The Manga Curmudgeon

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

Upcoming 9/19/2007

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This isn’t one of those weeks where you can complain about the overwhelmingly mainstream nature of the manga market. (I guess you could, but there are sufficient counter-examples to undermine your position.)

Yen Press releases the eagerly anticipated first volume of Keiko Tobe’s With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child. (Okay, it’s eagerly anticipated by me, but I’m sure I’m not alone.) Isn’t it time that Yen or Hachette built a web site for its graphic novel line? I can’t even find information on the book on the Hachette site. Edited to note that I didn’t look hard enough: Connie from Slightly Biased Manga pointed me toward Yen’s starter site. The logo looks kind of funereal to me.

Fans of Keiko Takemiya’s To Terra… (and I’m one of them) will be happy to see the arrival of the first volume of Andromeda Stories from Vertical. Fans of Keiko Takemiya who happen to live in Vancouver will be even happier, as she will be paying a three-day visit to the University of British Columbia Sept. 19-21. Details are here. Once again, I find myself wishing I were in Canada.

For as long as Viz runs Chica Umino’s Honey and Clover in Shojo Beat, I will recommend you pick up the new issue of Shojo Beat. I already got mine at a bookstore, but the Umino-enriched magazine shows up in comic shops tomorrow.

Okay, this next one runs right down the middle of the bookstore aisle, but that doesn’t mean Kyoko Shitou’s The Key to the Kingdom (CMX) isn’t a promising and engaging fantasy series debut.

I really enjoyed the first issue of Fred Chao’s Johnny Hiro, sent to me by AdHouse. It’s funny, imaginative and sweet, and the second issue arrives in some comic shops tomorrow. (Chao has a delightful blog with lots of sketches, pages and designs.)

Perennials

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The top-ranking manga in the latest graphic novel figures from ICv2 (for August) is the 17th volume of Fruits Basket (Tokyopop), which comes in at 3rd place. Impressive as that is, the 15th volume actually ranked higher (at 2nd) in December 2006.

Next to show up are the 14th volume of Fullmetal Alchemist (Viz) in 12th place and the 15th volume of Negima (Del Rey) in 23rd. The 15th volume of Naruto (Viz) doesn’t show up until 26th place, which is explained by its 10th place ranking in July. It’s not the only series to pull off the consecutive-month trick; I’m pretty sure both Fullmetal and Bleach (Viz) have pulled it off as well.

Shop talk

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There’s been a fair amount of discussion of comic shops lately – how they can really suck, why they matter, what a customer should reasonably expect from them, and so on. I think shops should stock what they reasonably believe they can sell, so I’m not going to delve into that subject, but I think there are some basic things any shop can do to make itself a more pleasant place to be.

1. Assume every customer is a germaphobe or is extremely sensitive to dust. Keep your store clean. (I should say that it’s been ages since I’ve been to one that wasn’t reasonably hygienic if not actually sparkling, though there have been a few that look like they hadn’t been swept since the structure’s glory days as a speakeasy during Prohibition. One actually solved the problem of filthy, smelly carpet by covering the carpet over with new, marginally less dingy flooring, which just made things unpleasantly squishy. It’s closed now.)

2. Assume every customer is claustrophobic. Minimize clutter. Make it as easy as your floor plan and available space allow for visitors to navigate your shop.

3. Come up with a coherent shelving system. The alphabet’s always good.

4. Cut down on distractions like loud music. Not everyone has the same tastes, and some won’t linger, browse and spend if the environment isn’t relatively serene. The same applies to DVDs.

5. Admit your ignorance. If a customer asks for a book you haven’t heard of, say so, and try to order it for them. While you’re at it, take the opportunity to find out about the book, its publisher, and the rest of their offerings.

6. Follow through. Come up with a prompt, reliable system to let customers who make special orders know that their item or items have arrived.

7. Don’t lie. Most of the problems you encounter genuinely won’t be your fault, so there’s no need to make something up with a customer asks where a given book is. They can go home and look it up online and find out that you’re full of it, so don’t create complications for yourself or needlessly foster bad impressions.

8. Keep in touch with your customers. It’s easy enough to develop an e-mail list that allows you to let them know what’s showing up at the shop on a given Wednesday and to highlight delayed books.

9. Set the tone. Just because your customer base might look homogenous doesn’t mean it is. Bias-spouting fanboys are a cowardly and superstitious lot, and it isn’t difficult to redirect certain conversational threads that might be making other customers seethe. Or you can let me do it, but I can promise that the results will be really uncomfortable.

