Weekend Stubble

Ron at Galleycat notes a report of Europe's very healthy trade in comics -- and especially manga:

"German and French sales of manga totaled $212.6 million last year," says Jennifer Fishbein of Business Week, "making Europe the largest consumer of manga outside Japan." The news gets better for publishers of the Japanese comic books; in Germany, manga account for nearly three-fourths of all comics sales.

Check out this blog (full of great photos!) from last year on the manga scene in Germany.

Also: I might be the last person to clue in on this, but there is a terrific (and prolific) new blog, Three Percent, dedicated to news of books translated (or not translated) for the US...