I’m giving a talk on manga censorship next week

Censoring Manga for Fun and Profit
Featuring Christopher Butcher from The Beguiling
Wed Feb 23, 2011, 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
@ Lillian H. Smith Library, 239 College Street (just east of Spadina)
FREE, Registration required

There are the changes you know about, when Japanese manga (comics and graphic novels) make their way across the Pacific to North America–translation, localization, touch-ups–and the changes you might not. Beguiling Bookstore manager Christopher Butcher talks about the many surprising and unfortunate ways manga are censored in North America, as artistic integrity is sacrificed out of fear and a desire to maximize profit–and what you can do about it! The presentation includes ideas and images intended for a mature audience. Register in person or call 416-393-7746. A Freedom to Read week event.

Hi everybody! Chris here. As you can see above, I’m going to be doing a talk on manga censorship, why it’s done, and what you as readers can do about it (hint: the answer isn’t scanlations). I actually gave a short interview about the talk to Vit Wagner at The Toronto Star yesterday, and you can see it online (and theoretically in the paper–though I missed my chance to grab a copy) at thestar.com.

I just wanted to point out (as I will in the talk) that this event owes a huge debt to Jason Thompson, who has really pioneered this discussion and whose presentation I’m using as a springboard for my own. Jason has very kindly allowed me use of his research and images, and I’m extremely grateful. I highly recommend that you check out what he’s had to say on the matter of censorship at these links:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/editorial/2008-12-11/christopher-handley/jason-thompson
http://www.tcj.com/manga/sakura-con-2010-censorship-in-manga/
http://khyungbird.livejournal.com/ – His Livejournal

…and to check out his weekly column House Of 1000 Manga every week at:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/house-of-1000-manga/

As for my talk, it’s going to go after particularly heinous examples of censorship, get into some of the reasons behind the changes, and into a larger discussion about censorship and manga in regards to the new laws in Tokyo and with our own beloved Canada Customs. It should be a lively discussion. Oh, and there will be adult images shown, so get parental permission before coming out kids!

– Chris

A Short Appreciation of Manga-ka Usamaru Furuya

Hi there! My name is Christopher Butcher and in addition to running this fine blog, I’m also the Director of the 2011 Toronto Comic Arts Festival, or TCAF as we call it. TCAF is an annual comics event held in Toronto, Canada, inside the massive Toronto Reference Library. It attracts about 12,000 people over two days, and features readings, panel discussions, interviews, gallery exhibitions, and a massive exhibition of talented cartoonists from around the world, selling and displaying their wares. The next Festival is May 7th and 8th, 2011, and you can find out more about it at http://www.torontocomics.com.

Earlier this week, it was my great pleasure to announce that TCAF will be welcoming acclaimed Japanese manga creator Usamaru Furuya to the 2011 Festival. Furuya-san will be on hand to support his brand new English-language manga Lychee Light Club, published by Vertical Inc. and which will be debuting at TCAF. Furuya-san’s series for VIZ Media‘s Shonen Jump Advanced line, Genkaku Picasso, will also be finishing its three-volume serialization in May with the third volume possibly making an early appearance at the show. We appreciate the support of Vertical Inc., VIZ Media, and Japanese publisher Ohta Books in making this appearance happen–it’s a rare and unique thing to have one manga creator at a North American event–last week we announced the fabulous Natsume Ono as a Featured Guest–but to have two such talented and Japanese cartoonists is frankly unprecedented.