Top five

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Here are five items that struck me as particularly noteworthy from the current Previews catalog, and since orders are due tomorrow, I thought I should get off the pot and mention them.

  • The Vinyl Underground #2 (Vertigo): I must have missed this last month, but this issue’s cover image has the word “detectives” spray-painted on it, so it caught my eye. Then I noticed that the art is being provided by the splendid Simon (Paris) Gane and Cameron (Catwoman) Stewart. I’m not familiar with writer Si Spencer, but the prospect of Gane and Stewart drawing “a red-hot group of occult detectives” would certainly be hard for me to pass up. And looking at Spencer’s Wikipedia entry, I notice that he wrote for Eastenders, one of the best soap operas ever. Sold. (Page 125.)
  • Azumanga Daioh Omnibus Edition (ADV): I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to catch up with this series by Kiyohiko (Yotsuba&!) Azuma, and 682 pages for $24.99 is certainly that opportunity. Yay! (Page 213.)
  • The Museum Vaults: Excerpts from the Journal of an Expert (NBM): I don’t have any prior knowledge of this work from Marc-Antoine Mathieu, but the cover image was striking, and the solicitation text pretty persuasive when it describes Mathieu as an artist “who marries the stylings of M.C. Escher with the paranoia of Franz Kafka.” Also, I just can’t resist it when NBM publishes a comic about the Louvre. The first, Glacial Period, is offered again, if you missed it. Oh, and if you’ve been longing to learn more about the assassination of James Garfield (just trust me that you have), NBM offers another crack at Rick Geary’s The Fatal Bullet. Oh, NBM, when did you slip me that love potion? (Page 328.)
  • The Annotated Northwest Passage (Oni): I believe I’ve mentioned (ad nauseum) how much I enjoyed this series when it was in paperback installments. This is a gorgeous collection of the historical adventure series, with lots of extras to supplement Scott Chantler’s terrific, wonderfully illustrated story. And for $19.95, the hardcover package is a steal. (Page 330.)
  • Andromeda Stories Vol. 2 (Vertical): More classic sci-fi from one of the Magnificent ‘49ers, Keiko Takemiya. To be honest, I found the third volume of To Terra… kind of rushed. It had a different kind of momentum than the first two, and I’m not sure it was entirely successful. But I admire Takemiya’s work enormously overall, and I love collections of short stories, so there’s really no down side. (Page 362.)

    • Recommended reading

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    I know he’s in Japan, but this piece in the Toronto Globe and Mail has a very Chris Butcher vibe to it. (That’s a good thing.) It’s a really solid list of recommended graphic novels for younger readers from graphica reviewer Nathalie Atkinson. (It seems like a list that would also serve adult readers perfectly well.)

    And let me just say, I’m so damned happy to see Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms (Last Gasp) get this kind of high-profile attention that I barely know what to do with myself. Seriously. You’ve read it, right?

    Brands across the water

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    The most interesting item in the latest Publishers Weekly Comics Week is Kai-Ming Cha’s piece on Digital Manga’s new initiative to co-brand licensed titles with the original Japanese publishers:

    “While manga has grown in popularity in the U.S., the Japanese publisher is usually cited only in the copyright notice while the book bears the brand of its American publisher. Japanese publisher names sometimes show up in ads for forthcoming U.S. titles. ‘You never see the Japanese corporate logo on manga licensed here,’ said [DMP president and CEO Hikaru] Sasahara… Sasahara noted that U.S. licensees rarely brand the name of Japanese publishers, ‘and that’s not good for [U.S. manga publishing] in the long run.’”

    I’m not entirely clear on why it isn’t good for publishing, though I can see why the co-branding would be useful for publishers on both sides of the licensing equation. It seems like a logical (though not always reliable) extension of creator loyalty… someone picking up a CLAMP title no matter who publishes the licensed version, or demonstrating a genre-blind willingness to try anything by Fumi Yoshinaga.

    It does strike me as something that would be more useful for smaller, more focused Japanese publishers that have more of a specialty or specific identity. Co-branding something as coming from a giant like Kodansha is kind of meaningless because its product is so varied. It would be like describing a food item as being from General Mills. Could be Haagen-Dazs, could be Pizza Rolls.

