Yes, and they both ran in weekly magazines, so Takahashi was turning out 34 to 36 pages EVERY WEEK.

Naoki Urasawa, featured in the third installment, started
20th century Boys in a weekly mag while still doing Monster
twice a month as well.

I wonder if someone will try to publish Endo's short story collections--I found his work goes down a lot better in small batches, and he gets to be funnier, too.

PlanetES is a fantastic manga, and I wish they'd reprint it in an omnibus format (like that Azumanga collection) so that more people could get their hands on it. I had to read it in pieces over a couple years because it was so hard to find.

Alex: Weren't Maison Ikkoku and Urusei Yatsura coming out at the same time in the 80s? That's the only high-profile, single-artist case I can think of this late at night. I don't even know what her publishing schedule was for those books.

I can't say I'm aware of any who do--at least, none working on multiple books at the same time. One thing to keep in mind is that a lot of manga--especially shonen manga--comes out weekly, which means creators don't have anywhere near as much time to devote to other projects. (this is, of course, where assistants come in handy) Shoujo could be a different story (since a lot of that comes out monthly), but I'll just have to admit ignorance.

To be sure, there are some, like the 4-woman studio CLAMP, that can pull off multiple titles at once, with the same people performing the same duties on each one, but they're probably more of an exception. There are, however, many professional manga-ka who create short doujinshi (fan comics) to sell at Comic Market.

(now that's something I'd like to see covered: a look at the Japanese doujinshi market compared to the American back-issue market)

In other words, I'm not sure our town has yet trained the manga-philes to come into the comic book shop on shipment date yet....and perhaps we never will, what with Viz training consumers to expect their releases weeks in advance at the bookstore *sigh*

Do you rely on the "grey" market much in the U.K.? I've heard that sometimes that is the only way to get certain manga out there and was just curious about an average consumer's relationship to the book store versus internet venues to buy manga....

Case in point wiki manga-ka, then do the same for gensaku-sha.

It's really easy to take a risk on a book just based on a writer's name. Anything by Ellis, Moore, or Gaiman is almost a certain thumb through at the very least when it comes to browsing habits. The culture of manga is just so very, very different. I'd love to see what else lurks in the brain of Hiroaki Samura of Blade of the Immortal, but we'll have to wait for him to finish up the aforementioned title first. The name "Dark Horse" is the closest thing to feeling like I can trust enough when it comes to manga, seeing how many creators often move on to television or film. This again plays into a slight advantage for western audiences and our "cult of the writer", BKV and Loeb may have those hollywood gigs, but they haven't quit their day jobs, as it were.

Am I wrong? Are there manga writers in Japan pumping out 3-6 books at a time with different artists on them that just don't see their work stateside?

All manga GNs have an ISBN.

So if you can't find a specific title with the rest of the graphic novels you may want to try looking elsewhere in the store.

If not, there is always an online store.

If you live by a Barnes & Noble you can always go to their website http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ and click on a book you're interested in. They have a book locator where you can put in your zip code and it'll tell you if your store has that particular title in stock. Borders might have something similar but I'm not sure.

Around here those titles are not standards to be found in ANY store, with the exception of Parasytes. I cannot for the life of me find any "mature" manga titles in any bookstores in my area. The local Borders, Waldenbooks, and B&N's have rows upon rows upon rows of manga in stock, and 99.9% of it is for children and/or teens.

I talked to her about it, said I was happy and all that, and she mentioned she couldn't order some of the stuff I listed because "they only wanted her to order teen titles" now I don't know if "they" was her boss at the store or B&N super secret headquarters (not sure how it all works since I've never worked at a bookstore) or what....but I just thought it'd be interesting to mention. It's not like these were super obscure artsy titles or anything either since it's such a small store and I wanted the things I recommended to sell for them. So they passed on stuff like Nana, Basara, & Please Save My Earth (plus the latter two still have teen protagonists! but I guess they might not actually be considered "teen titles" in the same way that Hana-Kimi, Beauty Pop, & Ouran High School Host Club are) but I was *extremely* happy that they got all five volumes of Paradise Kiss. Plus soon after I noticed all five were gone which made me even happier.

Otherwise, ES, Planetes and Parasyte should show up at most chain bookstores.