The anthology discussion continues, and it’s getting a bit technical: At Irresponsible Pictures, Pata discusses the mechanics of reading manga and the difficulties of translating a vertical page to a horizontal screen:
If I try to fit the whole page onscreen, I can’t read the text. If I want to read the text, I can’t fit the whole page onscreen. GAR.
His followup post has more links, for those fascinated by the idea of e-anthologies. Meanwhile the MangaHusband, who reads Slashdot so I don’t have to, sent me this post on comics and micropayments. And several people have pointed to DriveThruComics, which seems to be translating the theory into experiment with a site that sells inexpensive comics downloads. No manga yet, but they say they are working on it.
At Icarus Comics, Simon Jones adds his two cents. And it’s worth pointing out that Icarus publishes Comics AG, (NSFW!) a dead-tree anthology that is up to issue 45.
There are several yaoi anthologies in the works, and Love Manga has the scoop on the new Iris anthology, When Worlds Collide. However, yaoi publishers seem to face a unique problem: Resistance from the printers. Tina Anderson has the story and she links to this post by Kellie of Iris:
It’s funny—it honestly never occurred to me that a printer who was okay with “graphic sexual content” would suddenly change their tune when that turned to “graphic homosexual content.” A cock is just fine, but two cocks…oh, no, missy, that’s just wrong.
Neanderthals.
Simon of Icarus also extracts the manga data from the Coldcut top 200 list. The top nine titles are from Viz, but the tenth title on Simon’s list (number 29 overall) is volume 2 of Finder Series, from BeBeautiful. Then it’s Viz, Viz, Viz, Viz, volume 1 of Finder Series,, Viz, Viz, Vizzzzz….. Actually, the entire list is Viz and BeBeautiful, because Coldcut only carries a limited range, but it’s still interesting to see what the rankings are, and as Simon points out, manga dominates the graphic novels category.
If you’re in the mood for a taste of a Japanese anthology, the latest FutoMaki at MangaCast looks at Monthly Shonen Companion.
At Shojo Beat, Kaze Hikaru is out and Backstage Prince is in. I love the editors’ explanation:
“Replacing beloved serialized titles with new ones can be bittersweet, but manga are like people: You like some more than others, you miss those whom you no longer see regularly, and you can never be introduced to too many. And don’t forget, you can still read more Godchild and Kaze Hikaru in their manga volumes!”
It strikes the perfect balance of philosophical insight and self-promotion!
Review-o-rama: The Honolulu Star-Bulletin’s Wilma Jandoc writes about Scrapped Princess, both the manga and the anime. Kadzuki at the Star of Malaysia reviews a book I really enjoyed, Genju no Seiza by Matsuri Akino, the creator of Pet Shop of Horrors. Blogcritics has been going to town on manga lately; their latest post is a review of volume 1 of Dragon Head.
Pata has got to upgrade his computer. I run a dual 19″ LCD with both running with 1280×1024. With CDisplay on full-screen mode I can read most scanlantion just fine a page at a time, with legible text and graphics if the scan was done with sufficient resolution. His opinion only reflect his own setup. I’m kinda surprised… he struck me as the kind of nerd who would run dual graphic cards driving 2 x 21″ LCDs. :) Yaoi Anthology in English… Japanese fangirls would be impressed by the efforts of foreign fujoshi fighting for the right to read cute boys having sex. Fujoshi.. faito! faito! faito! :)
So what’s Backstage Prince about? I’m going to guess it isn’t my sort of thing – sounds like bishounen ai – but I’ve been wrong before – look at poor, orphaned, neglected Frog Prince.
[CPM, are you ever going to actually put out a fourth volume? I want my Ai Morinaga fix, damnit!]
Tivome, I think you have a much better setup than most people. I’m married to a computer nerd, and at one time we had a desktop computer with two screens, one horizontal and one vertical, but it took up the whole desk and was more trouble than it was worth. And now we all use laptops anyway. I can’t imagine taking a 19″ screen with me on the bus!
Mitch, there is nothing on the Viz and the Shojo Beat site only has this:
Not very informative. But they don’t have to do marketing—they’re Viz! Not much on the rest of the web, either—even the Wikipedia article is just a stub. Sorry!
I’ve got a total gaming geek at home and he decided that the dual video card setup is more work than reward for his home use, though such a set up suits him at work. (Though he’s less of a first adpoter, nowadays. Working in tech, he’s learned to put off buying stuff until a patch has come out or revised drivers and leave the headache to others.)
Backstage Prince is on my to do list, along with a preview review of Tail of the Moon. (Both have a chapter in the new SB.) I haven’t read Backstage Prince yet, but I suspect Viz doesn’t need to hurry in marketing it. It’s just started its serialized run, to there probably won’t be a digest for a few months.
Bridget, true computer geek would have at least 2 screens on both his gaming and downloading workstations, laptops in living room, bedroom, and kitchen, 3 HDTVs each connected to a HTPC, and at least 3 File/Web/DVR servers in his basement while everything runs at GigE speed wired and 11n wirelessly. Okay maybe that’s just me. :)