I want to talk a little bit about Furuya-san’s work. First and foremost, he’s one of my personal favourite cartoonists. He’s a unique, compelling, and incredibly talented creator with a vivid back-catalogue of work. His manga is incredibly varied, first appearing in North America in the cutting edge manga magazine Pulp with the series Short Cuts, published by VIZ Media. This humourous exploration of Japanese youth culture, and where it intersects with the ‘adult’ world, moved rapidly between strips, and sometimes in the same strip, from outré to shocking to laugh-out-loud funny to bizarrely touching, and is fondly remembered amongst alt-manga fans… myself included. Quite honestly much of the deeper appreciation for Japanese culture that I’ve developed came out of Short Cuts and its serialization in Pulp, a fact which is doubtlessly horrifying several of the people who read this. It shouldn’t be so surprising though–Short Cuts engaged an emerging Japanese youth culture and also explained it to a larger Japanese audience, and to have something like that translated for a North American audience was about as ‘inside’ and ‘authentic’ as you could get. Floppy-socked Japanese school girls, taking paid dates and listening to the hottest visual rock bands, all of this is taken for granted as a staple of Japanese culture from a North American vantage point here in 2011; in 2000 it was revelatory for me. The serialization in Pulp and the two-volume collection published by VIZ Media were enormously affecting; I’ve read and lent the series out many times.

An excerpt from Short Cuts. © Usamaru Furuya

A page from Palepoli. © Usamaru Furuya. Click for full size.

His debut manga Palepoli ran in the seminal underground manga magazine Garo, and has been lightly excerpted in North America in the sadly out of print works Secret Comics Japan (an amazing anthology of alternative Japanese comcis featuring the likes of Junko Mizuno and others) and Tokyo Edge (a mostly-text guide to Japanese underground culture written by the Editors of Pulp). Furuya’s mix of surrealism, superior craft, and an unwillingness to be bound by social mores in Palepoli was instantly appealing to me, and repeated rereadings of those precious few pages have revealed even greater depth, meaning, and humour. I wish, one day, that the series would be translated into English.

And that was it for a while.

Pulp sadly folded, taking with it the majority of alt- and underground manga releases for a little while, and seriously stalled manga-for-grownups for a little while, and the industry became very focused on boys adventure comics and girls romance comics for a little while. Not a bad thing, but not generally where my interests lie. Luckily Furuya’s career continued unabated in Japan, and surprisingly, in France. Owing to our bilingual heritage we stock French comics (including manga) at The Beguiling where I work, and new works from Furuya would appear from time to time. His manga are championed by Nouvelle Manga movement originator Frederic Boilet (whose own comics have been published in English by Fanfare/Ponent-Mon), and consequently where anglophones had a 9 year gap between Furuya projects, popular series like La Musique de Marie, Le Cercle du Suicide, and the recent Tokyo Magnitude 8 have continued to impress French audiences. His work is also very popular amongst scanlators and the grey market, it must be said, though I feel like popularizing that fact will hinder future releases of his work.

On that note, it was on my trips to Japan starting in 2007 that I started picking up Japanese editions of Furuya’s manga. By Japanese language skill is still almost non-existent, but anyone who’s looked at one of Furuya’s manga will agree that you can get a lot out of the drawings. I own 10 or 11 of his works in Japanese, and I’d love for them all to be replaced one day with English editions. His 51 Ways To Save Her was one of the announced but unreleased works from the doomed CMX manga line. Will we see it one day?

Recently, surprisingly… almost bizarrely, Furuya showed up again at VIZ with Genkaku Picasso, a gloriously demented short manga series about the inner lives of teenagers, and a boy tasked by God with helping the lives of those around him using his profound artistic talent. One element of Furuya’s work I haven’t touched on is his incredible draftsmanship. His work has a clarity and skill that is above average even in Japan, and he’s an expert at the human figure (especially cute girls…). He’s also incredibly creative, drawing objects and situations that most people couldn’t conceive of… and when you’re drawing the dreamish, nightmarish inner worlds of teenagers, that is a skill that will serve you very well. The series looks great, and is hilarious and disturbing and entertaining… of much more interest to an older audience than the “Shonen Jump Advanced” tag might imply.

Which brings us to Lychee Light Club, debuting at TCAF from Vertical Inc. I’ve got the Japanese version, and while gorgeous it’s certainly bizarre–learning that the series is actually a comedy (a dark comedy), set against the beautifully rendered violence and gore of the original? Well that’s going to add a lot I feel. But really, let me say again, the book is gorgeous. I’m really looking forward to reading it in English.

