The Manga Curmudgeon

Spending too much on comics, then talking too much about them

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Adventures in consumerism

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If you hold up the checkout line at the comic shop to denounce Patrick Stewart for his disrespect for Star Trek fandom, concluding loftily that you’d even rather have lunch with William Shatner, who’s crazy, then I will be forced to make fun of you after you leave. I’m not made of stone. I’ll also be forced to defend Stewart based on his impeccable Shakespearean background and smoking hotness.

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My irony detector must be on the fritz, because it’s taken me forever to snicker at the spectacle of Marvel actually turning its characters into shambling, cannibalistic, soulless corpses in pursuit of profit. It’s so meta that it’s almost daring.

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I was chatting with a friend, and we decided that there are certain instant indicators that let us know if we’ll enjoy our comic shop experience. If there are all-ages comics, collections of strips, and art books up front, all’s clear. If merchandise like that Emma Frost bust is anywhere up front, it’s “Think of England” time. It just seems smarter to go wide at the point of entrance and keep the more esoteric, potentially off-putting, fannish behind a few layers of innocuousness.

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On the subject of that bust, we couldn’t reach any conclusion as to what purpose those scraps of fabric were supposed to serve. My friend wondered if Frost practiced telekinesis in addition to telepathy, as she could think of any other way that they’d stay up. I thought they might be surgical dressing following a breast lift.

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The local library has started to carry graphic novels, though they shelve them according to the Dewey Decimal System, upstairs in the non-fiction stacks. That would explain why all of those volumes of Fruits Basket are so pristine, though not why Castle Waiting has been read within an inch of its life. Maybe somebody donated it after they’d read it to pieces and then bought themselves a new copy. That seems reasonable.

Anyway, it’s not a great selection, but it’s a start. The current holdings are a mix of popular manga, classics and stuff that they probably got for free.

You're standing on my neck

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I love manga, but I’m just not that much of a fan of anime. There are a couple of series that I’ve really enjoyed, but animated versions of manga tend to leave me cold, for whatever reason.

That’s not to say I don’t love cartoons, though, and TZG2.0’s Myk gave me the opportunity to blather on about one of my all-time favorites, Daria, in a guest entry. I never would have thought one of the shows I can watch over and over and over again, animated or otherwise, would be A. originally aired by MTV or B. a spin-off of Beavis and Butthead, but I guess life is strange like that.

Intellectual property

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ComiPress takes a three–part look at the legal and ethical issues involved in online translations of web-based content. It’s one of those resources that I suspect will have a long, useful shelf life (even though they asked for my completely uninformed opinion on the subject). And in case you were wondering:

“Readers may translate and publish this article into another language without asking for specific permission from the copyright holder (that’s us!). However, it would make us happier if you inform us of your translation and credit us as the source :)”

Minxed messages

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Blog@Newsarama’s Kevin Melrose links to an interesting, awkwardly titled piece in The Wall Street Journal about comics publishers’ attempts to attract female readers. Using manga as a starting point, writer Matt Phillips looks at DC’s Minx line and makes a conscientious effort to try and winnow out evidence of the trend at Marvel:

“Last year, Marvel launched its ‘Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter’ series of comic books, based on the swift-selling novels by Laurell K. Hamilton. The title character in the series tracks criminals through the sometimes-seedy vampire underground of St. Louis. The series has proven popular with women and brought a range of new shoppers into Carol & John’s Comic Book Shop in Cleveland, says co-owner John Dudas. ‘They came out of nowhere,’ Mr. Dudas says.”

I probably shouldn’t put too much weight on a sound byte, but “They came out of nowhere” strikes me as extremely telling. I’m guessing that the average comic shop was probably viewed by these customers as “nowhere” too, though, until they had a specific reason to brave its interior.

Speaking of potentially unhelpful sound bytes, take it away, Karen Berger:

“DC Comics has an existing manga imprint, called CMX, which is translated from Japanese. The new Minx series will mimic the general look and price-point of manga. But Ms. Berger stresses that the books are designed with American readers in mind. They read in the standard, left-to-right, manner. And they’re written in English, not translated.”

Maybe it’s just a clumsy paraphrasing of what Berger actually said, but plenty of American readers don’t really seem to demand that level of consideration. (Unless they bought those 9.2 million units of manga just to be polite.) And what was DC going to do? Make its creators work right to left? (Bonus points to Phillips for mentioning that DC already has a manga line, though.) It sometimes seems like Berger is trying to lure readers of manga by assuring them that the Minx books are nothing like manga. I could be misinterpreting her intention, though.

Speaking of Minx, the second part of Mariah Huehner’s look at the Minx line is up at Sequential Tart, which is interesting reading:

“What I care about are the creators who have worked damn hard to make these books and who have, to some extent, gotten a raw deal when it comes to the critiques. More people are focusing on who’s publishing this line than who is directly involved in making the actual books. To me, that’s more important.”

I don’t think that’s entirely true. Don’t get me wrong – I think there’s considerable talent involved in the Minx line and I’m interested in all of the books in the initial launch. I’ll probably read all of them, because I generally admire the creators involved and the books’ premises intrigue me.

