Tokyopop has announced the ten winning entries of its second Rising Stars of Manga competition.  The ten winners all submitted 15-20 pages stories rendered in manga style.  Tokyopop will publish the stories from all ten winners in the Rising Stars of Manga II anthology, which should be in stores on December 9.  The first Rising Stars anthology was a surprisingly strong seller -- it made an appearance on the Bookscan list of top-selling graphic novels in bookstores, and sold out its first edition.  In Japan there is a huge market for amateur manga, known as 'doujinshi', which would be difficult to replicate here in the States, so Tokyopop's contest does fill a void by providing incentives for artists to try their hand at manga, as well as providing a talent pool for publishers.

The Grand Prize winner was Lindsay Cibos, a 21-year-old from Altamonte Springs, Florida.  She received a $2,500 prize and the opportunity to pitch a full-length manga series to the Tokyopop brass.  College student Nicholas Liaw from Cleveland received $1,000 for his first place finish.  Eight other winners received $500 for their efforts.  The geographic distribution of winners demonstrated manga's nationwide appeal with Washington, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Colorado, and California all represented by at least one winning artist.