Cool links

At the Translation Dojo, translator William Flanagan explains how manga in the U.S. evolved into unflipped tankoubon rather than flipped floppies.

Christopher Butcher adds his two cents to the yaoi conversation and has a good take on Jason Thompson’s LiveJournal post that started the whole thing:

At any rate, aside from the feeling amongst the hardcore fan community that the question “Why do women like yaoi?” is the new “BIF! BAM! POW! Comics aren’t just for kids!”, I thought the post was a perfectly livejournally-take on a new experience; equal parts enthusiasm, emotion, and critical thinking.

Thank you, Chris! Jason’s post may have been limited in scope, but it certainly got everyone talking. Chris adds to the conversation by excerpting an interview with yaoi manga-ka Kazuma Kodaka in which she addresses the questions of gay vs. yaoi comics and the behavior of fans.

(Both the above were found via Precocious Curmudgeon, who has really been on a roll lately.)

EMMA preview! Warning: PDF file. But it looks good. It’s due out in September, which means we can start looking for it in bookstores pretty soon.

Love Manga questions the authenticity of a site that claims to publish manga as webcomics and pay huge royalties. What has really grabbed David and everyone else is the “about us” page of the site, which claims to expose “manga’s seedy underbelly” by explaining how U.S. manga publishers have corrupted scanlation groups. If I’m following this right, the publishers have secretly licensed Japanese manga, which they pay the scanlators to scanlate, thus creating demand. Meanwhile the manga-ka gets a pittance for his or her work. The commenters on Love Manga are skeptical, and so is Heidi at The Beat.

Speaking of manga-kas starving in a garret, commenters at The Engine are batting around this ComiPress article about the low pay for manga artists. The Newsarama blog weighs in as well.

Amid the chaos that is the new Tokyopop website, there are a few bloggers doing some very good writing. One in particular, ChunHyang72, has emerged from the masses of “Don’t post stolen art!” and “I’m so bored…. LOL XD” as a smart and perceptive blogger, and her guide to good blogs is an excellent starting point for exploring the TokyoSpace. Check it out and pop it!

The Star Trek manga will have three variant covers. Yawn. We’re not going to fall for that one, are we? Not at ten bucks a volume!