Tokyopop wins the race to be the first publisher to turn up its nose at CMX in the name of marketing. It’s in an interview at Newsarama, where they announce that they certainly won’t be covering any boobs when they publish Tsutomu Nihei’s Blame! Here’s a snippet:
“None of the pages will be censored like DC did with Ten Ten [Tenjho Tenge Vol. 1],” project editor Luis Reyes told Newsarama. “Tokyopop does not have a reputation for censoring at all. There were two instances on the Initial D series (volumes 1 and 9) in which we partially covered something on approval from the Japanese publisher. However, since then, we have never been in the practice of censoring books with the possible exception of Tokyo Tribes, which was actually censored by the artist himself boldly as a kind of statement against the fact that otherwise we’d have to sell his book shrink-wrapped.”
Except for those two times, they’ve never, ever censored! And one of those times, it was a bold statement against manga condoms! “Censored by the artist himself boldly” sounds like one of those joke translations of movie titles from foreign markets, doesn’t it? Perhaps I meant to type “wins” earlier.
To be fair, they lost me at “cyber-punk,” which is a phrase with the awesome power to make my eyelids droop. Throw in “dystopic ruin” and “very powerful gun,” and it’s like a glass of warm milk.
I don’t know if Nihei’s past work on a Wolverine mini-series will go any distance towards a crossover audience. It isn’t like there are a shortage of Wolverine mini-series out there (just ask Paul O’Brien), and I don’t remember Snikt! making much of an impression.