s in Hollywood. I met someone who worked at Tokyopop and gave him some rejected proposals. I didn’t think much of it since Tokyopop publishes Manga, I never read a Manga or knew who Tokyopop was besides seeing the big bags at San Diego every year. Anyhow, a couple months passed and I get a call from Mark Paniccia, before moving on to Marvel. He dug the art and called me into a meeting. He hooked me up with Keith Giffen, and the ball was off and rolling. I tried getting into comics for many years with no luck, but all I had to do was move to L.A. and get a job at Kinko’s.

I spent the last 3-4 years working on three volumes of I Luv Halloween for Tokyopop. I co-created the Cryptics with Steve Niles, which we are gearing up to do another one-shot for in December. I also did a number of shorts for BOOM! Studios and Ape Entertainment. Besides comic work, I’ve been working as a concept artist for Gentle Giant Studios in their 2-D dept for the last five months.

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