Happy Friday, everyone! If you’re looking for some weekend reading and want a reason to pick up Vampire Hunter D Vol. 6 (or the rest of the VHD series..! (ﾉ*ﾟｰﾟ)ﾉ ) , Euri from Beyond Eternal has a review of VHD6 here for your reading pleasure!

In other news, DMP is excited to be collaborating with MangaNext, a unique New Jersey convention “tailored toward amateur artists and writers developing their crafts” and their fellow manga fans. If you’re in the area February 24-6th, swing by for a great time getting down and geeky with other manga fans, and say hi to our friends at MangaNext. We’ll be there with you in spirit!

Hey look, it’s the next volume of Haruno Ahiru’s silly-sweet-sexy BL, Mr. Tiger and Mr. Wolf. How will Mr. Tiger and Mr. Wolf’s relationship develop?  Find out in the new book, available now only on Akadot Retail and Yaoi Club!

Don’t have volume 1? We’ve got you covered with a discount on the volume 1 + volume 2 bundle. Because we love you.

Everyone at DMP is pumped over the outpouring of support for Tezuka’s Barbara, and it looks like a lot of the blogosphere is as well! The internet tubes have been filled with discussion about Tezuka, Kickstarter, and what Barbara‘s success could mean for the future of manga publishing. Deb Aoki has been covering the project on about.com, and highlights the genius on display in this very un-Astro Boy book. Robot 6 has been covering the pros and cons of crowd sourced publishing that bloggers have expressed, while Japanator outlines how smaller publishing houses could use Kickstarter to fund projects and buck the publishing status quo in the Digital Era.

The process of bringing Barbara to English-speaking Tezuka fans is a great chance to watch the production process for a book from start to finish and really gain some industry insight into the state of “risky” manga in the US — give the articles a once-over, you won’t regret it!

Can you guys believe this?! In less than a week, manga fans everywhere pitched in over $10,000 dollars to our Kickstarter Campaign to translate Osamu Tezuka’s Barbara into English! All of us here at Digital Manga would like to extend our sincerest thanks to twitter users @TezukainEnglish @tweetheart4711 @fschodt @edsizemore @debaoki @Kurisosity @johannadc @mangawidget, and all the bloggers and backers who helped support this project!

If you’re excited about Tezuka and want to hear more, check out DMP’s very own Ben Applegate on the Manga Out Loud podcast as he fields questions and concerns about Barbara and the Kickstarter Project.

One final thanks to everyone – we couldn’t have done it without you! (Really! I don’t have $10,000 to spare!)