Comic Book Resources has posted the Diamond sales figures for October, and while I’m sure David Taylor will do a much better job providing an analysis of the manga elements, some things jumped out at me.

Tokyopop’s Direct Market dollar share bumped up from 1.96% in September to 2.88% in October. Viz’s dollar share dropped from 1.95% in September to 1.69% in October. A.D. Vision experienced a smallish upward bump from September’s .44% dollar share to October’s .46%.

Tokyopop has half of the top 50 manga titles for the month, including some OEL books. Mark of the Succubus shows up at #14 (#85 in graphic novels overall) and Psy-Comm at #34. A total of 19 manga titles made it into the top 100 graphic novels for the month, 13 of them from Tokyopop. This doesn’t really surprise me, as Tokyopop spares no expense on their section of Previews. Beyond standard solicitation elements (plot summary, cover art), they also provide what seem like retailer-friendly factoids (marketing tidbits, some “if your customers like…” suggestions, etc.). Marvel may have a special insert, but the thoroughness of Tokyopop’s solicitations isn’t to be sneezed at.

The rest of the manga entries in the top 100 GNs were divided among Dark Horse (Berserk #9), Digital Manga (Yellow #2), A.D. Vision (Full Metal Panic Overload #2), CMX (Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne #1), and Viz (Hana Kimi 8 and Video Girl Ai 13). While a lot of these 19 books are shonen-seinen, it’s nice to see josei Tramps Like Us #7 in 100th place and even nicer to see yaoi Yellow hitting 52nd place.

Many of Viz’s entries in the top 50 (14 total) aren’t actually debuting volumes. Naruto is still enjoying a bump from Cartoon Network, with the first six volumes showing up. And the third volume of Fullmetal Alchemist is still hanging on, even though it came out in August. Viz’s shojo output didn’t go unrepresented. Shojo Beat moved up the top 300 comics list, from 299 in September to 281 in October, and Yuu Watase had two entries in the top 50 manga (Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden #2 at 20th, and Fushigi Yugi #8 at 45th.)

Go! Comi claims two places in the manga top 50, with debut volumes of the excellent Cantarella in 43rd place and Tenshi Ja Nai (I’m No Angel) in 48th. Other entries that make me happy are Kindaichi Case Files #12 in 25th (this after a fairly long gap but with an extra-thick installment) and Yotsuba&! #1 in 30th place. (I wonder if that isn’t supposed to be #3, which actually came out in September, though it would make me equally happy if the Direct Market audience was catching up with the book. I also wonder why A.D. Vision still doesn’t have information on the book posted on its web site.)

It’s not all joy, though, and I’m totally baffled by the presence of Honey Mustard #2, a truly awful bit of forced-marriage rom-com from Tokyopop, at 40th on the manga list. And this makes the second month running with no Del Rey titles in the top 100 graphic novels. Given their generally excellent bookstore performance, I can’t see them viewing it as a problem.

Okay, so the giving-up-on-Big-Two-singles thing kind of loses its momentum in a week when there weren’t many singles I collected to begin with. I’ll keep the spirit alive when I head up to Pittsburgh this weekend.

Still, the week isn’t a total loss. Oni has the second issue of Ted Naifeh’s Polly and the Pirates. (I liked the first issue a lot.) Del Rey releases the third volume of Genshiken. This surprisingly subdued (and slightly surreal) look at otaku culture is still working for me, particularly the insanely detailed illustrations.

I might have to make a note of the titles on Publishers Weekly‘s Best Comics of 2005. (The site offers a free 30-day trial for anyone who’s curious.) The list includes some of my favorites (The Rabbi’s Cat, Scott Pilgrim Versus the World, and We3), so the remainder should make a good starting point for browsing. King from Fantagraphics looks particularly promising.

And if all else fails, I can just keep re-reading Sexy Voice and Robo (Viz).

The new edition of PW Comics Week has arrived in my in-box, and I’m a little disoriented. Aside from a banner ad for Dramacon, there’s no coverage of Tokyopop’s OEL initiative. I… What? Where am I? Who are you?

That absence aside, there’s plenty of manga coverage in the form of Ian Brill’s piece on Yaoi-Con, hitting the highlights and major announcements. Apparently, not only can I eagerly anticipate You Higuri’s Gorgeous Carat from Blu, I can look forward to her Gorgeous Carat Galaxy from Digital Manga. (But will I have to hold off on reading one to avoid spoiling the other?)

To get my OEL hype fix, I need only look just about everywhere else. Coincidentally, there was a piece on Morning Edition today about the continuing decline in circulation of daily newspapers. Will manga be able to help reverse the trend? Or at least make the average reader age skew a bit younger than 53?