It was also just announced that Vertical has picked up another 3 volume series from Furuya, debuting this September and being released every two months, so I have that to look forward to too! And quite honestly, so do you. I feel incredibly lucky to share the work of one of my favourite manga-ka with all of you, and for those of us who’ll be in Toronto this May getting to meet him will be an additional thrill. Even if you can’t come, make sure to check out Genkaku Picasso, track down the two trade paperbacks of Short Cuts, and pick up Lychee Light Club when it appears in stores this spring.

And learn French. Musique de Marie and Suicide Circle are highly unlikely to be released in English.

For more on Furuya, check out:

– Unofficial Website: http://www4.airnet.ne.jp/mikami/UsamaruFuruya/en/index.html

– Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Usamaru-Furuya/204452936604

– Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usamaru_Furuya

– Lambiek (Short Cuts era): http://lambiek.net/artists/f/furuya_u.htm

– Anime News Network: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=7174

– Future Shipwreck’s Appreciation: http://futureshipwreck.com/2010/07/usamaru-furuya/

– Christopher

Going back to Japan!

So, surprising no one (I guess) I am heading back to Tokyo today for a business trip with as much ‘pleasure’ as I can cram in there as well. Buying more stuff for The Beguiling, hopefully doing a bit of TCAF business, that sort of thing. As always it’s going to be a hoot.

The big change is that all of my photo-taking, and subsequent photo-blogging, will now be done with this beauty of a camera–the Olympus PEN E-PL1–which I am test-driving for the trip. Thanks to various folks for helping me set that one up, I should have some great photos to share this week and next.

Meanwhile, before I had a chance to break out the Olympus (shot with my Fuji Finepix), I spotted this rack at the exceptionally well-stocked-for-graphic-novels airport bookstore. Archie Marries…, Bone and Amulet on the bottom shelf, and… is that?

…yes! This is an airport bookstore that actually stocks Jason Shiga’s MEANWHILE…. That is awesome! I mean, it’s on a shelf with “Herman Classics”, which is less awesome, but still! And just around the corner on the same display…

Scott Pilgrim! Pokemon! And… THE NEW CHARLES BURNS!? This airport bookstore has more copies of these books in-stock and displayed than _most comic book stores_, which is why _most comic book stores_ make me incredibly sad. But wait there’s more!

The staff picks! Since they’re 95% DC, I’m tempted to say that DC’s Cdn distributor bought and paid for this section, but either way, that’s some great, prominent display for these books! That’s pretty incredible and an auspicious start to this trip…

On that note, let me share a couple more pics with you.

These are two pictures that I took of the Taiyo Matsumoto section of my bookshelf, just so they’d be on the camera when I was out shopping and I’d know what I already had!

Top photo (l to r): TekkonKinkreet Animation Book 2-pack, PEN magazine with comic article, 5-issues “Black and WHite” mini-series, Tekkon Kinkreet All-In-One Edition, GoGo Monster, Black & White 1-3, ZERO 1-2, “Brothers of Japan”, a novel Matsumoto did the cover for, Hana-Otoko 1-3 Special box set, Hana-Otoko v1, Blue Spring, Le Samurai Bambou 1-2 (French), Number 5 Omnibus Editions 1-2 & 4, No. 5 v3 (French), No. 5 1-2 (English), No. 5 volume 1 Gift-box edition with figure (Japanese), Cosmic Comix Magazine with Matsumoto interview, 100 & 101 Matsumoto art books, Something(?), French colour comics album.

Bottom photo (l to r): PING PONG Film book box-set edition with Paddle & Rubik’s Cube, Ping Pong 1-2 & 5, Ping Pong Special Edition Oversized version 1-3, and then a bunch of other stuff. Oh, and Bambook Samurai Volume 7 is on the top there, laying on it’s side.

Click for larger!

Alright, I’ve got a plane to catch. Expect lots of blogging this week! Take care!

