CPM/Libre timeline examined; Manga price inflation in Korea

Probably the last notable update on Libre/CPM until something new actually develops, Yaoi Suki has a wrap-up of all the facts, plus an impressive timeline beginning with the bankruptcy of Biblos in April 2006, which was immediately followed by the first very public revelation of CPM’s financial woes, up to CPM’s one and only public response on the issue to Yaoi Suki that didn’t contain the words “no” and “comment.”  Good, good read.

CPM’s primaries are in Japan at this very moment to settle the dispute, and if they’re succesful, we may see an amicable announcement at Libre’s website soon.  And it would have to be really soon; chances for a retraction grow dimmer with each passing day, and with new books set to debut in April, Be Beautiful just doesn’t have much time left to correct the problem.

While I hope things do turn out well for CPM, I must admit I am morbidly curious about whether Libre’s plea to readers would actually have an effect on sales.  Yaoi fandom is basically inseparable from its online identity… virtually all serious yaoi readers are connected, many make purchases online, and fan participation in forums/social networking websites as well as interaction between publishers and readers are high… so I assume most are well aware of Libre’s request not to buy these books.  Then again, would members of the self-proclaimed fujoshi culture care about any such decrees lest they came directly from the creators themselves?

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Journalista, bastion of perverted hedonism that it is, reposts what is supposedly the very first professionally-published shonen-ai kiss in manga.  Outrageous!

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Yaoi Press is offering a finder’s fee for European yaoi.

You know, we actually have a similar policy too.  We pay one million smackeroos to anyone who can hook us up with some good ero-manga.*

*To be paid only if the lead is given to us at 3:57pm, on the fourth day of July during a hailstorm, while a herd of elephants and one baby zebra stampedes through our room.  Oh, and it can’t have loli or shota stories either.

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Via MangaBlog, a Korean news story on the increasing cultural footprint Japanese media is leaving in Korea echoes some of the same fear and perhaps resentment that the West has had to the rising popularity of manga.  (How many times have you seen articles that describe the manga wave as an “invasion?”)

What’s most interesting though, as Brigid pointed out, is the rising cost of licensing Japanese manga and novels in Korea:

All this enthusiasm has sent prices for rights soaring. It now costs some W30-100 million (US$1=W938) for a novel and W10-70 million for a manga, depending on the reputation of the artist or work. Industry insiders say that is nearly double what they cost in late 2005. €œJust in 2002, it was possible to buy a good Japanese work for as little as W5 million if we did well in negotiations,€ says KimJongHak Production.

That works out to about $5,000 for a good manga license in 2002, and $10,000 ~ $75,000 in 2005.

Needless to say, that’s pretty much the kind of price inflation U.S. publishers have seen, and a likely reason why some companies have dropped mainstream manga lines, while other companies have disappeared altogether.  There can no longer be “small” mainstream manga publishers.