Asiajin spots what may be the first Japanese manga, in Japanese, for Japanese, made available on Amazon’s Kindle store. Aozora Finder Rock by Takahiro Ozawa and Asako Seo (collectively known as Ume) can be downloaded right now for a paltry $2.99. The manga is supposed to be 32 pages, but I counted 26 (27 if you include one duplicate page), so I’m not sure if there’s a bug somewhere (let me know if you get a different count). The author has kept diary entries on getting the book onto Amazon.
By the way, did you notice that? The mangaka themselves put the manga online. They self published it on Amazon. No involvement from their print publisher, as far as I can tell.
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Take a few anime figures, arrange them with some odd trinkets, give them some weird names, and what do you get? Art!
Honestly, these are kind of interesting… but so is my own Figma collection (which I’ve posed in numerous creative ways, if I do say so myself). Also, one can’t help but wonder what the original sculptors would feel about this. But hey, this artist obviously sees beauty in those little works of art. It’s all good.
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Author Ursula K. Le Guin, the fantasy author whose Earthsea series was the basis for Studio Ghibli’s Gedo Senki, will be submitting a petition signed by 365 authors opposing the Google books settlement to the presiding judge. Le Guin’s petition can be read on her website.
Le Guin specifically takes issue with the exclusive right the settlement would essentially create for Google – the right to distribute any book without prior consent, without repercussion, until the author objects to it. No other person, publisher, or even government entity has such a right.
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Amusing read of the day: a student at Hamilton College objects to the school’s recognition of a “Yaoi/Slash Appreciation Club,” and raises the strawman that a similar club about lesbian entertainment for guys would never have been condoned.
Oh, if only he had attend any old-school anime club filled with men in the 80s, he’d know that lesbian entertainment for guys has long been sanctioned at most campuses. Don’t be a hater, dude.
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No involvement from their print publisher, as far as I can tell.
OMG what a radical new concept. ^_^ To be honest, for the percentage that KINDLE takes, it’s not worth it to release through a print publisher – it’s just another middle-man taking out the percentage that should go to you. :/
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It is absolutely amazing the amount of bullshit people can get away with when they just call themselves artists.
Fucking disgusting.
“But hey, this artist obviously sees beauty in those little works of art.”
Riiight, my next script is going to be pages from other movies. I might change some pronouns around. That’ll make it art, SIMON! ART!
Appreciating something isn’t a good excuse to outright steal it and then try to make money off of it.
Moreover, people going to this “exhibition d’art” are going to think that Whorebitch McStealyshit sculpted the figures. Shameful. SHAMEFUL!
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I posted a lengthy opinion about the “yaoi clubs are a double standard” article on my blog:
http://yaoibriefs.com/home/?q=are_yaoi_clubs_badThanks for fueling my fire >:D
Also, I would like to say that the artists who posed the figures is making art…art is a message from one mind to another, no matter the medium. And the message is something positive about female sexuality, to boot :D
Speaking of which, related blog of interest:
http://www.howagirlfigures.com/-
That’s a load of horseshit.
It’s people who take that lofty idea of art that let someone take someone else’s hard work, put a plastic doughnut next to it, and make a living.
I’m very much a freedom of property kind of guy. I like the idea of share and share-alike. But there’s a pretty sick double standard at work here, and it’s brought on by people wanting to attach deep meanings to anything someone says they attached deep meaning to.
As a for instance, I could take prints of the most famous portraits of all time, slap mustaches on them, and OH MAN! What a statement I’d be making. I’m a deep and interesting person, right? Of course, you won’t say that unless I act the part, so let’s pretend I’m an asshole.
Now let’s apply it to an art that people don’t take so figuratively. Let’s say I take a copy of every great play and novel ever written, and I just edit the character descriptions so that they all have mustaches. Maybe toss in allusions to mustaches in the greater lore of the world.
What does it make me? A fucking plagiarizing shithead. And my point isn’t that people need to appreciate writing more, it’s that they need to stop letting assholes gets away with this foolishness.
There’s a lot of sitting around and talking about how hard it is to be an artist. Oh the struggle to come up with these deep stories. OH THE WOE! OH THE PAIN!
It’s not like that, it never is. It’s easy as hell. Always. Anyone who gets writer’s block or artist’s block is a fucking liar or they’re just bad at what they do. And I know because I do that shit. If I am not writing, it’s because I’m too busy masturbating to be arsed. GOD DAMNIT! GOOOOOD DAMNNIIITTTT!
As for figure blogs, while I will say that pictures of figures might be aesthetically pleasing when done well, that don’t make them art. Hell, photography at large is one of those things I have trouble calling art, ever. But there are moment.
When a photograph captures the finite or the infinite, that can be called art. However, taking something that someone sculpted a certain way and applying the rules of aesthetics… fuck, that’s rote. It’s nothing.
And now, I need to get back to my high horse. It’s thirsty.
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Actually, I would love it if you were to write a stage production of Rules of Attraction and added mustaches to everyone; it would be a strong statement on the apathy of hipster youth in the present decade. Be sure that they are all wearing v-necks and manpris, too :D
(…I’m dead serious, I really want someone to do that now. It would be amazing.)
I think you’re on to something here. You could be the next Andy Warhol. Or the next Duchamp. You could redefine dada and take it all back. Let me know when you have your first exhibition :D
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