Quick manga links

At MangaBlog, Brigid chats with Yen Press guru Kurt Hassler about the imprint’s possible manga magazine and other schemes so crazy they just might work.

TangognaT is celebrating the fourth anniversary of her blog by giving away some awesome books.

The Beat points to T. Campbell’s sum-up of the webcomics panel at the New York Comic Con, with plenty of focus on Netcomics and its business model. The recently announced Netcomics/Yaoi Press partnership is one of the things that has (not safe for work) Simon Jones wondering if digital delivery’s time has finally come.

Boy, I categorized the hell out of this one, didn’t I? Fear my flagrant abuse of WordPress functionalities!

Speculation

I got an intriguing press release from Go! Comi in the e-mailbox yesterday:

WENDY PINI TO APPEAR AT GO! COMI PANEL

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Legendary comic creator Wendy Pini (”ElfQuest”) will be appearing at manga publisher Go! Comi’s panel at New York Comic Con to announce a major new project, which she describes as “darkly exciting and adult oriented.” The panel will be held at 2:00 PM on Saturday, February 24th. Wendy will be joined by her husband, Richard Pini, for an autograph session at Go! Comi’s booth (#564) at 3:00 PM immediately after the panel.

In light of Go! Comi’s previous announcement that they’ll be conducting portfolio reviews at NYCC, it seems increasingly likely that someone’s thinking about branching out.

Con jobs

A dust-up seems to be brewing over the inaugural American Anime Awards, to be debuted this year at the New York Comic Con. At MangaCast, Ed Chavez takes a moment from his travels in Japan to look over the ballot, particularly the manga nominees, and he finds it wanting. Anime News Network interrogates ICv2’s Milton Griepp over the conception of the awards program and what could be construed as ADV’s undue influence.

The awards have struck me as a rather odd fit for this particular con since they were announced. Anime isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about the NYCC, and the impression was reinforced by the closing remarks from this week’s PWCW interview with con organizer Greg Toplian:

“What I’m told is that we’re the literary show. This is New York City, and it’s about comics and book publishing. Editorial staff or the licensing departments can all stop by the convention for the price of cab fare. The Friday trade day also helps. We’re a more bookish show than others and getting Stephen King to attend as a guest of honor is the perfect illustration of that.”

(Dedicated conspiracy theorists will undoubtedly note that the interview is illustrated with a photo of Toplian and ADV’s Chris Oarr. The snark-centric will undoubtedly note the dangerous proximity of “literary” and “Stephen King.”)

Aside from the overcrowding issue, the general impression that emerged from last year’s NYCC was one of wider publisher interest in the category – book publishers scouring the con floor for talent and contemplating ways to slice off their own piece of the graphic novel pie. And while anime is certainly a driver in graphic novel sales, it doesn’t seem like an intuitive fit. Back at the ANN interview, Griepp provides some background:

“New York Comic Con was actively searching for an awards program from one of its categories to be associated with the convention, so a venue and supporting event became available. The association with New York Comic Con allowed the awards program to take advantage of the location in the media capital of the world, with a very large press corps already attending.”

The PWCW interview had plenty on its plate without delving into the new awards program, and Calvin Reid did address another issue that’s been simmering:

“We’ve heard some complaints about a lack of women creators being invited officially to be a part of the show. When I checked the guest list at the Web site, there was one woman out of about 31 invited guest artists. While I understand there are more women involved in some of the as-yet-unannounced programming, this still seems like an unfortunate message to send out. Particularly since the mainstream New York comics industry has a long history of excluding women.”

One out of 31? That’s an even worse percentage than San Diego.

French fried

I think I’ve achieved something of a personal best in terms of laziness with this week’s Flipped. It’s basically just a trawl through the Angoulême catalog to see what licensed manga made the short list for 2007. And can’t we always stand to freshen up the roster of books we wish North American publishers would license?

Playing catch-up

There won’t be a new Flipped this week, as we had company over the weekend (and I’m generally lazy). I’m still catching up on the slew of interesting links Brigid has found over the last couple of days.

The one that immediately caught my eye was the announcement of the American Anime Awards, summarized at ICv2 and printed in full at The Beat. I have to say, if I had been inclined to guess what the first New York Comic-Con awards program would look like, I wouldn’t have picked anime. It’s obviously a driver for manga sales, but given how expansive the NYCC seems to want to be, it seems awfully specific.

I don’t think I really have a problem with it. Anime is a significant subsidiary or companion industry for manga publishers, so it makes sense to me that manga-friendly comics conventions factor it into their programming. And maybe the folks at NYCC didn’t want to compete with existing comics awards programs like the Eisners and the Harveys. But it does strike me as narrow in focus and not entirely in keeping with the general vibe the event projects.

And launching any kind of awards program is tricky in much the same way as assembling a “best of the year” list. A focus on a specific category might be a more sensible approach than the kind of awards programs that lead to frankly bizarre co-nominees in some categories. As the graphic novel market expands, it might be easier to pick a sector when you’re looking to pass out accolades.

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Also eye-catching was the New York Times piece on Dark Horse Comics (found via Comics Worth Reading). As NYT pieces on graphic novels go, it’s something of a relief. Going just from memory, the paper’s comics coverage often involves the reporter swallowing whole some bit of malarkey from either Marvel or DC on how deep and meaningful their spandex themes are.

