Icarus Publishing

Comic AG issue 81 and After School Sex Slave Club should have arrived in stores last week, but I’d like to remind you again to do your part to help me the country out of economic recession, and spend that tax rebate on some good ol’ Japanese porn, why don’t you?

+++

The last couple of links on the Fantagraphics/Diamond story, I promise…

Retailer Christopher Butcher posts his complete thoughts on the matter, which turn out to be a bit more hopeful than the original excerpt suggested.  The concerns raised here, Diamond’s poor record at filling orders of Fantagraphics’ books, are probably universal for many retailers, for comics from any publisher not in the top 10.  (Yet, is Diamond’s fill rate really bad as compared to… whom?)

Fanta co-publisher Kim Thompson alludes to unfilled invoices from bankrupt distributors as one reason Fantagraphics chose exclusivity with Diamond, which reminds me to make this correction: Diamond isn’t the only “national” comics distributor, as I may have said here and elsewhere.  Haven Distribution took over the stock from Cold Cut (books which weren’t all completely paid for, ahem) and continues their efforts to serve retailers who carry alternative/small press comics.  Although, and I’m just guessing here, if Fantagraphics’ experience near the end of Cold Cut was anything similar to mine, it’d be totally understandable why Fanta chose to forego working with Cold Cut’s new incarnation.

+++

Journalista discusses the question of whether digital delivery is something publishers should embrace, and the quagmire the industry (in particular manga publishers) has found itself in with regards to unauthorized online scans.  Just skip the first three paragraphs if you don’t want to read about Diamond exclusivity anymore…

+++

Comic AG issue 82 is now printing.  This one features the last Yamatogawa and Umashika story before both of those books go to trade, so savor it…

After this issue, we’re only going to be… one month late on the comics.  I’m totally done with GTA4, I swear.

A quick update on the Fantagraphics/Diamond rumor… it’s been confirmed by Diamond that Fantagraphics has signed an exclusivity deal with them for comic, game, and specialty (re: Direct Market) stores.  In return, Diamond has upped the standard discount for Fantagraphics publications to “E” (50% after a meeting total order threshhold.)  Additionally, Diamond will gain exclusive rights to distribute Fantagraphics to the Canadian book market.  Canadian porn hounds should cross your fingers now and hope that includes at least a few Eros titles.

Edit: Fantagraphics PR Eric Reynolds elaborates on the deal, carefully noting that the publisher will still be represented by WW Norton in book trade, and continue to offer books through non-DM channels such as Last Gasp, Baker and Taylor, and Ingram.  With this clarification, it now seems clear the party to see most immediate effect from the deal will be retailers who ordered directly from Fantagraphics.  This move is almost surely related to the recent increase in shipping costs due to higher oil prices, in particular the post office’s stringent new requirements for using ”bound printed matter” shipping.

Edit 2: Oh, and for anyone who is emotional about this, and believes Fantagraphics should have held out like that Japanese solider who hid in a forest in the Phillipines for 50 years after WWII ended, if I may point to my own post on why sometimes working with a bunch of distributors/accounts kind of sucks.

Edit 3: The Comics Reporter has the most complete recounting of the deal, including interviews with Fantagraphics and retailers.  CR also reveals something that wasn’t in Diamond’s press release… Fantagraphics will now have design control over its own real estate of the Previews catalog.

Apparently, there is some law in Japan that states all manga awards must take place at the same time.  ComiPress has the winners list from the Japanese Cartoonists’ Association Award and the Kodansha Manga Award.

Meanwhile, Newsarama has the list of Eagle Award winners.  Death Note takes the lone manga category.

+++

Akihabara Channel has extracted a graph from a Comiket Comittee report breaking down the attendence and circles in age and sex.  Women dominate circle participants, and have a double-digit edge in attendees, which is not a surprise.  But the average age of circle participants, roughly 28 for both male and female, skews a little higher than I would have expected.

While the disparity between the male and female attendence have been attributed to the popularity of yaoi and cosplay, there’s also one little thing that might be skewing things in favor of the finer sex: many women actually draw male-oriented erotica, but there is no similar cross-over of men into yaoi.