Speaking of manga in interesting forms and venues, I was interested to see that Tokyopop has branched out into the radio drama format to promote its titles (via yesterday’s Lying in the Gutters at Comic Book Resources). Lea Hernandez finds more reaction from creators over at her LiveJournal.

I’m not usually crazy about anecdotal evidence, but this case reinforces my own tastes, so I’ll happily wallow in it. Scott Pilgrim and Yotsuba&!? Darlings of the blogosphere. Scott Pilgrim and Yotsuba&!? Local comic shop can’t keep them in stock because they’re awesome.

***

How is it that I can find copies of Antique Bakery in two of the big chain bookstores in town but can’t find a single copy of the second volume of Death Note? Or the third volume of Ultra Maniac? Is there a big yaoi audience in north central West Virginia? I thought it was just me.

***

Case Closed is always a fun little title, but it’s more fun when the Junior Detective League is around. Hence, volume eight didn’t achieve it’s full entertainment potential. More elementary schoolers outwitting murderers and jewel thieves, please.

***

It’s Monday, so there’s yet another Flipped column posted. Pretty angels just can’t compete with murderous Italian nobility. I’m sorry, but they can’t.

There’s plenty of promising manga to be found in the November 2005 edition of Previews, though the number of debuting titles seems a bit more restrained than last month. Even Tokyopop manages to come in with under a dozen launches.

ALC offers Yuri Monogatari volume 3, featuring “original stories by artists and writers from Japan, America, and Europe.” Del Rey delivers the second volume of the delightful Love Roma.

I’ll be reviewing Go! Comi’s Cantarella in Monday’s Flipped. Sneak preview: I’m ordering the second volume of this bloody, juicy Renaissance soap opera. Cantarella’s creator, You Higuri, also has a title coming from Tokyopop’s Blu line of yaoi, Gorgeous Carat. Jewel thieves in turn-of-the-century Paris? Yes, please.

Viz’s Shojo Beat line offers the first collection of Yuu Watase’s Absolute Boyfriend, the manga version of Kamikaze Girls, and the second volume of Ai Yazawa’s Nana.

The month’s debuts come from Tokyopop and Viz:

• Sorcerers and Secretaries, Amy Kim Ganter ($9.99, Tokyopop)
• Beautiful People, Mitukazu Mihara ($9.99, Tokyopop)
• Broken Angels, Setsuri Tsuzuki ($9.99, Tokyopop)
• Glass Wings, Misuzu Asaoka ($9.99, Tokyopop)
• Kami-Kaze, Satoshi Shiki ($9.99, Tokyopop)
  Loveless, Yun Kouga ($9.99, Tokyopop)
• Mobile Suit Gundam: Lost War Chronicles, various ($9.99, Tokyopop)
• Sequence, Ryo Saenagi ($9.99, Tokyopop)
• Gorgeous Carat, You Higuri ($9.99, Tokyopop Blu)
• Read or Die, Hideyuki Kurata and Shutaro Yamada ($9.99, Viz)
• Absolute Boyfriend, Yuu Watase ($8.99, Viz)
• Baby & Me, Marimo Ragawa ($8.99, Viz)
• Kamikaze Girls, Novala Takemoto and Yukio Kanesada ($8.99, Viz)

Did I miss anything?

Flush with the prospect of freedom from Big Two floppies, I decided to do a little on-line shopping. (This would probably classify as counting chickens before they’ve hatched.) I was further reinforced in my decision by the fact that I found Timothy Lehman’s Manga: Masters of the Art for 40% off at Barnes and Noble. Lured by the false economy of free shipping, I threw in a copy of Sexy Voice and Robo.

Speaking of Viz, I tend to agree with David Taylor and Brigid Alverson that the publisher’s web site is much improved. There was nowhere to go but up, and it still doesn’t have Tokyopop’s easy-to-navigate alphabetical listing of titles, but this is drastically more user-friendly.

Oh, and after another look through Previews, I realized I’d have to make a very specific exception to the singles thing. It was the solicitation for the first Seven Soldiers trade that made me rethink the wisdom of collections on that particular franchise:

“This first volume reprints (in original release order): SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY #0, SEVEN SOLDIERS: SHINING KNIGHT #1-2, SEVEN SOLDIERS: THE GUARDIAN #1-2, SEVEN SOLDIERS: ZATANNA #1-2 and SEVEN SOLDIERS: KLARION #1. Independently, each of these characters are featured in a story arc of their own that redefines their purpose in the DCU.”

