“What Manga Would You Recommend For A Complete Newbie?”

A spread from "A Brief History of Manga" featuring One Piece, Naruto, GTO, bite-size tastes of info and a timeline bubbling along throughout the book.

That’s a question that keeps on coming up in interviews. It’s a real toughie, because the ‘right’ answer depends on the person you’re talking to, and that’s often a theoretical complete stranger – or in an online interview, an Internet of complete strangers. How do you answer? “{It’s) a huge question because it depends entirely […]

Make Me A Nerd: The Manga Bible on Mandy Kaplan’s Fab Podcast

Lobby card for the podcast has a partial portrait of Mandy Kaplan at far right, lower face hidden behind a book, and half length portrait of Helen, smiling broadly. She's wearing bronze winged serpent earrings, a miniature silver T-Rex skeleton necklace, and multicarat rings, with a spice yellow t-shirt.

The Manga Bible is out today in the US – the right time for me to give the fabulous Mandy Kaplan a crash dive into manga on her podcast Make Me A Nerd We talked One Piece, Nana and Nausicäa, amid many of my trademark diversions, and you can hear us on TruStory FM or […]

The Only Way Is Ethics! The Manga Bible on the Superhero Ethics podcast

Superhero Ethics episode banner: a classical bluegrey heroic statue forms the background for the podcast logo and episode title.

I’m with Matthew Fox on the Superhero Ethics podcast. We talked manga and #TheMangaBible and I had a great time. Full disclosure: since you can’t talk ethics (or manga, or superheroes) without also talking politics, especially when talking in 2026 to a host who lives in Minnesota, a little political comment is involved, The show […]