The full ”What is the Comiket?” presentation, in PDF format, may be downloaded here.  Do check it out; many more interesting stats are provided, and also timelines of significant genres and series.  When did the lolicon, bishoujo, and moe boom happen for men?  Which series gained mega-popularity with women?  How many visitors and circles attended the last Comiket?  It’s all in there.

(Link thread: A Geek by Any Other Name –> Alafista)

+++

Various dead/dying anime industry watch… AnimeOnDVD thinks Super Techno Arts may have silently slipped into the next world unnoticed, while ANN reports that ImaginAsian Entertainment are having trouble getting their DVDs produced.  Not as much a harbinger of doom as some other recent events (according to ANN’s encyclopedia, both of these companies only have 3 licenses each), but there it is.  It’s your damn fault for pirating, umm, Orguss, and ahh, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure… ermm…

ANN reports that germo-phile manga Moyashimon has won the Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize.  Incidentally, I can also see germs if I squint just right, but they always run away when I try to focus on them.

+++ 

Comicsnob digs up 2007 sales stats of manga in Japan, which are down yet again from the year before, but notes gains made in areas that are not easily quantifiable.  Go read.

In other gloomy indicators, Heisei Democracy summarizes a blog post by an ero-anime producer on the precarious state of that niche industry.  When porn is in trouble, you know something ain’t right with the world.

+++

A curious rumor is being floated at the TCJ forums… Fantagraphics may be on the verge of becoming exclusive to Diamond for the direct market.

Most large comics publishers, and many mid-sized ones, are already exclusive to Diamond.  Increases in minimum sales requirements in recent years have also led some smaller publishers to consolidate orders through Diamond as much as possible, in order to ensure their continued inclusion in Previews.  While such terms are the norm in publishing - most book distributors have even more stringent requirements for publishers - exclusivity deals have had very visible impact in the direct market: FM International, the last real advance-order competition for Diamond, shuttered its doors in 2006 when IDW, their largest vendor, became exclusive to Diamond.

Fantagraphics is one of the few big comics publishers that have resisted exclusivity, perhaps in part because its wide-ranging catalog was better served by not signing solely with the once cape-centric Diamond.  On that front, Diamond has improved; the success of non-superhero trades in bookstores pretty much made sure they had to improve.  So if this rumor turns out to be accurate, there are some compelling reasons for the decision, not the least of which is the practicality of having centralized fulfillment.  But there is also a strong emotional and psychological aspect to this, given the perception of Diamond as a Galactus-like monopoly which, fairly or not, is already on heavy display in the thread.

+++

Want to make a font for your comic, but don’t want to cough up money for pro-level software just yet?  Why not give this a shot.  It’s FREE.

Onii-chan no Ecchi has an audio review of A Wish of My Sister which, despite the, umm, visual stylings and themes, is probably our one book with mainstream manga appeal.  Go listen.

+++

A Geek by Any Other Name points to a post at the Libre forum revealing an imminent re-release for the yaoi series Finder in English.  The title has been in limbo ever since the dissolution of the original Japanese publisher Biblos led to a licensing dispute between Libre (who rescued those licenses in Japan) and US licensee CPM/Be Beautiful.  The English licensee has not been named, which makes for a lot of fun speculation over its identity in the comments section. 

CPM had previously indicated it was investigating legal options against Libre over the contested books, which made those licenses very unattractive.  This news may be a signal that, whether CPM’s original contracts were valid or not, they are nearing their expiration dates.  The forum post quoted doesn’t specifically rule out CPM as the publisher either, as far as I could tell, so another possibility is that the two have actually had a reconciliation.

That said, my money is on Aurora.

+++

In an interesting twist on the Japanese concept of “soft power”, military-focused newspaper Stars and Stripes has photos of a manga commissioned by the US Navy, to be distributed in Japan in an effort to improve the image of American servicemen there.  The book, drawn by Japanese artists, has a print run of 30,000 and was produced at a cost of $3 per copy (which seems a tad high, but this is a military program after all…)

(Found via MangaBlog)

Note to self… don’t wait until late afternoon to visit comic stores on the next FCBD.  All the Viz books would be gone by then.