It’s like the appetizer sampler at Tipsy McStagger’s, with the mushroom caps touching the cheese sticks touching the hot wings. Oh, how the façade of stand-alone adventures crumbles. (Of course, reading the issues singly also lets me appreciate the wit and wisdom of Jog in a timely fashion and without fear of spoilers.)

That felt good. It was a little frightening at first, but it felt good.

I decided to kick the remaining DC and Marvel monthlies off of my reserve list. Even with the progressive herd-culling over the last year, that’s still a fairly substantial number of titles. But it just seemed like time.

Blame Previews, actually. I was looking through the current catalog this morning, and I realized at a certain point that I was deciding not to pre-order things based on my usual expenses on Big Two floppies, which I rarely (if ever) re-read. In fact, if I ever touch them again, it’s to file them into long boxes as I curse the space they consume and time they demand just as clutter.

So, what, I’m not going to buy the Comics Journal Library edition on writers so I can squint at a bunch of DC titles to find the bits I like amidst all the Infinite Crisis references? I’m going to keep staring wistfully at all those volumes of Buddha on the shelves as I lug home a stack of Aftermath tie-ins from Marvel? (Okay, that might be a bad example, because the Vertical editions of Buddha, while exquisite, still strike me as too expensive, but you know what I mean.)

So, re-readability is the new watchword. Less inertia to my buying patterns, more product that comes in satisfying chunks (such as manga digests), and, hopefully, less aggravation on a variety of fronts.

There are a number of things I’d like to buy this week, but they have very little to do with this week’s releases.

There are a few new arrivals that catch my eye – the second volume of Death Note (so soon?), the third volume of Ultra Maniac – but I’ll have to hit the bookstore to make my consumer dreams come true.

In this Engine thread on how manga artists work, Dirk Deppey mentioned a newish book, Manga: Masters of the Art by Timothy Lehmann. It sounds fascinating, and it profiles an interesting mix of creators. (I guess it isn’t so hard to find great women cartoonists in Japan.)

I think I’ve made a bad call in hitching my hopes of buying a copy of Go! Comi’s Cantarella on the local Barnes and Noble. It was kind of a challenge to convince them that the title existed, and I should have just abandoned the effort and ordered it on line, but the staff became really determined about halfway through the search process. By the time the order was placed, three employees had joined the project, and I couldn’t very well pull the rug out from under such a determined group. (I’ve found that while B&N’s manga section is large, it isn’t really as interesting or diverse as I’d like. I’ve had much better luck finding weird, marginal titles or stuff from smaller publishers at Borders. Of course, the closest Borders is an hour away.)

But my unhealthy fascination with the Borgia family might limit my patience. If there’s even a small chance of a sequence featuring someone poisoning an associate via a secret compartment in their jewelry, I must have this manga, and soon.

It’s yaoi–za–palooza over at Love Manga, and I find myself hopelessly distracted by the cover to Man’s Best Friend. Its bodice-ripper composition makes me laugh and laugh. (I probably won’t buy it, as I’m closed-minded about the narrative possibilities of a dog falling romantically in love with its owner. It’s why I’ve been avoiding Guru Guru Pon-Chan.)

The scariest Halloween-related programming I saw this month? Without question, it had to be A Semi-Homemade Halloween with Sandra Lee on the Food Network. I’m always torn between amusement and terror when I see Lee in the kitchen, but her variety of costumes pushed this outing into deeply scary territory. Her sugarplum fairy outfit was deeply scarring.

The least frightening? Anything broadcast by Sci-Fi, especially the billion-hour, crushingly dull Rose Red. And maybe it’s just me, but “A Sci-Fi Original Picture” is all the warning I need to hit the remote as quickly as possible.

I know how you all thrill to my Tales of Yard Work. I’ll give you a second to click “Back” on your browsers.

Okay, so we finally got around to cleaning up the tree limbs from the blizzard earlier in the week, because we’re do-it-yourselfers, which is a synonym for either “masochists” or “cheapskates” or “morons,” your choice. It took hours and it was a total ordeal, but it’s done, so that’s a relief.

But somewhere around hour five, I finally snapped, and I realized I was having thoughts like, “Y’know, I bet this is what those people who live near the X-Men have to deal with all the time. Storm freaks out, and all of a sudden it’s five hours in the yard hauling brush. Yeah, saving the world, blah blah blah. Thanks a lot, and if you think the world feared and hated you before, talk to me after I’m done scrubbing sap out of my hair. Cull the herd, Bendis.”

I forced my mind to go blank after that. Wouldn’t you?