– Christopher

Kodansha USA to take over Del Rey Manga Licenses

To my mind, there hasn’t been a worse publisher launch in the last 5 years than that of Kodansha USA.

I realize that this is a harsh statement, and I’ve refrained from making it for a while now in the hopes that the bumpy path they’ve had would smooth out, and that they might acknowledge and visibly attempt to fix some of their many, many problems. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case as of yet, and today’s announcement of an increase in their responsibilities is, at best, baffling.

The problems with Kodansha USA (also known as Kodansha Comics), as I see them:

1. Every single one of their releases to date have missed their shipping date, and they’re already on a _very_ generous shipping schedule. The result is that some of the bestselling perennials in manga publishing–AKIRA and GHOST IN THE SHELL have been unavailable for nearly 2 years now, and there are no answers to customer concerns why this is so.

2. The pricing on their work seems woefully out of touch with both the realities of the market, the popularity of the material, and their own Japanese pricing strategies. (Part of the blame on this goes to Dark Horse, who set those prices… nearly 10 years ago.)

3. Their reprints of AKIRA and GHOST IN THE SHELL are inferior to the Dark Horse versions in terms of print quality (smearing, reproduction) and paper stock (thinner paper). For the same price.

4. They went back and released an older, less-complete version of Ghost In The Shell, hurting saleability of the title.

5. They’ve been utterly and completely uncommunicative to the press. They don’t even seem to have a website.

So the news this morning that Kodansha USA will take over publishing all of Del Rey Manga’s many bestselling titles? Disappointment bordering on dread. Del Rey’s Tsubasa, XXX-Holic, and Negima, continue to be some of our bestselling manga at the store, and the high-degree of care in preparation that goes into fan-favourite and critically acclaimed titles like Moyasimon, and Mushishi is phenomenal. I have my issues with their publishing set-up (mostly around their scheduling of less profitable titles) but in short, they’re a solid, professional publisher producing great work in a timely fashion and with a great deal of thought about the market and industry–everything Kodansha-USA has shown themselves not to be.

The only thing that gives me hope is this quote:

“In an e-mail interview with Irie, he said that while Kodansha USA Publishing will now directly oversee the publishing of Kodansha-originated English-language manga licenses, Kodansha still plans to “to work with local partners in foreign territories.” He said that Random House will continue, “handling much of the publishing side, such as editorial, production, sales and marketing.” Irie will be based in New York along with KUP general manager Kumi Shimizu.” – From Publisher’s Weekly

To me, that reads as though Random House will be packaging the books for Kodansha USA, which is very different, monetarily, than their current set-up. See, publishers generally absorb the costs of “editing, producing, selling and marketing” manga. If they’re producing that work for someone else, they get _paid_ for it, which is a real reversal! Also, if Del Rey is going to continue marketing, I’m curious as to why Ali Kokmen was let go…

Elsewhere in that interview it is mentioned that the head of Del Rey Manga, Dallas Middaugh, will be moving over to Random House Publisher Services to handle distribution of the line (and I’m glad they’re keeping Dallas Middaugh, he’s very good at his job). So in effect, things will continue more-or-less as they are, except:

– Kodansha USA will be making the publisher-type decisions, like which series get released and how often
– Del Rey no longer has to pay for licenses
– Del Rey is now likely getting paid to package the books for Kodansha
– Del Rey is making a cut on the distribution of the books but the majority of the money’s going to Kodansha.

It looks like Del Rey has divested themselves of _all_ of the risk of manga publishing, moving into a packaging and distribution relationship. Smart move for the bean-counters at Del Rey! And I guess Kodansha USA gets to call themselves a publisher, which I assume will impress someone back in Japan, but they’re not really doing anything other than putting their logo on the book, so far as I can tell.

On paper this looks like it could work out… but then on paper communism looks like a viable option on paper too–it all falls apart when you get to the real world. As I’ve shown, Kodansha USA has a terrible record at absorbing existing licenses and shepherding them to the market. Will Del Rey Manga’s professionalism counteract Kodansha USA’s track record? I honestly don’t know.

