Times notices manga explosion

The New York Times takes its turn with an article about the girl-fueled manga boom, focusing on manga publishers like Viz and Tokyopop, but also look at efforts by DC, Marvel, Random House and Disney to make a grab for the market:

American comic book companies could not be happier about manga's popularity. It helps make people comic book conscious. "It's very exciting to us because it's helped grow a readership base and a distribution chain," said Dan Buckley, the publisher of Marvel Comics. Mr. Buckley said that manga's appeal to girls was exciting "because it means that graphic fiction is something they want to look at." Marvel has experimented with enticing girl readers, including issuing manga-size collections of "Emma Frost" and "Mary Jane," its series with strong female leads.

However, The Times doesn't note that Marvel's clumsy manga experiments haven't been very successful.