Google advertises pirated manga | Platinum’s finances attract more readers than their print output

A reminder for you all…. Diamond forgot to include our solicitations for this month’s Previews Adult, so you may not be able to order our books from retailers this month.  It’s not their fault, there’s no retail conspiracy against us (well, not a new one, anyway.)  Those books will be solicited in next month’s Previews Adult.  You’ll have a lot of books to order, but they’ll still come out at our regular release schedule – which is one month late on everything – so we’re not going to hurt your wallet much more than usual.  The retailers are innocent, so don’t get too angry with them.

Although… you should throw a small fit anyway.  Keeps them on their toes. 

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Newsarama brings news of an expanded Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited, featuring 5 online-exclusive comics, most notably Amazing Spiderman.  As CWR points out, it would be interesting to see how retailers react to this.  Historically, comic shops have been critical of online distribution since it cuts them out of the profit sharing, and their near-universal opposition may have delayed such programs from large publishers like Marvel and DC.  However, a growing number of them have also complained about Marvel’s flooding of the market.  While exclusive online books may not affect the number of print titles Marvel actually publishes, if retailers have more than enough comics to sell, there may not be a lot of immediate complaints as one might expect.  That’s not to say this wouldn’t be looked upon as a watershed event a few years down the road, when Marvel has abandoned all print, opting instead to beam comics directly into the occipital lobes of readers.

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The newest Japanese cultural export: Air Sex.

How does one even come up with a punchline for this?

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(Via MangaBlog) MangaPunk calls out Google on the rising number of advertisements they are serving up for sites that clearly pirate manga.  Mr. Doub’s tenacity is highly commendable, but apart from some email replies, Google does not appear to have taken any decisive action.

Keep in mind these sites purchased advertisements on Google; they are commercializing what was a fan activity.  I can argue with anyone about the theory of scanlations until the cows come home, but that doesn’t mean I think they’re evil or that I can’t have a frosty one with them afterwards.  I’ve seen all the justifications, and the continually moving goal posts… ”we can scanlate because these aren’t licensed”, then “we can scanlate because these aren’t commercially available yet”, then “we can scanlate because the official translations are awful.”  I may disagree with some of those arguments, but they are rooted in legitimate grievances, and all within the realm of reason.  But a line has to be drawn somewhere, and for the love of Tezuka, if the fandom as a whole cannot come out and roundly denounce the illicit profit-making off of scanlations and scans of commercially-available manga before turning this into another entitlement debate, then there’s no hope for this industry at all.

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Humor mangaka Pyocotan has “invented” sleep goggles for use on trains with an led display that implores fellow passengers to wake the wearer at the appropriate stop.  The test run proved to be disappointing, but I get the feeling this was always intended to be more public performance art than anything else…

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For those who need a daily schadenfreude fix: The Beat, Kleefeld on Comics, and The Comics Reporter have the latest Platinum/Wowio developments.  The ominous cloud that hung over the company for months is now a Cat-4 hurricane, but you shouldn’t worry for Platinum, if history is any indication… they’ll simply drop off the radar for a few years, long enough so they can form a new company and entice a fresh batch of “DJ Coffmans” who will vigorously defend their new master’s integrity, rationalize every evil deed they commit, badmouth anyone who brings up their past transgressions, then turn into new crusaders when they themselves are kicked to the curb.  (2nd link via Journalista)

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Speaking of which… anyone know of a legit (re: legal) alternative to Wowio?  Preferably one that’s okay with porn, hmmm?

Don’t fail me, guys… I really, really don’t want to use Rapidshare or Megarotic.