Numbers games

Over at Comic Book Resources, Brian Hibbs does his annual reading of the entrails of an owl the BookScan charts and attempts to draw conclusions from what he sees. He admits right off the bat that he’s hampered by the fact that BookScan doesn’t cover all bookstores (estimates are in the 70-75% range), and the numbers are far from perfect:

Really, what I’m trying to get across to you is that this really is entirely unreliable data in terms of the absolute and total number of books sold, and is only able to give the broadest outline of what’s happening in book stores, based upon the data-set that I’m being given, which is in no way comprehensive.

Got that? There’s a pretty long argument about just how accurate the numbers are in the comments thread to this post at The Beat. When he gets to the manga section, Brian accuses manga blogs of only looking at that part of the data. I’m pretty sure he’s not talking about me, but it doesn’t really inspire me to do any analysis of my own, as I really don’t care how many copies of Watchmen sold last year. You can download the BookScan list of the top 750 graphic novels from his article if you like, though, and play along at home. Matt Blind does just that at Rocket Bomber, comparing his online sales estimates to the BookScan numbers, and Dirk Deppey vehemently disagrees with Hibbs on the subject of art comics and the validity of BookScan numbers in general.

For those who are following the business end of things, Simon Jones and ANN note several titles that were cancelled by Diamond, and then Simon adds another: No Starch Press’s Manga Guide to Statistics, which is at the top of my review pile right now. Note that this just means Diamond won’t be distributing the books to comics stores; they are still available in plenty of other venues.

The Comics Village team looks over the most recent batch of new releases.

Queenie Chan checks in to let us know what she’s working on, including a second In Odd We Trust manga.

Erica Friedman rounds up this week’s yuri news at Okazu.

ComiPress publishes a big roundup of links to NYCC posts.

MangaCast has the 411 on the newest titles from DrMaster.

News from Japan: The Eastern Edge updates us on Billy Bat, Naoki Urasawa’s current manga series. Caution: Spoilers! Ed Chavez takes a look at the most recent manga magazine sales numbers at MangaCast, and the picture isn’t pretty. He also rounds up the latest manga news in his MangaScope column. Rumiko Takahashi is drawing a one-shot manga, Unmei no Tori, for Big Comic Original magazine; the issue goes on sale March 5, ANN reports. Heisei Democracy (possibly NSFW) has a brief story on a creator’s cafe in Akihabara, which offers would-be manga-kas a desk, computer with Photoshop, and everything else they need—except inspiration and talent, of course—for an hourly fee. Canned Dogs has news of a new manga based on the doujin game Himawari, which will debut in the new magazine GanGan JOKER.

News from Korea: The Korean Times notes the popularity of a science-themed comics series.

Reviews: Wilma Jandoc and Jason Yadao of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin have a Kitchen Princess cook-off, testing several of the recipes from the palate-teasing shoujo series.

A Library Girl on vol. 7 of After School Nightmare (A Library Girl’s Familiar Diversions)
Connie on vol. 6 of Basara (Slightly Biased Manga)
Julie on vol. 14 of Claymore (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Snow Wildsmith on The Dawn of Love (Fujoshi Librarian)
Kris on Double Trouble (Manic About Manga)
Connie on The Gentleman and the Lady (Manga Recon)
Kris on Glass Sky (Manic About Manga)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 4 of Goong (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Lori Henderson on vol. 5 of High School Debut (Comics Village)
Michelle Smith on vols. 2 and 3 of Hissing (soliloquy in blue)
Connie on vols. 18, 19, and 20 of Iron Wok Jan (Slightly Biased Manga)
Julie on vol. 2 of Kiichi and the Magic Books (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Connie on vols. 15 and 16 of Law of Ueki (Slightly Biased Manga)
Deb Aoki on vol. 1 of Maximum Ride (About.com)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 6 of Moon Boy (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Erica Friedman on vol. 2 of Papaya Gundan (Okazu)
Johanna Draper Carlson on Shojo Beat’s Manga Artist Academy (Comics Worth Reading)
Julie on Sighing Kiss (MangaCast)
Johanna Draper Carlson on Tokyopop’s March titles (Comics Worth Reading)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 20 of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles (Kuriousity)
D.M. Evans on vol. 4 of Variante (Manga Jouhou)
Lissa Pattillo on Waru (Kuriousity)
Brenda Gregson on vol. 1 of Yokaiden (Animanga Nation)