But going by that track record, it could be as long as a year before current titles resume their serialization, if AKIRA’s re-publication schedule is anything to go by. I guess all involved have got lots and lots of time to figure it all out?

– Christopher

Gengoroh Tagame has an English blog, and is not averse to English-language publications of his work! (NSFW)

Cover Detail from the September 2010 issue of Japanese Gay Men's Magazine "Badi", a special spotlight issue on Gengoroh Tagame. Art by Gengoroh Tagame.
"Deiri" illustration by Gengoroh Tagame. ©2010.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised this week to discover that the insanely talented gay manga artist Gengoroh Tagame has a blog, and one in English at that! You can find it online at http://www.tagame.org/enews/. This is pretty great as it’s a rare thing for a mangaka to have an English language blog, and Tagame is one of the most talented and easily the most famous mangaka producing gay-themed work (real gay, as opposed to yaoi-gay).

For those of you who not in the know, Tagame is best recognized for the muscular physique he gives his characters, which echoes the North American “Bear” gay subculture and the Japanese “Gachi Muchi” gay subculture, and is generally referred to as “Bara”. The majority of Tagame’s work is marked by strong themes of B&D and S&M, even leading into some verrrrry extreme situations. I heartily recommend checking out his website at http://www.tagame.org/frame_new.html and for the strong-willed and strong-stomached, check out his galleries.

Tagame is a bit of a trailblazer in that his web-presence has been English-friendly for years and years now, much moreso than any other gay manga artist (or almost any manga artist in general). While one of these days I’m really going to have to learn Japanese, for now I’m very happy that Tagame-san has made himself more accessible to his English-speaking fans.

Page from "Virtus" by Gengoroh Tagame. ©2010.

On that note, one of the most interesting posts about his accessibility came a few months back on his English-language blog, entitled “The Groundless Rumour About Publishing of English version of my comics:”

A little while ago, my friend told me the groundless rumor about me and my works.
It was a big surprise for me, so I think that I must correct them officially.

[the rumor]
Tagame does not want to publish his works in English.
In fact, he had refused the offer to publish his book from Tom of Finland foundation.

[the truth]
The rumor is false. I’ve been always wanting that my comics will be translated into English and will be published on magazines or books.And I’ve never been proposed such publishing program directory from Tom of Finland foundation.

Then, why my books have not been published in English? The reason is simple. If a proven publisher offers to me to publish my books in English, I welcome it. In fact, until now, French, Italian and Spanish publishers had contacted to me to publish my comic book in their language. I welcomed them, so my books in these three languages are being published now. But I’ve never been contacted from American, UK’s and Canadian publishers who want to publish my book in English. That is an only reason of why my comic books in English have been never published before.

For your more questions about that, I open the comment form of this post.
(But please write with very plain and easy English! I’m not so good at your language!)

– Gengoroh Tagame [link]

So there you go folks. Which one of you forward-thinking publishers is going to step up to the plate?

– Chris

Satoshi Kon: 1963-2010

Update: An English translation of Satoshi Kon’s final words–a note he wrote to the public in his final days whilst dying of cancer–has been posted. It is heart-breaking, and honestly beautiful. Go read it: http://makikoitoh.com/journal/satoshi-kons-last-words

Amazing Director. Of the films he’s contributed to, I’ve seen and enjoyed Roujin-Z, Millennium Actress, Memories (The “Magnetic Rose” short), and Paprika. I own most everything else but haven’t gotten around to watching it just yet… no time like the present eh? He’s also a very strong manga creator, it’s a real shame none of his work has been released in English as of yet. Sad day.

