I went to Books-a-Million over the weekend and picked up Death Note (creepy!) and the latest volume of Fruits Basket (weepy!). At the register, the cashier got all excited by the Furuba. “I haven’t read this one yet!” She immediately started flipping through it, then stopped herself, not because it was about to become someone else’s property but because she didn’t want to spoil things for herself. I really wouldn’t have cared if she’d read it on the spot. I wasn’t in any hurry, and the encounter made my day.
While that’s a fondly remembered personal experience, I have no illusions about its universality or that it says anything about Furuba’s gender-neutral allure or the potential implications for the manga market. It’s an anecdote.
Anyway, Johanna Stokes has written another installment of Girl in the Clubhouse at Comic Book Resources. According to the blurb, “[Stokes] checked out some very different comic shops in LA and shared her experiences shopping at them as a woman.” After reading her column, I now suspect that I’m a woman. Like Stokes, I don’t like dingy, badly organized retail spaces. I also find life-sized super-hero statues unsettling. And I don’t like unfriendly, unhelpful clerks. Apparently these are gender-specific objections. This is something of a revelation to me, because I’ve been harboring them for years.
Seriously, how ridiculous is this Comics Everywoman posture that seems part and parcel of Girl in the Clubhouse? It would be like if I started a column purporting to speak for all pushing-40 gay men who read comics.
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Anecdotes are put to much better use in Lea Hernandez’s new column, I’m Hurting Comics, over at Hero Realm. Just as last week’s thread at The Engine seems to have wound down, Lea takes a long look at the benefits of creator ownership and some of the drawbacks for those who didn’t hold out for it. (I’m going to be keeping an eye on this Engine thread.)
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The average quality of reviews at Manga Life improved by an order of magnitude when MangaBlog’s Brigid Alverson started writing for the site. She’s making her way through all of the volumes of Fruits Basket, among other titles, and it’s fun to see where our opinions intersect and diverge.
Over at her blog, Brigid wonders about the age ratings on some manga titles. If you’re familiar with them, pop by and let her know what “Older Teens” might mean in the cases of Alice 19th, Imadoki!, Kill Me Kiss Me, and W Juliet.
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And I don’t care how much a comic shop may or may not suck. If it’s the only place to buy Banana Sunday #3 and She-Hulk #2.1 this week, then it’s a small price to pay. (The addition of a new volume of Kindaichi Case Files makes the week an embarrassment of riches.)