+++

Comic AG issue 80 should be in stores tomorrow, a week later than expected.  Be sure to pick them up, otherwise retailers may cut the book entirely for habitual lateness! @o@

+++

USA Today points to a Mainichi report of a Japanese civil servant busted for looking at over 780,000 pages of web porn at work.  This incredible feat of manual dexderity and multi-tasking wizardry was accomplished within a span of 9 months, and was only discovered when the computer caught a virus… which is a pretty decent safe browsing record, all things considered.

The admirable-yet-horrifying man was demoted, and his cubicle incinerated.  (Okay, that last part I made up.  But his keyboard has got to be a biohazard.)

+++

According to Heisei Democracy, a couple doujinshi conventions whose survival were in doubt due to negative media coverage are back on track; the dickgirl-focused Futaket 4 was just held, and ABnormal Carnival (even weirder stuff) will return in October. 

Convenient self-plug… we are working on Hinemosu Notari’s Read Me! for serialization later this year.

+++

The Japan Times has an expose on an extremely lazy form of voyeurism: commercially-sold “hidden cam” porn.  According to a woman who makes her living by discreetly placing spy camcorders in women’s locker rooms, showers, and restrooms, the genre is more profitable (and far more illegal, I’d imagine) than traditional porn.  (Found via Japanator)

+++

AnimeOnDVD reviews ANAL - All Nippon Air Lines.  I don’t have a personal interest in this.  I simply like typing ANAL, and enjoy pointing out the fact that the title of this yaoi book is far more crass and direct than anything we’ve ever published.

+++

It’s been quiet for a while, so it’s time for another random pr0n post!

We finally have the files for Scarlet Desire.  This is Nishimaki sensei’s newest work, and the tone work is completely digital, which makes things sooo much easier for us.

The Comics Reporter has a detailed interview with Charles Brownstein on the CBLDF’s successful defense of Gordon Lee for accidentally giving a comic containing incidental nudity to a minor.  The Rome, Georgia district attorney dropped the the charges after three and a half years of delays and questionable tactics gave CBLDF cause to file a misconduct complaint.  Brownstein also looks at possible future cases for the fund, some very pertinent to manga, so go give the interview a thorough reading and consider strengthening the cause.

+++

This was discussed a while back, but everything seems set in stone now… next week Great Britain will officially enact thought crime legislation aimed at banning “extreme” pornography, outlawing possession of erotica which contains or appears to contain life-threatening violence, physical injury to breasts and genital area, necrophilia, or bestiality.  The sizable S&M scene in the UK is rightly worried about this law, which quite literally criminalizes fantasy between consenting adults.  And, of course, erotic anime and manga fans might be ensnared by this law too.

+++

A little closer to home, The Association of American Pulishers is challenging an Oregon law against distributing sexually explicit material to anyone under 13, or the distribution of ANY material with the intent to sexually arouse anyone under the age of 18.  (It’s already illegal to distribute “pornographic” material to children.  But “sexually explicit” or sexually arousing material could apply to non-pornographic works.)  The latter half of the law is the most troubling, if I’m reading it right… if you give 10 year old Jimmy a copy of Kingdom Hearts and bikini-clad Ariel gives him a tingly sensation, you’d have earned yourself a go to jail card in Oregon.

CBLDF and publisher Dark Horse Comics are listed among the plaintiffs.

(Spotted on Journalista)

+++

And now, possibly breaking laws in both England and Oregon, here are preview images of AG issue 81, which is being printed in a country where it can’t be imported…

Meanwhile, After School Sex Slave Club has been shipped to our distributors and direct accounts.  This new Tuna Empire classic, whose release will surely be marked by fans as a defining moment in history of drawn porn for ages to come, should be available in most stores in another couple of weeks.  But if you’re British, beware… this book meets two out of the four definitions for “extreme porn.”

Check out the first chapter of it in Comic AG Digital issue 00.

New lessons learned over the weekend…

1. Never try to break up a cat fight while wearing only a t-shirt and shorts.  Pus is oozing from my left shin as I type.  I have a light fever, and I think I see bone.

2. Perovskia revive in late Spring.  I dug up what I thought was a dead plant, but it was merely dormant.  Now it probably is dead.