Had the sad news first: http://twitter.com/AkiYanagi

http://board.otakon.com/index.php?showtopic=20122

http://www.uk-anime.net/newsitem/Director_Satoshi_Kon_passes_away.html

http://www.japanator.com/paprika-director-satoshi-kon-dies-at-age-47-16279.phtml

– Christopher

Shigeru Mizuki’s Manga Finally Coming To North America

Drawn & Quarterly has acquired North American English rights to two graphic novel memoirs,Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths and NonNonB?, by one of Japan’s most acclaimed and legendary manga-kas, Shigeru Mizuki, it was announced today by Chris Oliveros, Editor-in-Chief, Acquiring Editor and Publisher of Drawn & Quarterly. – Drawn & Quarterly Blog, http://bit.ly/9idG4m

Best news of the show so far!

– Chris

Twin Spica is great… but the cover is a tough sell.

So in the interest of nibbling at the hand that feeds me, I wanted to talk a little bit about TWIN SPICA, the new manga series from author Kou Yaginuma, and published in English by the good folks at Vertical publishing.

I want to write about it first and foremost because I thought the first two volumes (now available in better comic and book stores everywhere) are really wonderful stuff. They’re inspiring and strange–a mix of magical realism and science-fiction that’s rare in North American publishing. Essentially, the story is about a group of teenagers that are vying to be a part of Japan’s revamped space program. They enter a highschool set to train young people to go into space (or become support crew) and have trials and tribulations, but it’s set against an awful disaster in the space program that cost hundreds of lives. It’s got drama and pathos, there’s a lot of great research into space and astronaut training that’s evident in the stories, and the lead character’s wistful optimism and is-he-real/isn’t-he-real imaginary friend keeps you guessing at the whole thing. I’m eagerly anticipating the third volume, and the fourth, and the rest of the series really. 🙂

Now, unfortunately just liking a book isn’t really enough to get me to blog lately (as it is I am late for work typing this out). Yesterday in mentioning this book on twitter, I couldn’t help but mention that people should try it despite it’s cover… And I felt I should elaborate on that a little. As a retailer, I’ve attemped to share my enthusiasm with many customers, but I’ve been thwarted somewhat because… well… you can see that cover right?

The audience for the book in North America is probably older teens and people in their 20s (at least I hope so because the teen market is saturated and full of thieves…). But more importantly, as part of Vertical’s line (folks who have heretofore only published work intended for adults, primarily by Osamu Tezuka) there’s a natural adult crossover. As a bookseller, I look at the people who enjoy Sci-Fi and Drama, people who might’ve really loved the critical-hit / sales-flop PLANETES and want something new to read. But every time I put a copy of Twin Spica in someone’s hands, they take one look at the cover and go “that’s not really my thing”. Why? Well it’s got a moe little girl on a magical background holding glowing orbs… It’s precious, and awkward, and looks verrrrry young by North American standards.

But the book is great.

So I’ve been offering up a money-back guarantee and at that point most people “bite” because I’ve got a good track record with recommendations and there’s almost no risk. But I’m not in every store. I mean, I heard about the book months and months ago through a licensing announcement, and I got excited, and then I saw the art and was convinced that there were two series in Japan called Twin Spica. I’m on board and even I have reservations.

Of course, none of this is to admonish Vertical–far from it. They produced a version very faithful to the Japanese edition, and seeing as this series has a large fan-base they might’ve ended up in a situation similar to the one with Yen Press and the Spice & Wolf novels. Hardcore fans don’t really care if the cover of a book makes it difficult to sell, they want it to be as close to the Japanese as possible without bothering to learn Japanese. They don’t really get that making something a success in the marketplace means that more of that thing can keep coming out in the marketplace, for the most part, and from what I can tell Twin Spica has some very hardcore fans. I don’t think it was in anyone’s best interests to alter the cover design if it meant alienating the people most likely to buy it, but at the same time, I’m kind of in a pickle because that book? Tough sell to the casual manga fan, the 20+ year old manga fan, the non-manga-fan who’d probably enjoy it. Hell, it doesn’t look like any other book Vertical has ever published. Which isn’t even a bad thing. But it does make it pretty difficult to give it a retail context.

