Comments on: Bad Book Design: Bandai takes top honours

By: Davey

Davey — Wed, 12 May 2010 22:00:59 +0000

This is really so fucked up and a pain in the ass..
C’mon.. I have the Code Geass manga’s and I really don’t like the look of it.
Volume 4 and 5 (and possibly 6) are the same as volume 3, only the color [where the volume number is on it] are a bit more red.
/FAIL!

By: Mochimerica

Mochimerica — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 01:48:12 +0000

This really, REALLY bothers me. I have the Code Geass: Suzaku and Lelouch versions, and seeing the second Suzaku volume almost made me scream in frustration. I’m kind of OCD about that. Why the heck would they change the entire spine like that? And with the novels, that’s just pure laziness. It’s so sad.

By: Provo Chiropractor

Provo Chiropractor — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:04:32 +0000

Geez. Why can’t they just stick to the format for the first volume and then continue with that? It looks absolutely disgusting especially if you’re a collector.

By: Journalista - the news weblog of The Comics Journal » Blog Archive » June 8, 2009: We keep our masks on

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 09:23:39 +0000

[...] [Snark] Ow! My spine! Link: Christopher Butcher [...]

By: Christopher Butcher

Christopher Butcher — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 21:03:12 +0000

Just as a point of clarification, fellow-employee Parrish was more exasperated-angry at this stupidity than exasperated-sad. I’m sorry I mischaracterized your rage, Parrish! Please never turn it on me!

By: Jess

Jess — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 06:00:45 +0000

I actually didn’t mind Viz’s changes in the spines. I make sure to get the first printing of each, knowing that’s what the spine looked like when I first bought it, and that’s good enough for me. That’s what I had to do with the old Sailor Moon books since they change the spines so much as it passed to different companies and names.

By: MichaelJ

MichaelJ — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 17:24:24 +0000

I noticed that too…the way they changed the size of the Tokyopop and Viz logos on the spines drives me nuts. For me, I could care less about the publisher than about the actual alignment of the relevant stuff on the spine (logo, image, etc.). It just looks bad when the lettering changes, and it’s harder to find stuff fast when they’re all not aligned properly. It’s like getting the “kid’s” version of Harry Potter and then suddenly getting the “adult” version after the first half. Same content, but…

And when they design the cover to make the volume number hard to find, that’s annoying too.

By: BAKA

BAKA — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 10:46:59 +0000

It annoys me so much! I hope they don’t keep the random spine-age for the Lucky Star volumes >__<.

Dark Horse are one of the few publishers in my collection who seem to nail a perfectly aligned spine for each series every time!

By: Nick H

Nick H — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 21:28:41 +0000

Oh. My. God.

And I thought the spines on my Azumanga Daioh books were bad. But they’re nothing compared to the Bandai trainwrecks.

By: Adam

Adam — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:11:34 +0000

As a designer, seeing those haphazard spines sends me into apoplexy. I don’t know how the designer, when handing the designs to the publisher, got away without having his ass reamed.

It makes me think that Bandai either doesn’t care about its customers or the books’ brand or both.

By: Chris Howard

Chris Howard — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:47:31 +0000

Put me in the OCD category. Those are terrible. I do better stuff when I’m, um archiving old video material. It’s actually more work to change stuff like that. Here is your template, change the number, change the picture, knock off work early and go for drinks. DUH!

By: Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources - Covering Comic Book News and Entertainment » Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:59:56 +0000

[...] Manga | Christopher Butcher takes a critical look at the cover design of Bandai titles. [Comics212] [...]

By: Brand

Brand — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:38:59 +0000

The Viz resize really drove me crazy with Utena, they only had to more volumes in the series to finish when they switched over. It would have been nice to have been able to get the last two in the same size then have them do the reprint.

By: PecanCtMichael

PecanCtMichael — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:13:34 +0000

I don’t collect manga, but I can appreciate the point since I have other book collections. Collections just look better on the shelf when their book spines match. At least have the individual books in a series match!

By: Bitter Matt

Bitter Matt — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:03:16 +0000

Yeah, that’s fairly wince-inducing. Hm…

So, just how OCD are people about this kind of thing? Enough that if, say, a competent designer created stick-on spines with a unified design, people would actually peel them off and carefully “fix” each book?

I wonder…

By: MangaBlog » Blog Archive » Spinal fractures

MangaBlog » Blog Archive » Spinal fractures — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:33:32 +0000

[...] vol. 2 of a spinoff but looks just like the original series. At Comics212, Christopher Butcher wonders what happened to the graphic designers who can’t seem to get the spines consistent—with [...]

By: Renee

Renee — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 03:22:22 +0000

I can be a bit OCD with my books, but I never really felt a big problem with Viz’s change in format or design. Number 1 reason? The price also went down about 5-8 dollars. Heck Viz, chop off another inch or so and lower the price another $5! I’ll take it. As for that Bandai stuff, I don’t really think of their change as much as a “design choice” as a lack of quality control.