Dirk Deppey dissents from the general consensus on the Libre/CPM dispute. And he refers us to the comments on Precocious Curmudgeon, where a lively discussion ensues.
At MangaCast, Readilbert posts about manga magazines in Indonesia.
Comicsnob’s Matt Blind explains how Osamu Tezuka got picked to be the father of modern manga.
Takeshi Miyazawa has a meeting with the folks at Comic GUM. This is interesting:
I asked whether the success of titles in the States and Europe are making them cater to different audiences. The answer was, quite frankly, no. Japan is such a big local market, they are the first readers they aim to please. In the end, foreign volumes don’t actually make them much money anyway after rights and costs, etc. so it’s considered a small bonus on top of regular J-sales.
Tak is the artist for Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, and he’s in Japan looking for work in the manga industry, so he has an interesting conversation with the Comic GUM people about foreign artists as well.
Andre trawls the Amazon listings and comes up with a handful of possible new titles.
Got a Koge-Donbo jones? Good news: Kon Kon Kokon is coming.
Elae links to some previews of German manga.
Wow, this is low: Someone broke into the office of Captain Tsubasa manga-ka Yoichi Takahashi and stole 500,000 yen. I like ComiPress’s take: “Fortunately no manga-related materials have been touched.”
Reviews: At Prospero’s Manga, Miranda figures out… the problem… with… vols. 2-5 of Kamui, and Ferdinand detects an unrealistic storyline in DJ Milky’s latest opus, Kung Fu Klutz and Karate Cool. Shocking! Active Anime’s Holly Ellingwood has been busy, posting reviews of Midaresomenishi: A Legend of Samurai Love, vol. 7 of Aishiteruze Baby, vol. 4 of The Cain Saga, and vol. 6 of Eden: It’s an Endless World, and Christopher Seaman checks out vol. 2 of Hayate the Combat Butler and vol. 8 of Nodame Cantabile. Tangognat enjoys vol. 1 of Mushishi. At Slightly Biased Manga, Connie reviews vols. 1 and 2 of Dokebi Bride and vols. 10 and 11 of One Piece.
Tak is in Japan looking for work? How very cool! His stuff looks so much better in B&W…his original Sidekicks story was beautifully drawn.
I wonder if larger publishers or licenses do better profit-wise in the US…Comic GUM isn’t handling Naruto or Tsubasa, for example… maybe their perspective is skewed…
The larger licenses in Japan do better because when they bargain they have numbers and statistics to justify the cost. The flip side to that is that smaller licenses from Japan in the US make more money for the US publisher (providing the series is a hit).
I have no proof to back this up except for common sense.
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I want to add that I have no desire for Japanese publishers to ever take into account a foreign audience. I like manga because it has foreign ideas, foreign story-telling and foreign values.
I think it’s inevitable that foreign audiences will be considered as manga publishers become more aware of the potential global market that exists for their product… it’s just business.
However, I find it unlikely that the “foreign ideas, foreign story-telling and foreign values” will disappear… the Japanese (in my experience) are fiercely nationalistic and unlikely to water down how their culture is presented in their media.
Japanese creators seem to be aware their culture is a selling point, too.