Anyway, the point of all of this is: Read Twin Spica. It’s a delightful series that’s off to a great start, and like Vertical’s other recent releases Peepo Choo and Chi’s Sweet Home it’s an interesting step for the company to take, and one they should be rewarded for with sales. Because you really can’t judge this book by its cover.

(You knew that was coming, right?)

– Christopher

More on this a little later, but: Wow, good news!

An international coalition of Japanese and American-based manga publishers have joined together to combat what they call the “rampant and growing problem” of scanlations, the practice of posting scanned and translated editions of Japanese comics online without permission of the copyright holders. The group is threatening legal action against 30 scanlation sites.

The effort brings together the 36 member Japanese Digital Comic Association—which includes such major Japanese houses as Kodansha, Shogakukan and Shueisha—as well as manga publisher Square Enix, the Tuttle-Mori Agency and U.S.-based manga publishers Vertical Inc, Viz Media, Tokyopop and Yen Press, the manga/graphic novel imprint of the Hachette Book Group.

A spokesperson for the coalition said the effort shows that Japanese publishers—who license the majority of manga sold in the U.S.—are taking an aggressive interest in combating manga piracy outside of Japan as well as inside the country.

– From the article at Publishers Weekly

Well that’s pretty good news, I’d say…! I’ll probably have thoughts on this later.

– Chris

CMXy

(via)

So, here’s the deal:

CMX wasn’t, at its inception, a particularly well-run company. There are a lot of excuses out there, but bluntly DC didn’t know a thing about the manga market, and the person they hired to start the imprint wasn’t good at his job. DC offered a deep-discount offer to retailers to stock some of the initial titles, MADARA in particular, an older-Seinen action adventure title at the height of the shoujo boom. (Their sole shoujo title was from the 1970s.) I can’t stress enough, their initial licenses were very strange and generally weak with no cohesion as a line.

Sales tanked, comics retailers who were encouraged to buy BIG were left with unsold stock, and comics retailers have long and ‘specific’ memories and if they’re ever burned by anything they never forget and hold a grudge indefinitely. (Except for superheroes of course; Marvel and DC are putting out lit cigarettes on the foreheads of comics retailers every month, and they keep coming back for more. But say something nasty about Carol Kalish in an obituary and I WILL NEVER BUY YOUR FUCKING BOOKS FOREVER I HATE YOU. Comics are kinda lame sometimes.)

So with retailers burnt, the publisher upped the ante and censored one of their second wave of titles, when the _only_ thing it had going for it was the dirty bits. Manga fans hold STUPID grudges too, and they only need the thinest whisper of an excuse to steal their shit forever. “CMX censored Tenjho Tenge! That’s why I’ll download all the books they publish and never give them any money ever!” Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. You’re awful, flat out awful.

But that’s besides the point; fans were burned too.

So no retailer support, little fan support, reported difficulties getting press coverage/convention coverage, and the books were barely ever in bookstores. All of it added up to…? What? Surprise? It wasn’t a matter of if CMX was going to get closed but when, and bad news at Viz provides the perfect cover doesn’t it? “See! Economic downturn! We can’t publish manga if Viz can’t!” Except of course Viz are publishing manga, just tightening their belts. Feh and bah.

This all smells very much like someone got some early July DC solicitations, noticed there were no CMX books, and started asking questions. This seems exceptionally poorly handled, from a company who’s doing a great job at poorly handling this imprint.

So to summarize: It was a line that was poorly conceived, poorly run for the first half of its life and then barely run at all for the last half. Then it was unceremoniously killed. The end.

I’m not saying the whole thing isn’t utterly depressing, it is, but only because it’s just a monumental waste of time and resources and talent and opportunity, not because I’m particularly sad to see it go. Maybe that’s mercenary of me–a lot of other people liked the line and I should probably shut up–but yeah. DC evidenced quite clearly that they have no idea how to run a manga line so if they weren’t going to _try_ then it’s best they stopped wasting my time clogging up my shelves.

– Chris