And the manga craze continues unabated, as manga publishers show the traditional American comic book companies how to market yourself successfully. DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, etc. - take freaking note of this stuff and stop acting like dinosaurs stuck in the tar pits.

Anime and manga publisher and distributor, VIZ, LLC have joined with Dr. Pepper to launch a new ad campaign. The first of the ads will appear in the June 2004 Shonen Jump (USA edition) magazine, one of three magazines published by Viz, on stands May 4. In support of the ad campaign Shonen Jump and Dr. Pepper together will launch an art contest called Be You, Be a Pepper, Be Manga, in which participants will be asked to draw themselves as an original manga-style character with a Dr. Pepper. The judging process will work like this: twenty submissions will be selected by the editors of the magazine who will be looking for originality, creativity and the ‘incorporation of a Dr. Pepper can/bottle/logo. Those finalists will then be posted at www.shonenjump.com, where people can then vote on their favorites and select a single winner. Viz is a subsidiary of Japanese publishers, Shogakukan and Shuyeisha Inc.

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