Canadians jailed for manga | BN unveils e-book reader

Twin brothers in Nova Scotia, Canada have been jailed under child pornography charges for downloading “manga images.”  The judge in the case justified the jail sentence by saying that drawings of imaginary characters “victimizes young people around the world.”

To borrow a phrase from Penn and Teller… Bullshit.

Edit: Anime Vice has some additional details, plus some questions about the status of the Christopher Handley case.

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Deb Aoki has a very candid interview with Garret Boast, the man behind the planned Shojo Berry magazine.

With this, a much clearer image of the still-embryonic project’s mission is beginning to emerge.  Shojo Berry may have been inspired by Shojo Beat, but it is in no way intended to have the same commercial scope; the venture is completely self-funded (commendable), and Boast may very well end up producing the actual magazine himself via a print-on-demand system (think one of the upper-tier model Xerox DocuTechs or a Nuvera.  I sure would like one of those for Christmas).  As for manga content, they may have one license, but will also explore sub-licensing from established manga publishers, which is a better choice if they don’t ever intend on releasing trade paperbacks.  Very little else is set in stone, even whether Shojo Berry would be a commercial venture… the Shojo Berry staff may not know it, but everything they’re doing recalls the glory days of Zines with a capital Z.

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Barnes and Noble has revealed its rival to Amazon’s Kindle, the Nook e-book reader.  And boy, it’s sexy.

Launching at a comparable price to Kindle, the Nook’s biggest selling point at first glance is the full-color touch screen that occupies the bottom quarter of the device, an interesting compromise and far more visually pleasant than the Kindle’s keyboard.  The device also has native PDF support (which may be the better format for graphic-intensive comics) and expandable SD or microSD storage (again, better for graphics).  The Nook matches most other Kindle 2 features, including true grayscale and free wireless downloading.

If there’s one complaint I’d like to lodge against BN (and it’s the same against Amazon) is that they give almost no details on the Nook’s ability to handle comics.  Is that simply a marketing oversight, or were comics never given much consideration during the development of the device?  I certainly hope it’s the former.  It’s incredulous to me that comics and manga would be so ignored when we’re exactly the kind of nerds, early adopters, and taste makers that they should be aiming their marketing at, and graphic novels have been one of the few bright lights in a moribund retail book market.

Other than that, the Nook has intrigued me enough that I’m actually going to place an order, just so I could test some of our PDF files on it and see if making our books available is feasible.  Dang, I may finally have to apply to BN as a publisher…

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Found via Journalista… The Graphic Novel Reporter interviews three publishers – Top Shelf, Dark Horse, and Fantagraphics – on how they deal with digital piracy.  This subject has been discussed at length in manga fandom, but not so much in the greater comics world, and I hope this happens more often.  (Of course, all three of these companies are manga publishers too.)

This particular bit from Eric Reynolds of Fantagraphics, when asked whether fans have a sense of right and wrong, hits particularly close to home:

I think many true fans do, especially on the Fanta side of things, where there tends to be more respect for the artist’s rights than on the Eros side.

Do manga fans care less about copyright than comic fans?  Are readers of art comics better people than readers of porno comics?  Have I been wrong about my fandom, my brothers and sisters, my people!?

Well?

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ANN reports the Meiji University will be establishing a library dedicated to manga, anime, doujinshi, video games, and figures, with heavy participation from several doujinshi committees.  Now when otaku get any guff from friends or family to throw out the manga and toys cluttering their room, they can say their collection is worthy of a museum.