The latest edition of MangaBlogCast is up at MangaCast for your listening pleasure. This week I actually got myself together enough to do a segment myself, which is why I’m running behind on everything else.
I’ll post the show notes later tonight. Enjoy!
I was e-mailing Susan Hale of Tokyopop about something else and asked her if it was true, as I read in a panel report, that Tokyopop has picked up the licenses to Aria and Peacemaker Kurogane from ADV. Here is her response:
indeed all are now ours. We will be doing new translations and covers, but don’t expect to see them out until 2008!
So that’s good news, except for the wait-two-years part.
To help tide us over, Love Manga has the manga list for this week.
Once again, accusations of plagiarism have popped up with regard to Tokyopop’s Rising Stars of Manga anthologies. I was going to do a whole post on this, but I got busy and in the meantime Love Manga got the scoop, and it seems to have ended more or less amicably.
The discussion of shoujo heroines is going strong; feel free to jump in and add a comment. Kalinara rounds up the latest entries here. In his Flipped column, David Welsh lists some of his favorite shoujo heroines, demonstrating that they’re not all clumsy wimps. Love Manga picks up the thread, and it devolves into an interesting discussion of publisher boycotts and whether it’s OK to buy Chikyu Misaki even though it’s from CMX.
Heidi has some great peeks at early manga at The Beat, here and here.
CMX finally breaks the silence on Tenjho Tenge with a thoughtful response to the company’s critics from Director of Manga Asako Suzuki. She acknowledges fans’ dissatisfaction with the edits and indicates that the staff has taken this whole thing seriously, then goes on to say
There are many people who enjoy CMX version Tenjho Tenge, who might otherwise be unable to read it, and in fact, it is one of our best-selling titles. We don’t think it would be fair to deprive some of those loyal readers of their favorite title so far into the series.
Now, CMX can’t change the fact that they have launched themselves on this road, and I can understand not wanting to change formats in midstream. Oh, wait:
please note that Tenjho Tenge will be rated “Teen Plus” from its 9th volume to indicate more precise direction to our readers.
Is this Suzuki’s sideways way of saying no more edits after volume 9? And doesn’t this contradict what she just said?
Suzuki also says that the manga-ka, Oh! Great, has seen the edits and presumably approved them, which doesn’t impress the folks at the ANN forums. She also says that CMX editor have discussed releasing an unedited version but have decided to stay the course for now which, like it or not, makes sense from a business point of view.
Two things: First, I believe that the staff was upset by the controversy. They may not have been happy with the edits to begin with, and besides, editing is a job you do for love, not money, and it hurts to have someone attack your work in public. Second, even edited, the book sold well. The fact that a small number of educated people hated the changes does not cancel out the fact that a large number of other people bought the book. I still think it was a bad decision (I haven’t read the book, but I gather they were trying to make an adult book into a kids book by covering up the titties, which is just plain stupid), but the publisher’s job is to make money, not please the critics, and those two things don’t always coincide.
Anyway, people grow, people change, and hopefully Suzuki’s response is a step in the right direction. The TenTen edits would still have been a big deal if CMX had spoken out from the beginning, but people might not have gotten quite so angry. Even more important, I hope they start limiting edits and pitching books at the appropriate age groups. I think the market has provided ample evidence that that strategy can work.
UPDATED to give Ms. Suzuki the correct gender. Sorry!
The Star of Malaysia looks at the future of digital comics. Futabasha Publishers is talking about going from the phonebook magazine format to a free webcomic, then printing the collected chapters in a single book (as they do now).
It’s an interesting evolutionary step. Sales of the magazines, which usually collect a single chapter of several different stories, are dropping, while book sales are holding steady, so it’s natural that publishers would look for an alternative. The web comics would be free, with advertising paying the costs. If that sounds unlikely, consider the way the magazine business operates in the U.S.. When I worked for a women’s magazine (20 years ago, but I don’t think things have changed much), we actually lost money on subscriptions. That’s right: The subscription fee didn’t cover the cost of producing and mailing the magazines. We made our money on advertising, and subscriptions were important because they were guaranteed circulation; the higher your circ, the more you can charge for ads. The reason I don’t think this has changed is that I keep getting subscription offers for $10 and $12 a year, which would barely cover mailing costs, let alone content and production. Magazines that don’t take ads, such as Cooks Illustrated, charge about four times as much.