    In those cases, it would almost be more logical to identify the magazine that originally serialized the story, which would narrow things considerably and give well-informed potential customers a clearer idea of what they’re likely to get. I think it will definitely be meaningful for DMP’s boys’ love/yaoi audience.

    Oh, and this jumped out at me too:

    “‘We’ve gotten three or four inquiries to make Antique Bakery into a live-action movie or television drama,’ Sasahara said.”

    But what about a musical, damnit?! If they can turn Legally Blonde into one…

    Upcoming 9/12

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    This is one of those weeks at the comic shop that doesn’t look especially overwhelming at first glance, but becomes a buffet upon closer scrutiny.

    In fact, I couldn’t really select a Pick of the Week, though I think I’d have to give DC the Publisher of the Week. How do they accomplish this, you ask? Variety.

    First there’s a new volume of Kaoru Mori’s Emma, which is a bit late but no less welcome for it. Then there’s the first release in the second wave of Minx books, Confessions of a Blabbermouth by Mike Carey, Louise Carey, and Aaron Alexovich. M. Carey contributed the script for the excellent Re-Gifters, easily my favorite book in the line, so this will definitely merit a read. And while I found DC’s last effort at reviving the franchise completely incomprehensible, John Ostrander’s Suicide Squad stands as one of my favorite super-hero team books ever (though it rarely featured any actual heroes). I don’t see any obvious deterrents to coherence in the solicitation for the new mini-series featuring Ostrander’s cast, so I might have to give it a try.

    That said, DC has Viz hot on its heels, and the manga publisher seems to be going for the “massive show of force” technique. Yes, lots of Naruto is on the way, but there are also new volumes of excellent ongoing series like Beauty Pop and Gin Tama, and a really, really lovely treatment of Taiyo Matsumoto’s Tekkonkinkreet, with three volumes of weirdness packed into a satisfyingly hefty package. I’m about halfway through it, and it’s pretty amazing.

    If the Suicide Squad thing tempts me sufficiently, I’ll be picking up three whole floppies this week. The other two are the eighth issue of the second volume of Linda Medley’s Castle Waiting (Fantagraphics) and the fifth issue of the endearing Maintenance (Oni).

    And last but not least, Tokyopop reminds me that I don’t need to lead a life void of Meca Tanaka manga just because Omukae Desu is done. The third volume of Pearl Pink is out, which puts me only one volume behind. (I know. That’s how it starts.) Because I’m not reading enough quirky comedies about would-be teen idols.

    Completist

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    I’m particularly happy with this week’s Flipped, because it’s an interview with the charming and frighteningly well-read Jason Thompson, author of the upcoming Manga: The Complete Guide and Manga Editor for Otaku USA.

    Clicking

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    I had a very sedentary weekend, which was nice… sort of vaguely moving between reading things, watching things on TV, and downloading free game trials. The only thing that could have improved it would have been a bowl of Cap’n Crunch or a box of Pop-Tarts (from the frosted, “fruit” category).

    I almost never buy DVDs, preferring to throw my money away on comics, but I couldn’t pass up a copy of the first season collection of The Venture Brothers. (There was a DVD sale at the comic shop.) I’ve seen a couple of episodes on The Cartoon Network and found them hilarious, and this seemed like the easiest way to have them constantly at my disposal. (Because you never know what’s going to happen with CN’s schedule, except that you can pretty much always catch an episode of Naruto. Or some really terrible low-fi cartoon that looks like it cost a dollar to produce because hey, if it worked for South Park, why not try it without any good writing?) I think the show would be hilarious even if you didn’t have precisely the repository of pop culture memories that it satirizes, and since I have them, it doesn’t matter.

    Whenever I’m surfing, I usually find some horrible live-action ‘tween comedy on The Disney Channel, but they were having a Kim Possible marathon on Saturday, so I alternated between that and The Venture Brothers. It was a surprisingly fluid fit. I don’t think I’d rush out to buy the DVD, but it’s funny and energetic and it’s got a naked mole rat in the cast. There’s no down side.

    My idiot box marathon ended painfully Saturday night with a viewing of High School Musical II. It’s nice to see that my tastes aren’t entirely juvenile, but OW! OW OW OW OW! It was all kinds of painful, but nothing was as unnerving as the Manson lamps of the lead guy, Zac Efron. He always looked like he was contemplating his next crime, even if he was singing happy pop songs. He scared me.

    Filed Under: TV