A couple of stories from Publishers Weekly:
I don’t know whether any comic book publishers were among those affected by the sudden closing of small press distributor BookWorld, but I find such news worth pointing out as Q.E.D. to those who unconditionally champion the book market as being superior to the direct market for small publishers, or believe that many of the difficulties and bad behavior indy comic publishers face are unique to the industry, rather than a function of their size. Small press is small press everywhere, and it’s tough to survive in any market.
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Wholesaler Bookazine will be developing manga-oriented sections for Transworld’s 900 stores, which include the brands Sam Goody and Suncoast, whose previous financial troubles had a hugely negative impact on the anime industry. The upside is that this shows there’s still room for growth in the retail sector for manga. The potential downside is, well, the aforementioned performance history of Suncoast with related material.
Of course, I’d have much nicer things to say if they were interested in carrying some pr0n manga… eh heh heh.
Seriously, yo. E-mail me. Please.
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Steve Grant still believes that the new barcode requirements will kill self-publishers. ICv2 thinks POS is a market necessity for the industry in a time where major bookstores are increasingly competing with the direct market for the same dollars. Who’s right and who’s wrong? Well, they’re probably both right. Sadly, the two aren’t mutually exclusive, principles aside. Of course, I’d still like to believe that self-pubs and indys are important for the industry, both morally and commercially… but one would be hard pressed to find much proof of that within the past few years.
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Now for your daily dose of creepy…
Police in Brussles found a note with the phrase “Watashi wa Kira desu” next to some severed human body parts. Fans should immediately recognize that line as from the manga Death Note. A quote from the article:
The newspaper reported that local police have launched a murder investigation and that they consider it unlikely that the notes were left there coincidentally.
Gee, ya think!?
(The carnage courtesy of Comipress–> Vertical)
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Comicsnob has a review of Manga: The Complete Guide, plus a nice links list to other previews of the book. The author also has details on a launch party to be held at the Comic Relief store in Berkeley, California. For civilians like myself, the book ships on October 9th.
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There’s a Transworld store (FYE, a monster of a store in the mall) near me that started carrying manga a few months ago. I haven’t cared about their manga. It’s not so much about their selection, which was once bigger but quickly shrank down into a mostly Viz selection. It’s more about their rack style, which is like what they use for their DVD box sets.
They first used a front to back type deal, which, I quickly realized, doesn’t work well for books. They then switched to the current style. While it does put the books in a book end out type setup, the biggest flaw is that both ends of the shelf are open ended.
If they’re just wanting to dabble in manga, they’re going to have to make it work through either price promotions or cross media promotions of same properties. They can’t make it work with a small selection, as they’ll get slaughtered by Borders and Barnes and Noble, which will be in almost every mall that they exist in.
The mall this TWE store is based in has a Borders Express (former Waldens) with a massive selection of manga (this one was my personal favorite for manga before I went online only with my orders), and a stand alone Borders store on the mall’s property, once again, with a massive amount of manga.
As far as them carrying your titles, I couldn’t see any huge barriers in that. Unlike many other major retailers, they already carry a selection of hentai anime. A small selection of hentai manga wouldn’t be much of a stretch for them at all.
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