I live in a town with horrible traffic issues. I know… who doesn’t? And over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’d rather drive 20 miles out of my way and keep moving than sit in traffic go nowhere, or worse, frequently stop and start without making any meaningful forward progress.

I don’t read that many pamphlet comics, and I think there’s some carry-over from my disposition as a motorist. Not too long ago, I tried a monthly comic that had gotten very good reviews, and I may someday enjoy it in collected form, but the two issues I picked up on the same shop visit confirmed that 20-odd pages with ads is not a satisfying delivery system for me.

In fact, the advertisements almost made me lose my mind. Here’s the breakdown for the first issue, with actual content in italics:

Cover.
Inside cover advertisement.
Four pages of story.
Two pages of advertisements.
Four pages of story.
Two pages of advertisements.
Four pages of story.
Two pages of advertisements.
Four pages of story.
Two pages of advertisements.
Six pages of story.
Two pages of advertisements.
Back inside cover advertisement.
Back cover advertisement.

The four-two-four-two pattern was positively Zen-like compared to the jumble of the second issue. At one point, one page of story was sandwiched between two pages of advertisements. I imagine this is because there were a certain number of advertisers who wanted right-side pages, which forced the layout department to hack up the story in a way that would accommodate the advertisers. But seriously, just throw the page in the trash, why don’t you? Its contents are 90% lost anyways.

I get that it’s a business and some publishers who deal in pamphlet comics rely on advertising revenue, but I found the constant stop-and-start maddening. At least television producers can rely on commercial breaks coming at regular intervals and they can write their beats accordingly. They can even build internal cliffhangers into a half-hour or hour-long program and use the interruptions to their advantage.

But how is a comic writer supposed to know how their story will flow after the ads are inserted in ways that have nothing to do with narrative momentum or even logic? Why would writers even try, unless they were doing some work-for-hire product tie-in where it’s all advertising to begin with? (“Now, after those three pages, there’s a maze where Grimace has to find the three daily servings of fruit.”) And how’s an artist supposed to know that their illustrations stand a chance of leading the reader’s eye in the way they want when one of their sequences is bound to be chopped into thirds by things completely discordant with their visual style? Seriously, even if the ads aren’t hideous, and a lot of them are, the flow suffers.

So yeah, no more floppies with ads for me, because that just grated on my nerves. I’ve been spoiled by digests. The closest thing I’ve found to an advertisement in the actual story of a manga paperback is Yuu Watase telling her readers to buy the soundtrack from the Ceres anime because it made her cry.

There is nothing about the lead of this story from The Daily Yomiuri that does not delight me. NOTHING.

So in Monday’s column I expressed the opinion that it seemed unlikely that Diamond could make the decision to de-list a thousand Viz books without some participation of the publisher. Based on what a Viz source told me, it seems “that this was purely a decision on the part of Diamond.”

The same source also stressed “these manga titles are still being published, and will still available through other substantial channels such as Simon & Schuster, Baker & Taylor, Ingram, AAA Anime and others.” (I added those distributor links, just because.)

I’m in the process of salvaging (OK, shamelessly recycling) posts from a now-defunct blog of mine, and thought this one might be of use to folks with too much manga and too little floor space…

eBay is a great way to convert your manga cast-offs into cash and fund your Vagabond habit in the process. Before you start listing those old Sgt. Frog volumes, however, here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Individual volumes seldom sell. Unless you’re selling a desirable, out-of-print title (e.g. volume two of Short Program, volume one of Please Save My Earth), use Amazon to unload your unwanted singletons.

• eBayers prefer partial or complete series. Complete or partial sets command better prices on the eBay market than randomly assembled lots. (You know the kind: two volumes of series X, the fourth volume of series Y, and three issues of Shonen Jump.) A complete run of Chobits might not net the seller the full $80 he paid for it, but he’s likely to recoup $25-$40 of his original investment through an auction.

• Overpriced manga won’t sell. Yes, this seems like an obvious thing to say, but I see many eBayers charging close-to-bookstore prices for Death Note and Bleach. Aim for a starting price that’s 50-70% off list and let bidders do the rest. If you’re still not sure how much to charge, spend some time browsing similar listings.

• Well-known series sell better than manwha, OEL, and niche-market titles. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Naruto will attract more interest than Banya the Explosive Delivery Man, but some eBayers stubbornly insist on selling less popular titles at near-market prices. The one exception to the niche-market rule is BL/yaoi. I’m not sure why BL/yaoi sells so well on eBay (the embarrassment factor? lack of availability in Peoria?), but one of the most fiercely-contested lots I ever sold included two volumes of Gorgeous Carat and one of Black Knight. From the feverish bidding, one might reasonably have concluded that I was auctioning a Spiderman comic from Barack Obama’s personal collection.

