TCJ online launches, porn shut out of top 300, help us get into top 20 market share, manga anthologies to ease hole in wallet

TCJ finally launches their online magazine initiative, which makes the entire print magazine available only to direct subscribers.  I’m totally conflicted about this… it’s a great idea, and I’d love to be able to read articles online.  Yet, I buy only issues that I like, and I bought most during Dirk Deppey’s reign as editor than any other time, but he has moved on to running the website and Journalista.  Tough choices… I wonder if I can write a subscription off as a business expense?

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Diamond’s top 300 list for August sales is out today, and boy I’m dissappointed.  Once again, not a single adult comic made it into this month’s list… not even Eros.  And Relish didn’t break into the top 50 manga list either.  People, ya gotta listen to me.  You need to buy three copies of each book… one for reading, one for the restroom, and one for when your wife finds the other two copies and throw them away.  It’s your duty to support my drug habit porn manga!

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Speaking of which… retailers, according to my own calculations we’re only a few thousand away from breaking into top 20 Diamond market share for the month of September.  You can help us out by ordering more books from Diamond these next two weeks.  If we make it, I promise we’ll give out the next issue of Comic AG promo teaser for free to DM!  (As if having a porn-only publisher break top 20 isn’t cool enough in itself.)  Help us make it happen!

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Tania Del Rios talks about anthologies as a way to ease the manga glut, and Love Manga, Manga Blog, Journalista all weigh in on the subject… without mentioning Comic AG.  Jerks.  Just because our circulation is 1/100th of Shonen Jump doesn’t mean you can ignore us!  Err… hmm… give me a day or two, I know I can come up with something better.

Some commentary, like Dirk Deppey’s on Journalista, seem to imply that anthologies are just a way to get people to pay twice for the same material… which I think is a slightly cynical view, and perhaps more applicable to American floppies than manga anthologies.  Most manga anthologies aren’t priced to be profitable (not even Comic AG.)  I don’t think Viz is making money hand over fist on Shonen Jump or Shoujo beat, even if they are selling hundreds of thousands and have a bunch of advertisers.  The main purpose of anthologies, at least as seen in manga publishing, is to introduce people to artists whom they might not have had an interest in otherwise, and give new artists equal time to find an audience, thereby increasing potential sale of trades.  That’s not to say that we wouldn’t appreciate people buying multiple iterations of our books, though… (see above.)

One thing I’d like to nitpick about some of the posts regarding the use of assistants (which also happens a lot on comics versus manga discussions, although I’m not sure how it’s different from the domestic system of employing different people on pencils and inks)… not all manga artists work with assistants, and those who do may have multiple series running in different magazines.  Mangaka can keep the schedule that they do because many series are drawn with a 6-12 month lead time before publication, and because Japanese editors hound their artists to turn work in on time.  Whenever a series does fall behind, that’s when you see news about artists having to take a hiatus due to some unknown sickness… more often they’re just giving themselves time to get ahead again.

These are things that any prospective OEL manga publisher would be well advised to keep in mind.  When the anthology is late, the blame rests not with the artist, but the editor.