In one of their infrequent appearances at American comic conventions, UK / Spain manga publisher Fanfare / Ponent Mon showed off their latest releases (several that are not yet widely available in stateside stores) at New York Comic-Con 2008 and gave a sneak peek at some of their 2009 coming attractions, including new titles from manga master Jiro Taniguchi.
Fanfare / Ponent Mon has been dealing with recent changes with their distribution companies, which is why their releases (including the 2008 Eisner Awards nominee, Taniguchi's The Ice Wanderer and Other Stories) are so difficult to find from both offline and online booksellers. Fanfare publisher Stephen Robson reported that he's ironing out the kinks and hopes to get Fanfare's publishing schedule back on track by Summer '08 in time for their next American comic convention appearance at San Diego Comic-Con.
Besides The Ice Wanderer, Fanfare / Ponent Mon will be releasing three new Taniguchi graphic novels over the course of the next year, including The Quest for the Missing Girl (November 2008), The Summit of the Gods Volume 1 (Spring 2009) and the recently confirmed Distant Neighborhood (Summer 2009).
Distant Neighborhood (which has been released in Europe to almost universal critical acclaim, including winning the 2003 Alph'Art Award for Best Scenario at the Angoulême International Comics Festival in France) is considered the Taniguchi story. It's also a series that Robson has been trying to get the English publishing rights for over four years. Distant Neighborhood is an unexpectedly touching fantasy story about a business man who decides to visit his mother's grave in his old hometown. Instead, he finds himself transported back in time to the summer when he was in junior high, with all his adult memories and knowledge intact.
Check out these coming attractions and more in the 2008-2009 Fanfare / Ponent Mon New Manga Preview Gallery, and see cover art, sample pages and release dates for these manga / graphic novels for grown-ups.
Image credit: © Jiro Taniguchi
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