In other news, sad to see how the TP reorg is shaking out and creatives losing their job. I have a creator friend who is currently working on an amazing debut GN for them, and I’ll be really really freakin’ bummed if it gets the chop.

-Ryan

I claim no special knowledge, but at least I post under my own name (and yes, Blind is my last name, the one I was born with, damn me, not a pseudonym or handle) and I’m not sure how an ‘announcement’ of Kodansha’s new venture was meant to help Tokyopop refugees when you provide no details.

I’m a blogger, with a link:
here ya go:
http://www.comicsnob.com

And when I talk about the US retail market, or book stores, or comic sales — my only claim is that I do this for a living.

If you insist: Hi, My name is Matt Blind and I am currently employed as a store manager for Barnes & Noble at their Buckhead location — that’s 2900 Peachtree Road, Atlanta GA 30305. I sell books for a living.

Your credentials, sir (or madam)?

[if you have time to argue with me, then I can only assume that you've enough free time to substantiate your claims to date]

http://www.kodansha-intl.com/

Kodansha Intl. –as their current and ongoing English-language publishing apparatus, and with established distribution arrangements and a long back list, is presumably the platform from which they’d launch a new manga imprint — and yet, I don’t see crap. Hadn’t heard anything from BEA either. Perhaps the new corporate communications strategy is to only whisper important news in bathroom stalls, and not write up press releases for, dare I say, release to the press — let alone the web or even on one’s own web site.

Chris, I apologise for dropping so much sarcasm in your comments, but Cthulhu (despite his powers as an elder god and eldrich horror) seems to be speaking out of his ass on this one.

You can’t find info on upcoming titles [their schedule used to update pretty regularly, but I find it's often broken, missing info and a month or so behind what's in Previews, which hurts when ordering comics], and anything that could be productive is drowned in an excess of copyrightinfringement, tweeny whinging and high school fights [which is why I abandoned my blog there long, long ago].

Part of me secretly wishes that you just spent all your time correcting people/meting justice, but I suspect the toll on your soul would be too great for one man to bear.

Anyway, thanks for always having something insightful/interesting to read.

TP stopped getting most of their better licenses when Kodansha made their deal with Del Rey.

As for the “it’s not real manga” crap, we creators have learned to roll our eyes and move on. It seems a lot of people who say that are the same ones who sit on the floor at B&N and read the manga and leave without buying. Trufans!

Thank you!

As for the stupid comments online, I say most is just venting. I would wish that manga could be sold like walmart. This wont happen but to comments like these, it lets you know that people still do want comics, we just dont have money and its hurting all of us. So in a way, we kind of know that ‘comics’ isnt the problem, its just everything else.

I’m being paid 5.6$ an hour and all the money I’m getting is to pay for college as since my dad is self employed (layed off), It’s just HELL to get through government paper work. As more parents lose their income (since most of the manga market depends on their parents money) and most of us took just for a reason other then to buy manga.

Of all business moves and what not, sometimes TP’s timing and PR is really off.

I just want to add one thing, which is something that not too many people see: Those “cine-manga” sell like hotcakes through the Scholastic book fairs—the Avatar one sold 500,000 copies. Granted the cover price is lower, and I don’t know what the profit margin is on Scholastic sales (as opposed to bookstores and the direct market), but it could be that those despised OEL titles are subsidizing some of the weaker Japanese titles.