If I haven’t yet dissuaded you from listing your Kaori Yuki collection, I have a few more words of advice for you:

• Make your listing look attractive. Your listing should look nice—don’t go overboard using different fonts or busy patterns. If you don’t like the templates that eBay provides, invest in a program such as GarageSale.

• Take photographs. Show your buyers the complete lot (spines and covers). If any of the books are damaged, include a close-up. Full disclosure is always the best policy, even if it means your manga doesn’t sell. Better to have a box of unloved manga than a poor seller rating.

• Know your shipping costs before you post your ad. Box up the set, weigh it, and find out how it much it will cost to ship it via media and Priority Mail. Don’t use mailing costs as an opportunity to gouge your buyer; eBay has begun cracking down on sellers who charge excessive shipping costs.

• Be creative in your bundling. I read Blood: The Last Vampire and Arm of Kannon, two manga that just didn’t tickle my fancy. (OK, I loathed them.) I tried selling each individually. No takers. Then I bundled them with the first five volumes of Hellsing and presto! the lot sold for nearly $50. Another strategy I use: selling lots comprised entirely of first volumes. This gambit works best if the titles are reasonably similar (e.g. seven shojo romances) than if you bundle Color of Rage with Phantom Dream and One Piece.

• Tag your listing correctly. Manga should be classified as Collectibles > Comics > Manga.

• State your seller policies clearly. Be sure to include a brief statement explaining your selling practices and policies, e.g. I ship within 48 hours of receiving payment, I only accept returns within 2 weeks of the ship date. Keep it brief and upbeat; don’t complain about deadbeat bidders or explain the rationale for every policy.

A final tip: choose the right keywords for your listing. I always include the word “manga” in my title, especially when marketing a series with common English-language words in the title. (Do a search for “Model” or “Red River” on eBay and you’ll see why.) Space permitting, I try to list the most popular titles in my set, their volume numbers, and—if the artist’s name has sufficient marquee value—the manga-ka. For mixed sets, I’ll purchase a searchable subheading so that I can list all of the titles for sale. Here are a few sample listing titles:

• Lot of 7 Manga: Hellsing 1 2 3 4 5, Arm of Kannon 1 + more
• Lot of 12 Manga by CLAMP: Chobits 1-8, Wish 1-4
• Lot of 8 Manga: Chobits by CLAMP 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 (complete)
• Complete Manga/Manwha Series: Les Bijoux 1 2 3 4 5
• 2 Manga by Rumiko Takahashi: Rumic World/Rumic Theater

Is your manga collection just not selling on eBay? Another attractive option for unloading unwanted manga is Mangatude, a manga swap site. Like eBay, Mangatude operates on the honor system, so exercise caution before setting up trades. Most Mangatude users are enthusiastic about the site, so it’s worth investigating if you have some singletons that you’d like to trade.

A few moments with Moominmamma puts everything in perspective.

Actually, I think it’s kind of cute. The Mainichi Daily News reports that legendary horror manga-ka Kazuo Umezu has won the right in court to paint his house however he likes. And when you consider the design choices he could have made…

Many fine books are coming out tomorrow, according to this week’s ComicList, but you must forgive me if I fixate on one to the neglect of the others.

"After School Nightmare" Vol. 10

Setona Mizushiro’s After School Nightmare (Go! Comi) concludes with its tenth volume, and it’s easily one of the best shôjo manga ever to be published in English and probably one of the best manga to be published in English, period. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the series, it’s about an intersex high-school student; Ichijo has been raised as a boy, but he has female genitalia. He’s enrolled in a “special class” where sleeping students, every one of them as conflicted as Ichijo, struggle against one another to find a “key” that will allow them to “graduate.”

That’s a lot of quote marks, but they’re intended to represent the story’s absorbing ambiguity instead of sarcasm. I thought Mizushiro’s X-Day (Tokyopop) was primarily noteworthy for its unfulfilled promise. Her talents were evident, but she kept the gloves on as she executed an intriguingly volatile premise. The gloves are off with After School Nightmare, and Mizushiro’s portrayals of adolescent uncertainty are scathing as often as they are sentimental.

The series centers on one of the most credibly constructed love triangles I’ve ever seen in fiction. Ichijo is torn between a deceptively fragile girl named Kureha and a deceptively aggressive boy named Sou. Romantic indecision often annoys me, especially when the fulcrum of the triangle is merely forestalling a difficult but inevitable choice. Mizhushiro develops each character so well and cuts Ichijo so little slack (seriously, the creator is brutal to her protagonist) that the triangle ends up mesmerizing instead of irritating.

Seriously, if you like shôjo manga and haven’t read it, now is your chance to wallow in it from beginning to end. If you don’t like shôjo manga but enjoy elegant, emotionally volatile storytelling about characters that resonate, do yourself a favor and make an exception.

And now for a few more highlights from the week: