Dave Carter follows up on a question Lyle asked regarding different public perceptions of Tokyopop and Viz, despite a similar volume of releases. Dave’s approach to the question is intriguing, and the results are equally so.
Promotional items
It’s a big week for graphic novel debuts, as has been noted by Jog, Chris Butcher, and many others.
If I were to pick a “book of the week,” I’d probably chicken out and call it a draw between American Born Chinese and Klezmer, both lovely in very different ways. Lucky residents of the San Francisco area or those who just happen to be there Sept. 20 can meet Gene Yang, creator of American Born Chinese, at an event at the Isotope. (Readers who want to meet Joann Sfar will probably have to travel to France, but really, isn’t that just a fringe benefit? The extras those people put in their manga! C’est magnifique!)
Speaking of promotional activities, Go! Comi is sponsoring a Cantarella Poetry Contest. Only one manga has ever inspired me to verse, but that shouldn’t stop you.
In other manga promotion news, Chris Butcher notes a change in the Tokyopop on-line exclusive initiative. I think one would categorize this story as “developing.”
I’ve been really negligent in giving a nod to Manga Mondays at Comics-and-More, so let me correct that. This week, Dave Ferraro throws in a list of his favorite anime (Paranoia Agent is so creepy and cool) before wondering why publishing Naruto is like printing money.
Oh, and if you were wondering about the book that provided the premise for the most recent episode of the wacky, long-running sitcom, That Darn Diamond, Tulip Tree Press has extensive preview strips available of House of Sugar by Rebecca Kratz. It looks really intriguing.
Here, there, everywhere
What, new comics arrive a day later than usual, so everyone dumps good stuff at once? Thanks, publishers.
Boom! Studios has the third issue of the Hero Squared Ongoing. Dorian takes a look at the issue at Postmodern Barney.
Dark Horse rolls out the second volume of Junji Ito’s Tomie in the Museum of Terror series. This is good, creepy fun. It’s more episodic than Ito’s Uzumaki, but it’s got a great antagonist (protagonist?) in its title character.
Del Rey has the second volume of ES: Eternal Sabbath. It’s received the thumbs-up from both MangaCast and the Newsarama gang. As if the antics of a murderous, psychic junior high student weren’t enticement enough?
Good grief, how long has it been since Digital Manga released the third volume of IWGP? Ages, if memory serves, but the fourth shows up today. While I only vaguely remember what was happening, this arrival is a nice excuse to reread the earlier volumes.
Go! Comi offers fourth volumes of three of its inaugural series: Cantarella (Borgias!), Crossroad (orphans!), and Tenshi Ja Nai (no angels!).
Vertical has the third volume of the paperback version of their beautiful treatment of Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha, which is conveniently where I left off with the hardbacks because I’m cheap.
Over at Viz, Hot Gimmick concludes. (Take it away, Mely.) Fullmetal Alchemist hits volume nine. And the fifteenth volume of Bleach shows up just in time for the debut of the anime on Cartoon Network. (I might have to take advantage of that Borders sale John Jakala mentioned to catch up with Bleach, because it really is a lot of fun.)
If you’re contemplating future purchases, Jog has a fine review of Joann Sfar’s Klezmer (First Second), and Lyle of Crocodile Caucus makes Beauty Pop (Viz – Shojo Beat) sound difficult for me to resist.
Pop talk
So what does everyone think about Publishers Weekly Comics Week’s coverage of retailer reaction to Tokyopop’s on-line exclusives?
- Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter
- Brigid at MangaBlog
- David Taylor at Love Manga
- Lyle at Crocodile Caucus (not specifically about the article, but about the issue)
- Chris Butcher at Comics.212.Net
- Dirk Deppey at ¡journalista! (in the Manga section)
As for myself, I think Calvin Reid did as well as can be expected. Short of developing telepathic powers or placing a mole inside Tokyopop, these seem to be the answers that the publisher is going to provide no matter who asks them or how often.
I do tend to agree with everyone who suggested that avoiding discounts isn’t a good way to get a realistic picture of what on-line sales will be. I’ve hardly ever purchased a graphic novel at full price from an on-line outlet, unless I didn’t have any other… HEY!
And I think that this quote from Mike Kiley…
“’It’s interesting that people are so fascinated in about 20 books out of the 500 we publish each year,’ says Kiley. ‘It’s not like we’re talking about Fruits Basket or Kingdom Hearts.”
… is not especially helpful. My first reaction to it was, “500 titles? No wonder there’s a problem with shelf space!” Because seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever been to a retail outlet, direct market or chain bookstore, that had room for 500 titles total, much less 500 titles from Tokyopop. And when you factor in the books that always seem to have a complete run available (the really popular ones), the problem compounds. (I vote for “Less is more” as the next big publishing theme.)
No direct quotes or attribution were available for this paragraph:
“While general trade bookstores are not quite as adamant as the direct market, several trade book retailers contacted by PWCW are nevertheless critical of any publisher selling direct to consumers.”
But I did get an anonymous comment from someone claiming to be a Borders employee who’s far from overjoyed.
People want to give you things
Books, information, even money.
Comic Book Galaxy is giving away books from Tokyopop’s Pop Fiction line. Details are at Alan David Doane’s blog.
At Love Manga, David Taylor interviewed A. Neculai, DramaQueen EIC, about the new RUSH anthology. Brigid tracks reaction to the project over at MangaBlog. And one of the contributors to RUSH, Tina Anderson, provides a handy “Bara for Dummies” piece over at her blog, looking at the evolution of one type of gay manga.
If anyone decides to go with her notion of starting up a line of licensed bara, maybe they could use the $1,000 Queer Press Grant offered by Prism Comics as seed money. (I’m sure everyone who’s ever worked with manga licenses burst into laughter at the prospect of $1,000 being anywhere near enough seed money to do anything.)
Alas, there was no new installment of Fenton and Fenton, Boy Detectives over the weekend, but Metrokitty has a delightful webcomic up about her trip to Switzerland. (It reminds me of the best reason to watch the Travel Channel, Passport to Europe with Samantha Brown.)
And there’s a new Flipped up today, where I come to realize that MangaCast’s Jarred is a very reliable source of recommendations.
Chaucer… Rabelais… Balzac!
There are a couple of interesting pieces on comics in libraries, a topic that obviously interests me a whole lot.
The first is a local overview in a letter to The Comics Reporter. Mason Adams uses the occasion of the Roanoke (Virginia) Valley Bookfest to check out the holdings of some local book lenders. Adams is a comics fan and writer for the Roanoke Times.
Steven Grant tackles the topic in this week’s Permanent Damage column at Comic Book Resources. Grant takes a somewhat spandex-centric look at the growing place of graphic novels on library shelves, but it’s an interesting read. And as usual, there are some gems of bluntness:
“Of major concern to many librarians are excesses we could easily get by, if we abandoned the notion that the medium and the art of comics are somehow improved by being a boys’ club of unfettered pandering to our own basest instincts. Mainly characterized by triple-E cups and degrading male-dominated sexual content. Strange as it may sound, apparently girls, a large portion of the library comics audience, don’t like things like that. Which might be grounds for schism right there, since, apparently, many artists seem to be attracted to comics not to tell stories but to indulge those particular fantasies.”
The shop around the corner
Brigid at MangaBlog, Kevin Melrose at Blog@Newsarama, and David Taylor at Love Manga have already covered ICv2’s interview with Tokyopop’s Mike Kiley, so I’ll limit myself to just one reaction: I have to go to their web site to buy Dragon Head?
Oh, hell.
Between that and my somewhat belated realization that DMP has put Bambi and Her Pink Gun on hiatus, it looks like I’m going to have to find some new twisted and violent manga to fill that reading niche. At least I still have Eden and Anne Freaks, the latter of which releases a new volume this week.
Aside from that (and Anne Freaks doesn’t seem to be shipping to my shop of choice this week anyways), there isn’t really any reason for me to hit the LCS on Wednesday. That probably should depress me at least a little bit, but construction, traffic and parking are all so horrible in town at the moment that I’m really, really relieved.
I’ll head over to the bookstore instead and pick up some recommended titles. And I have a coupon!
The revolution will be downloadable
Bill Flanagan has some thoughts on just why Tokyopop might be offering on-line exclusives over at Sensei’s Ramblings. It’s an interesting look at the costs and perils of getting a book onto the shelves, and Flanagan ends it on an optimistic note:
“If a publisher can sell weird and off-beat manga from their site and still make a profit, it means that there is a viable avenue for things like more Josei manga, more quirky seinen manga, more older manga, and more of any other genre that doesn’t do well in retail by giving them a way of succeeding on fewer units sold.”
Flangan’s piece does make me wonder if the possibility of a sleeper manga hit – a title that builds an audience slowly but surely over time – really exists in manga publishing. How many titles are on the shelves at all because they’re being subsidized by their publisher’s hit books?
Speaking of Tokyopop, there’s an interview with CEO Stuart Levy in this week’s Publishers Weekly Comics Week. It’s pretty much what you’d expect, only more so. Like… cubed.