Blue Eyes reviewed; Online promo vindicated by orders?

Source Fource, Microsofts’ Kubricks-like action figures (found on Slashdot):

The OS-tans, as envisioned by fan artists on the Futaba forum:

… Sigh.

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Propero’s Manga reviews the just-rereleased Blue Eyes trade paperback, and is shocked by the amount of concensual sex.  Don’t worry, things become more normal (and I guess by that I mean abnormal) in the later volumes…

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Canned Dogs reports that another doujin game has been discontinued after the original rights holder sent a C&D.  In this case, the game might have been doomed by it’s own quality… it looked a little too good.

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Some will question whether it is too early to draw causal links.  Others will claim it is the controversy itself that boosted sales.  And a few no doubt still have their feelings hurt, and that’s understandable…

But the fact of the matter is that Boom’s North Wind, whose simultaneous (and unannounced to retailers) online-and-print publication drew furious indignation from certain circles of the direct market, saw higher pre-orders for its fourth issue, according to this CBR interview with marketing director Chip Mosher.  (A mini-series from an independent publisher that has pre-order gains issue-to-issue is a rarity these days.)  He also pulls no punches against retailers who may continue to castigate Boom.  Go read.

What I’d like to see, assuming the upward trend for North Wind continues a few more issues down the road, is a second survey of retailers who have remained steadfast in their opposition, especially those who have gone so far as to pledge not to stock any Boom comics ever again.  While many saw Boom’s failure to announce their intentions beforehand to be an ethical matter, at its core it’s still based around the belief that online distribution would hurt their bottom lines.  What if (and that’s still a big if) this is false, at least in Boom’s specific case?  At what point does stubborn principle yield to pragmatism and profit, and prudent self-preservation by shop owners become market-shaping by retaliatory gatekeepers?

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From yesterday’s PWCW, Diamond is now set to enter the remainder business, in which books are wholesaled to the book trade, heavily discounted and non-returnable.

I have no idea what any of that really means.