Comic AG issue 109 has shipped. You might even be able to snap one up today, if you happen to live in a state not completely inundated by snow.
Getting close to the finish line…
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Comics212′s Christopher Butcher picks up news of the next Cerebus archive going to print-on-demand rather than mass-production, and ponders the implications. Perhaps just as important, if not more so, than his analysis of POD’s commercial viability, are those factors that are pushing creators toward POD, and how a POD strategy may co-exist with traditional distribution for a publisher. Check it out.
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Also at Comics212… Butcher criticizes Tokyopop for presenting its readers with what he sees as a “Sophie’s Choice” in a recent poll about digital comics, although what really caught my eye was the little blurb on the bottom about Viz sending C&D letters to online reviewers for using excerpts to illustrate their reviews.
Having not seen Viz’s C&D requests or the reviews that triggered them, I can’t say for sure whether they were justified. But using small portions of a copyrighted work for the purpose of critique is one of the few things explicitly protected by the fair use doctrine. My suggestion to online reviewers who feel they have received such letters from any publisher erroneously is to either 1. respond politely, but firmly, that you understand the protections afforded to media and academics by fair use, and that you are operating well within them, or 2. pull all reviews of books from that publisher, and let your readers know why you did it. Encourage other reviewers to do the same. Refuse/return any future review copies from the publisher (write ‘boycott’ somewhere on the package). If you are acquainted with that publisher’s PR or editorial department, let them know about it, and have them chew out the freshman legal intern who thought the C&D was a good idea (it’s just as likely this was outsourced to an online copyright enforcement firm; they, uh, usually don’t care about accuracy or lawfulness). Post any and all additional correspondence online.
Choice one will usually suffice, but the second has more potential for drama and hilarity for everyone on the internet, so that’s the one I wholeheartedly endorse.
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I hope somebody from Barnes and Noble is paying attention to Kindle reviews such as this one. As I type this, I’m browsing BN on the nook for graphic novels, and there are only 7 entries for the entire category. 4 of those were mis-categorized.
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Missed it… the infamous Love Plus marriage has become the subject of a video report on CNN. (caught it via Anime Vice)
Yes, this is another news report that plays off the whole gamers/internet nerds/Japanese people are weird angle, but Sal9000 comes across as a rather normal, meek individual, doesn’t he? Well, other than the photo of him with his DS in a pool.
Confession: I used to have a pretty unhealthy relationship with my Seaman. I’m better now.
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Manga magazine Comic Gear, which had all of its artists working on each others’ manga like a big doujinshi circle, will not make it past its second issue.
The communal studio set-up that served as the experimental foundation for Comic Gear probably had little to do with quality or even efficiency, and more to do with finding an economic alternative to traditional editorial structure and production sequence of manga magazines. Or, to be more blunt, most of the artists who participated in this mag could not afford to hire assistants. I don’t know how the set-up may have affected the output, but a 2-issue run seems a terribly short amount of time for any magazine to find its footing.
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This gives me feelings about Alan Moore that I should never, ever have about Alan Moore.
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Re: VIZ C&Ds– I don’t know if Chris meant that he got a “C&D” or just an e-mail request from their lawyer. I have been requested by a VIZ rep– not a lawyer –once in the past to take down an interior panel from Children of the Sea that I posted (it was a screencap from the manga’s first chapter, which was and is still available for free online).
What I want to know is: which copyright law do we follow here? I mean, I’ll take anything down as a courtesy (fewer images usually means fewer people’s eyes get attracted to the post, so if a publisher feels that more damage is done than good, I will of course respect that), but…a Japanese material is protected by Japanese copyright laws per the Berne convention, and Japan has no “fair use” law, so interior panels are a nono (I understand covers are generally tolerated even if technically they wouldn’t be legal either).
But what about an English release of Japanese material? Do we go by US copyright law, in which case an interior picture from the manga would be perfectly legal in a review, provided it was not too much of the content or “the money shot,” as it were (see also: Harper & Row v. Nation Enters., when Nation was successfully sued for publishing only a small excerpt of Gerald Ford’s biography– an amount that might normally be okay, except that it was the chunk where he talks about pardoning Nixon, thus removing the reason for many people to buy the book in the first place)?
I’ve always been curious about that, even if it’s more an academic curiosity than practical.
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Moore looks kinda hot.
Otherwise, in a surprising break from form, I’d need to see some more details about these letters to reviewers before I started frothing at the mouth. Might just be lawyer insanity, but it’s -possible- they’re dealing with legitimate concerns like certain alterations to the images or some problem with image quality. I don’t think they were actual C&Ds either.
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B&N corporate have no idea, really, what they have in the nook. The sales guys are insulated from the online guys are insulated from the tech guys, and the corporate guys only care about the stock price and how that will impact their precious quarterly $.25 a share dividend (loyally paid each and every quarter for the past 2 years even in the worst retail climate in decades — and considering I didn’t even get a *chance* at a pay raise last year: yes, I’m bitter)
Anyway…
Someone had a great idea, and they had several someones who could execute on that idea, and corporate got behind the idea because, hey, Amazon has this kindle-thing and wouldn’t it be great if we could have a kindle too… what’s that? We can? We’re already working on it?
Well then, [*cough*] I approve. let’s try that.
I think B&N has been more lucky than brilliant with the nook — no slight intended to the tech guys busting their nuts to make good on the marketing department promises, and unrealistic delivery schedule imposed upon them at the last minute — and no slight intended to the engineers who home-brewed the thing to begin with (or who reverse-engineered one from scratch from Spring Design’s demo model — not kosher or honest, but also not proven… and given the time frame involved even if it was theft it’s a nice feat of engineering besides)
…anyway, the Business guys are too lucky by half to have the Tech guys that they do have working for them, who’ve pulled off a near-miracle getting these to market.
My only complaint, as field management (disclaimer: B&N signs my paychecks, but I am neither a sponsored or sanctioned spokesperson for the Co., just a paid drone) is that they left the stores hanging –
we don’t have stock to sell
we almost didn’t even get the demo models
we’ve received only glancing, after-thought training & updates
…and we’re expected to be not only the public face for this initiative, but also the interface for all the consumers who are either tech-illiterate or tech-phobic — or both — and have to do a hard sell with nothing concrete to sell…Or have to explain to a solid chunk of the market, who read about it in a magazine of hear about the nook from Elllen Degeneres or elsewhere, and wonder *why* the device is sold out
…when in fact it has been “sold out” since it was announced, for all practical purposes. But this is just me venting.
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I’ve looked for graphic novels for the nook — I started even before the demo units arrived in stores — and B&N just *isn’t* marketing any book this way.
I’ve found 18 GNs (and 4 others, likely the same 4 false hits you found, Simon) but I had to use a number of search tricks and a fair amount of brute force (physically paging through hundreds of search results) to get those 18. It sure would be nice if we added a GN category — like the one on the regular website — for the nook. Honestly, there doesn’t have to be a damn thing in it, but it’d be nice if there were greater parity for *all* book categories. E isn’t anything new. Just a matter of dealing with publishers and negotiating new rights. (was there this same kind of disconnect when books-on-tape first appeared?)
One thing I did note is that some publishers are assigning unique isbns to e-book versions:
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