That doesn’t prevent me from considering the marketing messages and strategies and considering Minx in context of DC’s core product line. There’s some genuine clumsiness in the way DC has discussed and positioned this initiative, and it’s fair to point that out, partially because it does a disservice to the creators involved and their work.

Linguistics

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I love this story:

“801-chan, pronounced ‘Yaoi-chan,’ is the mascot for the Misonobashi 801 shopping district, not far from Kyoto’s World Heritage Kamigamojinja shrine. And true to its roots, the character was inspired by Kyoto-grown vegetables.

“But what really made the mascot an unexpected smash with young otaku geeks is the accident of its name. ‘Yaoi,’ which was chosen by locals as a pun on the shopping center’s name, is also a slang term for a cult genre of manga comics on homosexual themes.”

Of course, the shopping district isn’t the only enterprise to find the 801-chan mascot appropriate for their ends. I smell a crossover!

Exhibitionists

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It may be a long weekend, but manga marches on.

It has kind of an awful Frankenstein headline, but this piece in the Contra Costa Times by Robert Taylor has an unimpeachable primary source, Frederick Schodt, author of Manga! Manga! and Dreamland Japan. Taylor talks to Schodt about Osamu Tezuka as a means of introducing the Tezuka: Master of Manga exhibition, which opens Saturday in San Francisco at the Asian Art Museum:

“‘I think it’s to the museum’s credit to reflect the modern age,’ he says. ‘Comics have such an effect on the world, and in Japan Tezuka is god of manga. He was the founder of the modern Japanese comic format, the long, narrative story. There are lots of comic artists who are famous in Japan, but no one has reached his stature.’”

The piece is accompanied by a glossary.

Minnesota Public Radio’s Euan Kerr interviews Frenchy Lunning, editor of Mechademia, about the Shojo Manga: Girl Power exhibition hosted by the Minneapolis College of Art and Design through June 29.

Brick walls

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Okay, Heidi MacDonald has excerpted Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada’s responses to Newsarama about the recent unpleasantness(es) so you don’t have to wade through the rest of the column, which certainly constitutes a public service. It’s all kind of flabbergasting, but this bit from Quesada really made me laugh through the tears:

“Also, [Heroes for Hire] is a book that features two strong, lead female protagonist who kick major ass; somehow folks have forgotten to focus on that.”

Um… I kind of think that’s one of the things that bothers people… that the hyper-sexualized victims on the cover are, in fact, strong, kick-ass women who have been repurposed.

And seriously, if this is the kind of insight that having an exclusive arrangement with Marvel will get you (“…the Brood have tentacles, sorry about that.”), then the up side completely escapes me.

Elsewhere

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Via Reuters:

“An AIDS awareness group in male-dominated India is touting a new, colourful way to dispel chauvinistic notions about sex: comic books.

“Population Council, an international voluntary group, is distributing 250,000 copies of comics among residents of shanty towns in four cities to help change social attitudes and stress the dangers of unsafe sexual practices.”

Monday links

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ComiPress provides a fascinating look at the uncomfortable position faced by some Chinese fans of Japanese manga and anime:

“The question of ‘Is enjoying Japanese manga and anime an unpatriotic act?’ has been a great point of debate in China. The topic has caused many problems, and many young Chinese people are torn between their anti-Japan feelings and their love for Japanese manga.”

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I’m always glad to see Fanfare/Ponent Mon’s books get the attention they deserve, so this piece in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin (found via MangaBlog) was much appreciated. I like this introductory analogy, too:

“But it’s a bit like wine in a sense: Sure, there are products for the masses, but there are also products that true connoisseurs can enjoy even more.”

I do think the pleasures of Kan Takahama’s Kinderbook are much more readily apparent than these reviewers did, though.

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At Kate no Komento, Katherine Dacey-Tsue casts an understandably wary eye upon the next evolution of Tokyopop’s web presence:

“What I don’t like about the site are the gimmicky labels that Tokyopop has assigned to the buttons on the navigation bar. They seem like the handiwork of a marketing consultant, rather than someone who actually uses websites.”

Glancing at the image, I tend to agree that the tags aren’t immediately useful in terms of navigation. I’ll readily admit that this might be a generational thing for me.

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At the Manga Recon blog, Dacey-Tsuei increases my anticipation for Morim Kang’s 10, 20, and 30 from NETCOMICS:

“Those deformations, oversized sweat drops, and flapping arms capture the way we really experience embarrassment, fear, betrayal, and attraction: in the moment, one’s own sense of self is grossly—even cartoonishly—exaggerated, even if that moment seems trivial in hindsight.”

This reminds me very much of my reaction to Rica Takashima’s charming, low-fi Rica ‘tte Kanji!? (ALC), which is a definite inducement to give the book a shot.

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For this week’s Flipped, I talked (via e-mail) to Simon Jones about ero-manga imprint Icarus. So you know at least one smart person was involved in the creation of this week’s installment.