At Love Manga, David Taylor adds his voice to the discussion of what we would like to see at the Tokyopop website. I’m in total agreement with him, especially on the issues of making book info easier to find, adding a friendslist, and moderating blogs and other areas. Telophase has a case in point:
Someone on the Tpop website posted the Huge Honking Spoiler from Fruits Basket in the title of their blog post and in the second sentence (the first couple of lines get posted along with the title), so that if you’re skimming the blog posts on the new page you can’t help but see it in GIANT RED LETTERS. All indications are that the person isn’t doing it deliberately, because they are honestly amazed and curious about the spoiler.
Someone get me a modstick, dammit! I need to administer a beatdown!
One more thing I’d like to see is some way to alert viewers when a new column comes up. The columns are one of the best parts of the site, but they aren’t visible at all on the front page and there is no way to alert readers to updates. Case in point: Telophase’s excellent Manga Resources column, which is well worth a bookmark (and I’m not just saying that because she mentioned me!).
While you’re on the site, check out ChunHyang72’s post on manwha, which includes commentary on the latest offerings from Netcomics.
Ed Chavez gives a first-hand look at Comiket through podcasts of gals’ day and hard-core otaku day. Heidi provides visuals at The Beat.
This article about digital comics piracy is mostly about Marvel and DC, but it’s interesting to contrast their attitude with that of manga publishers. Also, there are links to some download sites at the end of the article.
Yuricon announces its 2007 event, “Yurisai,” to be held Sept. 29, 2007, at the Gateway Hilton in Newark, New Jersey.
This one-day event will recreate the fun and intimate feeling of Yuricon’s 2005 Tokyo event.
The Yurisai will include video programming, workshops, panels, a “Yuriket” market, and the chance to interact with some of the biggest names in the yuri scene, including Rica Takashima, creator of “Rica ‘tte Kanji!?”.
Regisration info will be posted at Yuricon.
DrMaster has a press release making the rounds about its newest release, JUNK.
Yuricon – “For real women who like their women…animated.”
Oh noes…they’ve let the cat out of the bag, Yuri is for women by women!! The wonders never cease.
I’m a bit confused though. It seems that for at least a few years there, they were trying to be ‘a con’ for all women. I know they combined shoujocon and yuricon last year to hold ‘Onnafest’ and it wasn’t a hit right out of the gate. I’m glad to see them back in more familiar territory, even though I’m not a fan a yuri or shoujo-ai, there are fans out there who truly need a con of their own.
-Tina
For all the hoopla about the columns, Tokyopop does little to promote them. (I find it hard to distinguish between links to news stories and links to new columns.) That’s a crying shame, because the Manga Column has something to offer everyone—it’s one of the bright spots of the new TP website, as their recent user poll demonstrates. A whopping 48% of participants singled out the Manga Column as their favorite!
I would like to see some active modding of the art – relying on self-modding only works for small groups. Larger groups have less cohesiveness and less sense of belonging to a group, with the acceptance of group standards that goes along with it.
All self-modding has done is allow teenagers to fill each other’s art and comment pages with bile. One of the more active self-appointed watchdogs has page after page of venomous comments on her profile. Admittedly, from my point of view it’s like watching jellyfish slapfight. My favorite bit was when someone posted an image of the words “I hate you” in sparkly text. The teenage rage was just dripping off the screen.
Thank you, it was interesting to read that. I’m curious to hear, though, how have the manga publishers been responding?
I have to admit — the image that just conjured up in my mind has made my whole afternoon. :-)
Telophase is right on about moderators—the stolen art problem is not going away by allowing the community to police itself. Ditto for the blogs. My personal favorite was the person who claimed that CLAMP had stolen his/her sister’s fanfic and turned them into “Angelic Layer,” and then stated, “They are whore, belive it or not, you never knew what they did before they were mangaka.” I flagged it, posted a restrained, grown-up comment so that the web master could see what the problem was, and… nothing. It’s still on the site weeks later. If only the poster had used some sparkly text—now that would have shown some class!
Alex W.: I loved it so much I saved a copy of the image. You can find it at http://www.magatsu.net/pic/IHateYou.gif If you look closely, you can see that the sparkles are actually teeny little hearts. It could only be improved upon if the I was lowercase and dotted with a heart.
That’s brilliant. Thank you, Telophase. :-)
Tina said:
> I’m a bit confused though. It seems that for at least a few years there, they were trying to be ‘a con’ for all women. I know they combined shoujocon and yuricon last year to hold ‘Onnafest’ and it wasn’t a hit right out of the gate.
Hi Tina, this is Erica Friedman from Yuricon, and actually you’ve got it wrong on two counts.
One, Onna! was not Yuricon attempting to be a con for “all women.” It was a joint venture between Shoujocon and Yuricon, and allowed us both to go beyond our niches to celebrate women in animation and comics.
Secondly, Onna! was actually a tremendous success and we (and the folks at Shoujocon) had a great time doing it.
in 2005 Yuricon did two events, the Yuri Revolution in Tokyo, and Onna! This year Yuricon is assisting with another first-year event, MangaNEXT, also to be held in NJ.
And of course, in 2007, we’ll be running our own yuri-only event, the Yurisai.
One of the many things that makes Yuricon unique is that we don’t limit ourselves to doing the same thing every year. By doing many kinds of events and working with other groups on joint ventures, we can keep our ideas fresh and our energy high – but you can be sure that from time to time, we’ll be running our signature Yuri events. :-)
Cheers,
Erica
Yuricon – “For real women who like their women…animated.”
http://www.yuricon.org
Hey Erica!
When Onnafest first announced itself, many creators and fans were like…WTF? So yeah, to me, that’s not a hit right out of gate ^_^, sorry if I sounded off to imply the con itself on the average was not a hit. According to Kethylia over at LJ, she told me it was great, so I was glad to hear it.
I thought the name ‘onnafest’ really sounded like it was trying to be a ‘con for all women’. Semantics I suppose, again, not saying ONNA! was yuricon trying to a con for chicks only.
**One of the many things that makes Yuricon unique is that we don’t limit ourselves to doing the same thing every year.**
Thanks for clearing that up. From a creators perspective, when cons and con-organizers change venues and themes yearly it tends to make us think there’s disorganization or lack of focus. Now that you’ve cleared this up it’s certainly going to be something I share with other creators when they asked about any good East-Coast cons.
-Tina Anderson
http://gynocrat.com