MangaBlog

My review of Her Majesty’s Dog is up at Manga Life.

And here’s one of the cool things about the internets: Someone is linking to me in Japanese. Too bad I have no idea what they are saying.

The comics blogosphere is unanimous for once: Christopher Butcher is the best source for on-the-ground reports on the New York Comic-Con. He’s bloggin’ it with just the right mix of straight reporting and snark.

Next best, though, is PW Comics Week, which is doing an earnest, and excellent, job of writing up the panel discussions.

At the AoD blog, Ed Chavez provides his take on things, heavy on announcements of new properties and analysis of sales.

Coolest of all, though, is that MangaCast has the actual audio of the panels, available as podcasts. And I just bought an iPod an hour ago!

How does Del Rey Manga differ from other publishers? By being a class act, according to PW Comics Week.

Consider their treatment of two upcoming releases, Basilisk and Suzuka. These are mature titles, not kid stuff, and Del Rey plans to avoid problems by, quite simply, treating them differently than its other manga. The books will be bigger and more expensive ($13.95), and they will be shrinkwrapped. Manga editor Dallas Middaugh explains:

“We want to make it clear that these books are not one of our standard [teen] books. An increase in trim size makes it obvious.” He also said shrinkwrapping the titles, despite the risk of hurting sales, is necessary. “These books are for older teens. They should not be in the hands of a 12-year-old. We want to provide a way for retailers to sell books responsibly.”

Absolutely. That is exactly the right way to handle mature titles. Don’t, for God’s sake, make them look like kid books and shelve them next to Hikaru no Go. That just pisses off the parents and confuses your target market. Adults can afford to pay a bit more for (presumably) higher quality, and the bigger pages might actually make for an easier read for those of us north of forty, not that the publisher would ever admit that. This makes much more sense than bowdlerizing *cough*TenTen*cough* books that are clearly written for mature audiences.

(Optional but interesting reading: Rivkah’s discussion, and the comments that follow, on shelving manga in bookstores.)

Del Rey’s production values also seem to be a bit higher. There are different models for selling manga, and while I certainly enjoy Viz’s pile ’em high and sell ’em cheap approach, I think there’s a solid market for good quality manga, well produced. I see Del Rey and Go!Comi aligning themselves to serve those readers, and it makes me happy.

And, unlike Viz, Del Rey has a decent website, with a search engine that can actually find a title.

BONUS OMAKE BLOG ADDENDUM: My husband put me on to a bit of interesting Del Rey history. Del Rey is a Random House imprint that was started by Lester del Rey and his fourth wife, Judy-Lynn, at Ballantine Books in 1975. Lester started out writing sci-fi for pulp magazines in the “golden age” of the 1930s and 40s, then went on to edit pulps himself, while still churning out books with titles like “Rocket from Infinity” and “The Runaway Robot.” He also wrote a slew of children’s and YA novels under various pseudonyms. In the mid-70s Ballantine hired Judy-Lynn (who was a big sci-fi fan and con attendee) to revitalize their sci-fi line, and she brought Lester in as an editor. Their books did so well that Ballantine gave the Del Reys their own imprint. So with a lineage like that, you’d expect Del Rey Manga to do well.

Back to PW for another story from the ICv2 Graphic Novel Conference, this one about sales. Here’s the executive summary of the presentation by ICv2 CEO Milton Greipp:

Graphic novel sales in the U.S. and Canada came to $245 million in 2005, up 18 percent from the year before. $145 million of that was manga. $167 million of total sales were in bookstores, $78 million in comics shops.

While manga sales are better overall in general bookstores, Griepp noted that the very best individual stores selling manga are generally comics shops.

Oh, and there’s not enough shelf space. But then, there never is.

Al Kahn, CEO of 4Kids Entertainment (no relation) drew a hostile reaction at the ICv2 Graphic Novel Conference yesterday when he announced that American kids don’t read. PW Comics Weekly has the scoop:

But the show stopper on the panel was Kahn, who grabbed everyone’s attention when he announced that manga is more of a content problem than a content solution because the U.S. is not a reading culture and American children aren’t readers. And in case anyone missed it, he repeated it several times: “U.S. kids don’t read!”

That seemed to really tick off the audience, particularly the librarians—there was even some hissing. After the provocative statements, Kahn’s point was that entertainment firms need to think beyond print to digitizing content for a generation that will get most of its content electronically. “The content is disposable,” Kahn said. “More and more of it is available for free.” He noted that many people in the U.S. walk around with MP3 players or other electronic devices, whereas in Japan, everyone on the subway seems to have a “3,000-page manga.”

Mr. Kahn is, of course, all wet. American kids read a lot, for school and for pleasure. In fact, as manga like Naruto dominate the graphic novel charts they would seem to be squeezing out books for older readers, suggesting that the kids are reading more than ever—now they have something they like.

Liza Coppola, vice president of Viz Media, came to the kids’ defense:

Liza Coppola quickly responded by pointing out Viz Media’s partnership with the Read for America literacy campaign. “Manga is a great medium to bring kids back to reading,” she asserted. She also noted the positive response from librarians to manga.

The flaw in that defense, of course, is that reading manga is reading.

The discussion ranged on to the possibility of backlash against yaoi, which given the current political climate seems a distinct possibility. The fact that it’s out of the mainstream seems to give some protection, and Blu (Tokyopop) and Be Beautiful (CPM) shrink-wrap their manga and clearly mark them as “mature.”

Both publishers joked that mainstream confusion over exactly what yaoi actually is might obscure and forestall any controversy. But there’s one problem. CPM also bragged that they’ve found the perfect way to describe easily and quickly just what the genre is—CPM is sponsoring a panel at Comic-con called “Brokeback Manga.”

The graphic novel conference is one of the events leading up to the New York Comic-Con.

We have a new addition to the blogosphere: Frequential: Graphic Novels, Technology, Music launched on January 31, and blogger Bryan Munn describes it as

an infrequent blog about graphic novels, technology, and music.

Here’s his bio:

B.Munn is a director of the Canadian Comic Art Centre, based in Guelph, Ontario.

Check out his most recent post on web advertising and comics, which brings together some interesting links and discussion.