Expansion pact: Publishers Weekly (subscription required) reports on Digital Manga's expansion plans, which include publishing 15 titles this year, including a series of nonfiction manga. The company's sales tripled last year, and founder and president Hikaru Sasahara thinks they will continue to grow. In the article, he compares the manga market with the Japanese gaming market in the United States:

"No one would have thought gaming would grow like it has in the U.S. Now it's bigger in the U.S. than in Japan." And he expects a similar growth pattern for manga. ... The U.S. and Japan are converging on culture. We listen to the same music, wear the same fashion, eat the same junk food, have the same mentality. The notion that manga is a fad is just the wrong perception."