Ero-mangaka SABE passes away

June 8, 2009 in Manga Minutiae, Potpourri | 7 comments

I survived the Aurora tornadoes/hailstorm.

Shockingly, so did the delphiniums.  @o@

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090608_sabeAnime News Network reports that mangaka SABE passed away on January 28th.  News of his death was withheld until now by publisher Wani Magazine at the behest of the family.

SABE was a mangaka with a foot in both mainstream and avant garde manga, and also several ero titles under his belt, most notably the quirky ”Bloomer 1999/200X” series which starred Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan (circa Drunken Master I) look-alikes.  But in the US, SABE was likely best known for his memorable contributions to the Range Murata-edited ROBOT anthology.

ANN’s article mentions that Wani Magazine is set to release a memorial collection, which I assume will include his more adult works.

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ICv2 interviews Tokyopop COO John Parker, who feels the company has weathered the worst of the manga bubble and bookstore woes.  Parker also insists that fewer releases at higher quality is the way to go… although Sporadic Sequential has a lot to say about the declining material quality of the books lately.  Keep in mind that it’s not just higher raw material costs, bare-bones staffing, and lower sales that TP and practically every manga publisher has to contend with, but also a weaker exchange rate plus the financial problems of Canadian printing giant Quebecor.

Minor pet peeve… every ICv2 interview with TP makes it seem as if the company would implode the moment Fruits Basket ends.  Please, pleeease no more questions about Furuba.

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Even download-able doujin games may be facing an industry-wide ban.  Very surprising.  Even the most fringe business in Japan seems to have a cartel.

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Rocket Bomber offers up 5 examples of how specialty booksellers can beat big box stores by focusing not on price, but on delivering an experience no online shop can recreate.  How this approach could be applied to selling ero manga, I cannot say…

7 comments

  1. Matt Blind on June 8, 2009 at 3:11 pm

    “books on shelves in a bookstore are as much a draw as neon signs in a bar window, or strippers in a gentlemen’s club. Yes, I am in fact encouraging you to think of your books as tawdry draws for a hungry, horny public. For real booklovers, that is exactly what they are. Stock as many as you can: nothing sells books like more books.”

    I think that’s your Killer App for selling manga (and GNs) of all types. If one were to stock 3 copies of everything — and I mean *everything*, including your fine product, Mr. Jones — that would be enough.

    I believe deep in my heart that the one thing our nation needs, more than health care, more than peace in the Middle East, more than a nuke-free Korean peninsula…

    What we *need* is a 40,000 sq.ft. bookstore that stocks nothing but graphic novels. All shelved alphabetically by title regardless of format, trim size, genre, content, language, country of origin, relative merit, supposed age-appropriateness or whether anyone else thinks they should be in some different kind of order. Where Batman stands side-by-side with Batsu & Teri. Tintin alongside Thor. …Mazo Chichi shoulder to shoulder with ‘Mazing Man (assuming DC ever prints a trade collection — but then again, why not? They’re collecting everything else)

    I have a dream, where a comic is judged not by collector’s estimated values, but by the content ‘tween it’s covers. Where my comics and your comics and their comics can be sold side by side, with cups of coffee, and cake and sandwiches, and maybe beer.

    ’cause I really like beer. And it’s my dream.

    I’ve written something like 10,000 words so far and will write tens of thousands more so I can convince people that my dream *can* work — that in fact it’s the best idea since some French cave dude discovered ochre and umber and started smearing it on the walls so all the other cave dudes would know what a badass mammoth hunter he is.

    1. Simon on June 8, 2009 at 10:16 pm

      Don’t forget blackjack! And hookers!

      Really, we need a Las Vegas for manga. An uber Japan town where every channel in your hotel room shows anime, import games spin in every Playstation, every waitress is in an EGL maid outfit, and every toilet has a butt streamer. Oh, and Cirque Du Soleil performs a wordless stage production of FotNS the Movie twice per day. It’ll be a perpetual convention.

      I’ll build it, if you fund it.

  2. Masamonkey on June 8, 2009 at 9:01 pm

    I think it’s worth noting that Parker’s comments about lower production, higher quality wasn’t presented as the new direction for Tokyopop, but rather as a comparison of TP to its competitors.

    1. Simon on June 8, 2009 at 10:06 pm

      Mmmm, delicious spin.

  3. Jess on June 8, 2009 at 9:58 pm

    “how specialty booksellers can beat big box stores”

    I think it can be done. I live in the land of Powells bookstores and visit the downtown location about once a week just because it is such an awesome store. I was a little bit more picky about about my comic book shop, since there are a dozen or more around the area. I finally settled on one where I liked the people and they got their releases in a timely fashion, sometimes before the other comic bookstores. It may be an hour bus ride, but it’s worth it to me with the level of service they provide. It also helps the both Powells and the comic bookstore carry Icarus Publishing.

    1. Simon on June 8, 2009 at 10:18 pm

      Powells? Seriously?

      Must be a very cool inventory manager. We’re technically not distributed in the book trade.

      1. Jess on June 9, 2009 at 12:51 pm

        Powells carries a wide variety or ero manga, which is where I bought all my Manga Sutra volumes until it was cancelled, but I think the majority of Icarus Publishing manga I saw fell into the used category. They also have a lot of Japanese language ero manga upstairs for a few bucks each. It just depends on what people sell to them.

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