Ero manga cancelled, publisher in trouble!? | TP’s Levy interviewed

Perusing the latest Diamond product cancellation list, it appears that two titles from adult manga publisher Icarus Publishing have been cancelled under the dreaded code 3… cancelled by Previews.  I’m trying to get a response from Icarus, but repeated calls to the company have been met with weird busy signals…

Oh hey wait a gosh darn minute.  OH CRAP!

Well, it seems Diamond will not be offering the new printing of Blue Eyes 2 to retailers.  Perhaps the orders came in way below the threshhold.  Sometimes there is confusion over our new printings, which retailers may mistake for a simple re-solicit.  That’s understandable.  Maybe listing all the Blue Eyes books together was bad strategy on our part.

But whatever the case, being cancelled by Diamond doesn’t mean the book won’t make it out.  We’re a publisher, damn it, and the fate of our catalogue isn’t decided by any distributor, oh no girlfriend, nuh-uh.  AAA Anime will have it.  PCR Distributing will have it.  Last Gasp probably will have it.  TRSI will have it.  And you will have it.

Yes, this may be an inconvenience for some retailers out there.  But no, don’t hate on Diamond for this.  They have a lot of other books from Icarus in stock, including Blue Eyes volume 1 and 3.  But if you want to know why those two books are available, while Blue Eyes 2 will not be, well, here’s my best Viz impression:

You’ll have to talk to Diamond about it.

(And oddly enough, we also have some company… both volumes of Viz’s Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea manga were also given the code 3 treatment.  Yeah, the manga adaptation of the biggest Japanese movie ever.)

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ICv2 sits down with Stu Levy of Tokyopop at NYCC (part 1, part 2).  Cool stuff, but I’m surprised ICv2 didn’t really push more on the company’s current relationship with Kodansha, given what happened with TP Germany a few months ago.

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The Beat reports on potential money problems for Steve Geppi, owner of Diamond Comic Distributors.  Legal actions have been taken against Geppi stemming from unpaid printing bills incurred by Gemstone, which publishes a lot of vintage collections (the Disney books in particular are great, if slightly overpriced).  Geppi’s Entertainment Museum has also been underperforming, which may be related to lower attendance for the Baltimore Orioles baseball team.  Doomsday scenarios follow in the comments section.

Owing money to printers is, umm, probably something best avoided; see Dreamwave, (allegedly) ADV, or the original Comics One.  Then again, this might not be out of the ordinary.  Seriously, I wouldn’t know, as Icarus lives in a world where credit is just a myth, and books don’t go to press until the check for the full amount is in the mail.  Different rules apply at such a scale.  This might even be purely strategic posturing to lower the printing contract… who knows?  Well, Gemstone knows.

Cross your fingers on this one… however you may feel about the man, those Disney comics are imo an indispensable part of the identity of comics.  You know, kind of like how I feel about indy comics overall.

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…And the first PDF-only Previews Adult is available today.  Any kind retailer want to forward me a copy? ^_^;  Or give your opinions on it?  Will this help or hurt your adult comics orders?

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Hate hate hate hate hate hate hate.