Soooo, not doing great, but at least the pain should offset the sting of what looks to be another first-round exit for the Nuggets…

+++

ComiPress has wrapped up the online publication of Manga Zombie, which looks at several influential undergound manga artists from the 60s and 70s.  Author Udagawa Takeo and translator John Gallagher are now actively seeking a print publisher for the English edition.

This would be a neat project for an academic publisher, and an important one, too, given how much the average person’s definition of manga is informed solely by mainstream works from the last couple decades.

+++

Semi-manga related - science fiction and furturism blog io9 revisit Frederik Schodt’s Inside the Robot Kingdom, and finds that time has vindicated many of the predictions made by the author.

+++

Christopher Butcher recalls a recent conversation with Marc Weidenbaum, the VP of Viz’s newly-formed Original Publishing division.  What’s notable here is not so much that Viz will be doing original material, but the combination of Japanese editorial practices with traditional book publishing’s approach to ownership rights.  Go look.

Coincidentally, Sporadic Sequential asks which manga series have changed creators mid-series, and which manga have continued after the death or retirement of its original creator.  The mere fact that one would be hard pressed to come up with more than a handful of examples to those questions shows just how wide a gulf there exists between Eastern and Western comics publishing as a direct consequence of ownership. 

Avalanche of work… forgot to post preview… need sleep…

Only 3 stories this issue, but all are over 20 pages long.

Comic AG 79 was in stores this Wednesday, and AG 80 should do the same next week.  We’re still working on Extract trade paperback.  The book is over 200 pages, so we need more time than expected…

ComiPress has a thorough index of manga-related NYCC news from all around the net, so head there if you want a recap of all the announcements.  For my money, the most interesting items are:

• The case against Georgia comic book retailer Gordon Lee has been dropped.  The Rome DA decided that a written letter of apology from Lee to the ”victim’s” family was enough, a virtual admittance this collosal time and tax-payer money black hole never should have been a criminal case.  This is the best possible outcome for Lee and the comic industry in general, but I must admit to having had some hopes that the law under which Lee was charged would be challenged in court, despite a less-than-good chance for the defense in such a case.  As it stands, the “victory” came by way of the prosecutor’s own errors more than anything else.  But at least we can take cold comfort in knowing the cost of defending oneself against a mistake-riddled, malicious prosecution is a paltry $100,000.
• MangaBlog has a summary of ICv2’s Graphic Novel Panel.  The gist of it seems to be that the number of manga titles available is outpacing shelf space, and mid to lower-range titles are suffering as a result.  Even the most ardent manga-supporting direct market stores have all but given up on trying to stock every new series.  The gravy train is apparently coming to an end (Journalista points out some disparaties in the presentation of the data, however).  Perhaps it’s time for publishers to devote more energy to exploring outlets not typically associated with books.  It shouldn’t be too hard to convince Best Buy or Gamestop to keep a token rack of manga next to the video games, or leave a few dozen copies of Slam Dunk under the new Nike XX3 at Foot Locker, would it…?
• I quite liked Kurt Hassler’s response to potential problems with the ecchi-ness of their big manga license, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.  Slick.
• Giapet has some great, detailed reporting from the various panels, and a handy list of new title announcements.  MangaCast, as usual, goes the extra mile to bring cover images of the new licenses.

+++

AnimeOnDVD has a full press release from the Animation Co-Op Defense League, whose membership is composed of adult anime producers and distributors, detailing their efforts to combat piracy, particularly the online kind.  The PR shows a willingness of the companies to work with current infringers through profit-sharing agreements.  Discussion follows here.

It’s rather shocking that adult anime producers appear to be fighting online file trading in a far more organized manner than mainstream anime distributors.  Wait, no it’s not.

+++

Please Miss Yuri barely clawed its way into the just-released Diamond top 50 manga list for March, placing 49th in units sold.  More importantly, it took the 17th spot in dollar value.  It’s also the only (A) title to make the list in quite a while.  Hurray us!  Now all that’s left is for us to break the top 20 publisher barrier…

Huh?  Number 1 manga of the month?  Who cares?  You all should know what it is by now.