And while this piece is seriously flattering to Dark Horse, it also successfully makes the argument that, regardless of how varied their product is and how varied its origins are, their business plan manages to cohere. And with a mixture of creator-owned comics made specifically for Dark Horse, licensed manga and manhwa, and property adaptations, that coherence strikes me a significant accomplishment.

It’s not at all unusual for comics companies to convey the impression that their left and right hands barely have a passing acquaintance with one another, much less a full understanding of their respective agendas. Dark Horse seems to have evaded that problem.

Flatterer

At MangaBlog, Brigid spots a lengthy piece on yaoi from SF Weekly, and I certainly agree that Eliza Strickland has gone above and beyond in sourcing her article, but I did notice one recurring theme:

“`Show us the one-eyed snake!’ screams a blowzy woman, but the boy just smiles demurely.”

“`You don’t need to eat tomorrow; you don’t need to pay rent!’ exhorts the auctioneer, a plump woman bursting out of a black vinyl bustier.”

“Plus, the female reader isn’t forced to compare herself with some idealized girl or woman, because there are none. `I know what I look like naked,’ says one San Francisco fan, who goes by the name Betsy Tea (she preferred not to give her real name to protect her privacy).”

A word picture is being painted, isn’t it? Strickland reserves the unflattering descriptors for anonymous sources. Interview subjects like Justin Hall, Charles Brownstein, and Susan Napier escape any commentary on their body type.

Monday mangablogging

At MangaBlog, Brigid gives some on-the-scene coverage of the inaugural MangaNEXT in Secaucus, NJ, including today’s wrap-up.

At Love Manga, David Taylor launches his Manhwa Competition with Kye Young Chong’s Audition from DramaQueen.

MangaCast is awash in previews and reviews.

At ¡Journalista!, Dirk Deppey wraps up his scanlation tour.

Icarus exec Simon Jones contemplates manga backlash in France and takes a level-headed view of the place of spandex in bookstore:

“All things considered, I don’t feel the traditional superhero books are as marginalized in bookstores as they appear… much of that comes from our incorrectly grouping all manga into a single entity. If we separate them into their individual genres… shounen, shoujo, seinen, josei… then the superhero genre would compare to each more favorably.”

Lest you think the Frankfurt Book Fair is kind of stodgy, organizers gave free admission to cosplayers, one of whom won a week-long trip to Japan.

And in this week’s Flipped, I stare into the coming digital age, eyes wide with trepidation.

Thursday manga linkblogging

Conspiracy theorists rejoice! Calvin Reid drops by Love Manga to offer some details on the PWCW Comics Bestseller List. Just to clarify, I don’t think the list is inaccurate. I just think it would be more meaningful if I had some sense of how it was assembled. Over at Comics Worth Reading, commenter Ali T. Kokmen notes that the level of available background is just about equivalent to every other bestseller list out there, and elaborates further in an e-mail to Dirk Deppey.

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Pata’s quest for lists got me wondering: what’s already lurking among the manga reading lists at Amazon?

• Fanservice Manga (T&A manga, Pinup manga)
• Heartwarming Manga
• For the manga afficionado
• Manga for Goths
• Yuri Manga
• Classic Manga Series
• Yaoi stuff to buy from Amazon

And roughly 2,070 more.

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A Kentucky library is grooming the next generation of graphic novelists. (Thanks, Rose.)

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John Jakala notes that Viz isn’t taking any chances on reaping the potential bump from the debut of the Bleach anime.

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MangaNEXT isn’t until this weekend, but the Frankfurt Book Fair is underway, and the event’s web site has coverage of its manga conference. Lots of interesting nuggets of information about manga around the world (is it the rising tide that lifts all ships?), and this wrap-up paragraph:

“While Chuck Rozanski opined that ‘anything that’s not superheroes in America is a hard sell,’ the Europeans reported an increase in locally-created manga in their markets, illustrating Chigusa Ogino’s remark that, in today’s manga world, ‘you don’t have to have a Japanese passport to do manga.’”

A hard sell? Really?

Something for everyone

At ¡Journalista!, Dirk Deppy wants to introduce you to the best in scanlations:

“It occurs to me that there are any number of Japanese comics floating around in scanlated form that might not appeal to the average manga teenybopper, but might well be appreciated by indy-comics fans.”

Deppey, who wrote an excellent article on scanlations for The Comics Journal, starts off with the likes of Naoki (Monster) Urasawa and Iou (Sexy Voice and Robo) Kuroda.

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At Love Manga, David Taylor delivers an excellent interview with Simon Jones of Icarus Publishing, leading purveyor of ero-manga in translation. Jones offers, among other things, his view on fan-created translations:

“I certainly believe that the benefits of scanlations have been overstated, and most general arguments for them have been little more than rationalizations. But one thing I don’t question is their passion… they truly love the manga they work on.”

And just because I love it, this quote:

“There will always be a stigma around porn, because porn is supposed to push the boundaries of mainstream taste. As the boundary widens, porn will push even harder against it. In other words, our books will always be the kind you hide under your bed.”

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MangaNEXT is coming up this weekend, and MangaCast has details on panels. It looks like an interesting mix of publishers, from biggies like Dark Horse and Del Rey to more targeted houses like ALC and DramaQueen. (Somebody ask Vertical if they’ve ever considered doing a high-end treatment of Rose of Versailles.)

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At Comics-and-More, Dave Ferraro devotes Manga Monday to Hikaru No Go and Hideshi Hino’s The Red Snake.

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Seeing dead people makes me smile in this week’s Flipped, with reviews of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service and Dokebi Bride.