So the appeal of webcomics immediately becomes apparent: You offer free samples, which draw in the readers, which allows you to sell ads. Then you make more money by selling the books, for which you can charge enough to make a profit. This seems to be the model in Korea, and Netcomics has already brought it over here, except they charge a small amount (25 cents) for each chapter. I’d rather look at ads, myself, than deal with setting up a PayPal account or whatever it takes to buy something for a quarter online, but that’s just me.
Anyway, the Japanese publishers seem to be behind in the technology:
Blood editor-in-chief Naohiro Nakamoto says: “Most manga manuscripts are still analogue (handwritten on paper), and it’s behind other publishing fields. If we could have them in digital format from the beginning, it would be easy to distribute overseas.”
Amazing! From what I’ve read on creators’ blogs, most OEL artists switch over to a computer at some point in the process, so this would be easier for American publishers.
And in fact, Seven Seas is doing something very like that: They are releasing three titles as webcomics, with the printed book to follow. This seems to have worked well for Aoi House, which is a webcomic on the site; they just released volume 1. At Love Manga, David Taylor comments that he would be happy to read comics online as long as he could eventually get them in book form. I suspect a lot of people would. And Seven Seas added some value to the Aoi House book by fully toning the art (made a big difference!) and adding some extras.
As David points out, digital comics should be more than just scans of paper comics.
Something which isn’t read in a linear fashion but actually evolves on the screen, i.e. something you cannot do with a book.
Otherwise, he says, it’s just another way to distribute books.
I’m not sure what possessed me to propose an article on manga to the paper I freelance for, although having a supportive and enthusiastic editor had a lot to do with it. Anyway, here is the final result. I didn’t realize it was going to get picked up on Google! I also didn’t realize how hard it is to write an article like this when you have to assume your audience knows nothing about manga. Fortunately, a number of interesting people stepped forward to be interviewed, including Robin Brenner from No Flying, No Tights and Scott Green of Ain’t It Cool News.
Now that we’ve recovered from Anime Expo, it’s time to gear up for the San Diego Comic-Con. Ed Chavez gets us started with a rundown of the schedule and what to expect at the different panels. He’s already picked up on some interesting things, like the fact that ADV and Dark Horse won’t have panels there. By the way, Ed will be providing a public service by taping some of the panels and putting them up on MangaCast.
Is it Oh, My Goddess or Ah! My Goddess? Jason Yadao explains the incredibly complicated history of this anime and manga in his Honolulu Star-Bulletin column.
ComiPress has an interesting story about how Japanese publishers are republishing older manga. One company profiled reprints “historically significant” manga from the 1920s on, while others focus on later titles. The “Mangashop” titles from the 1960s seem particularly interesting as the publisher went back to the original magazines to restore lost episodes; in some cases, this is the first time a title has been printed in book form.
Kurogane, vol. 1
by Kei Toume
Publisher: Del Rey
Rating: T (13+)
Price: $10.95
Come for the story, stay for the art. Kurogane is a samurai manga with a meandering storyline and plenty of swordfighting, but what I really enjoyed most about this book was Toume’s drawings.
The story is pretty conventional: It’s the tale of a young samurai bent on avenging his father’s murder, with various clashes with other samurai along the way. But it starts with the main character, Jintetsu, being torn to pieces by a pack of dogs as revenge for his deeds as an assassin.
Luckily (or not, depending on your point of view), an eccentric inventor, Genkichi, comes on the scene. He stitches Jintetsu’s body back together, but the result leaves much to be desired: The reanimated samurai, part man, part steel, has no voice, only one eye, and huge scar across his face. With help from Genkichi, he regains his former skill and sets off on his quest of revenge.
Although the plot is interesting, the action is hard to follow at times. This is particularly true during the fight scenes, when the panel erupts into crazy patterns that make it hard to see exactly who’s doing what to whom.
What makes this book is the art, which is detailed but not slick. Toume’s line is alive with energy, shifting from thick to thin in a way that suggests a real ink pen wielded by a practiced hand. The figures are dynamic, the backgrounds full of detail. The clutter in Genkichi’s dwelling, for instance, ranges from a girl’s head on a ladder to a droll little device for cracking eggs. While Jintetsu’s face is a simplistic cartoon, all the other characters are rendered with strong, individual features and intricately patterned garments.
Del Rey has done their usual good job with this book. The cover is a bit muddy in spots, but that’s due to the artist’s choice of colors, not the print quality. Sound effects are translated, and translator’s notes at the end shed light on some words and cultural aspects. Although there is a lengthy explanation of honorifics at the beginning of the book (pretty standard for Del Rey), few are used in the text, which is a curious omission.
