This week sees Sweatdrop Studios reach its sixth year as a manga collective! To celebrate this special occasion, they are giving a whopping 50% discount on their comics until 1st February 2008. Sweatdrop also offer free international shipping for orders over £15 (about US$30), so if you ever wanted to check out some UK-made manga, there couldn’t be a better time.

Click here to visit the Online Shop

Furthermore, there is a free prize draw on the forum, with prizes including Sweatdrop anthologies, books and an original watercolour image by Selina Dean. Just reply to the competition thread on the forum to take part.

Click Here for the Prize Draw Forum thread

Sweatrop Studios is a group of 19 UK-based manga artists which has been operating since January 2002. They have published a number of anthologies such as “Cold Sweat and Tears”, “Blue is for Boys” and “Pink is for Girls”, as well as original titles such as “Looking for the Sun” by Morag Lewis and “Fantastic Cat” by Selina Dean.

Sweatdrop members Emma Vieceli and Sonia Leong recently released “Hamlet” and “Romeo and Juliet” respectively with SelfMadeHero; and Fehed Said released “The Clarence Principle” with Slave Labor Graphics. Several members are also featured in Tokyopop’s UK & Ireland Rising Stars of Manga anthologies.

I received my copy of Best New Manga 2 yesterday morning. It both looks and feels well produced. There’s quite a lot of great pieces in this one too. I rather enjoyed reading ‘Another Summer Day’ by Nana Li and ‘Strum’ by Ben Ang, not to mention the silent comic piece ‘Sojourn’ by Paul Duffield. There are certainly quite a few gems in this volume. And of course, let’s not forget that there’s a piece by Shari and me in there too!

The book is not yet available for order online, but check here at the end of the month when it’s officially released. There’ll be copies floating around at London Expo for those who can’t wait. I’ll be selling limited stock of the book behind the Sweatdrop table and I’m sure this book will sell fast, so come by early!

London Expo is coming up fast. I’ve been invited to do a talk on stage on Sunday at 12pm on the “When I grow up I want to make comics” panel. It’s described as ‘A guide to getting into the comics/manga industry’. I’ll be joining other guests from the industry such as:

Tony Lee (Writer) – Starship Troopers/Midnight Kiss
Mark Sparacio (Artist) – Green Lantern
Billy Tucci (Artist) – Shi
Lee Townsend - Judge Dredd
Emma Vieceli (Artist) – Hamlet

Should be fun.