Why isn't everyone talking about this?
COMICON.com: MANGA IN THE NEWPAPERS
Manga (or OEM) comics as part of the Sunday Funnies pages in papers like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Los Angeles Times? This smells like it could be something big (though most kids don't read the newspaper, and the average age of your average newspaper reader is more like 55, or so I've been told anecdotally.) That said, it seems like a pretty major barrier to have come down, and look who's standing in the breach: Tokyopop.
Granted, kids who are into this stuff have probably already found it on the net, as opposed to in print, but still this is a big deal in terms of shaping mainstream conception of manga, thogh not necessarily by extension, comic books. Obviously a developing story.
Kudos to Comicon Pulse for picking up on this first (so far as I can tell.)