At Crocodile Caucus, Lyle contributes the most literary post yet to the ongoing discussion of yaoi and formula fiction. At Love Manga, David Taylor has the business angle covered with a discussion of yaoi and the direct market. David also has the latest license announcements from DramaQueen.
MangaCast posts interviews with Yoshihiro Tatsumi, manga-ka of The Push Man, and character designer Yoshitaka Amano. Also, Jack Tse reviews Air Gear. I haven’t heard it yet, but that’s gotta be fun.
In his Flipped column, David Welsh treats us to a smorgasboard of reviews as he whittles down the stack.
Greenapple2004, who is an editor at Tokyopop, writes in her LiveJournal about her trip to Tokyo and the release schedule of Saiyuki Reload. Check it out for her description of the Japanese publishers, especially the Kodansha behemoth. (via Telophase.)
With volume 2 of Steady Beat tucked away, Rivkah’s back in action with an article about pacing and layout in manga.
Some manga snippets from Japan, courtesy of ComiPress: The editor-in-chief of Shoujo Comic was fired for embezzlement; two Japanese universities are establishing manga departments (but see the translator’s cautionary comment); and a new Negima manga will start in Comic Bom Bom in October.
Christopher Butcher has a rave review of the latest issue of The Comics Journal. If you haven’t already read it, check out their interview with Dallas Middaugh. Commenting on Dirk Deppey’s interview with Diana Schutz of Dark Horse, Chris has a warning for publishers in general:
It’s very difficult to grow the market when the publishers cannot keep the most popular and acclaimed books in their catalogue in print. I’ll be writing more about this in the next week or so. I hate to get all Stephen Colbert on this, but Tokyopop and DMP: You’re on notice.
Also, people can’t buy the books if they’re not in bookstores, which is going to become a problem as the manga catalog expands. Is it worthwhile for a store to keep all 28 volumes of Rurouni Kenshin in stock? It looks like Tokyopop’s online exclusives may be a stab at addressing this problem, but I’d still rather buy things in a store than order them online, especially if there is no discount involved. (Give me 20 percent off and free shipping, and we’ll talk.)
I prefer buying online 10 times more in the store…any store.
Here’s a run down of my recent order from rightstuf.com:
6 manga & 1 DVD @ rightstuf: $66.13 (free shipping & gotanime 10% off)
same items in store: $80.45 (including 6% FL sales tax)
I saved: $14.32 O.O!
Plus I saved money in GAS. (Let’s conserve, people!) Worth every penny to me since I’m a on-a-tight-budget-college-student.
The link for the new negima manga appears to be broken to me. I’d love to hear more information about it though. Cheers
Fixed it! Thanks, Tolan!
A message on AnimeonDVD’s message board sheds some light on why TOKYOPOP is doing web-only exclusives:
http://forums.animeondvd.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=1403098&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&vc=1
After reading that thread, it totally makes sense for them to do this. Probably the only two inconviences is that:
1) These exclusive titles are not sold under the Right Stuf/Tokyopop daily discount (not the usual $7.49).
2) Some people don’t prefer/feel comfortable with buying/using their credit card online.