Although he was under no obligation to do so, Tom Spurgeon didn’t post the full text of my response to the news that Fantagraphics has signed an exclusive deal with Diamond… It’s a little more balanced and nuanced then what ended up in the CR piece, in my always-humble opinion, so I figured I’d post it here.

We really wish that Fantagraphics had consulted us as their retail partners before they made this move, because we would have said “Good God No, Don’t Do It.” We’re very sympathetic to the general indifference of the Direct Market to good comics, including those that Fantagraphics publishes, and we understand the reasons they made their decision. Speaking from our point of view though, we like the opportunity to deal directly with Fantagraphics, because if Fanta has a book in print, then they will have it in stock. That is not the case with Diamond. Even on the largest publishers that have moved their Direct Market business exclusive with Diamond, publishers like Viz and Tokyopop, our fill rates on in-print books are less than adequate. We hope that Fanta knows what they’re in for on that front.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but as The Beguiling we’re fortunate enough talk to reps from a large number of publishers, great and small, and many of them really aren’t happy with their exclusivity deals with Diamond. No one will go on the record about it of course, because regardless of exclusivity or not they’re still going to be working with Diamond going forward and being openly critical of Diamond is not the best way to get good service from them. So, no one talks about how things are not going the way they had hoped, and everyone re-ups for another few years hoping things will change because hey, everyone else is doing it. Worse still, we’re worried about the sort of “chilling effect” that goes on whenever a publisher signs an exclusivity deal. Fantagraphics better than anyone (thanks to reportage in The Comics Journal) knows the havoc that exclusivity agreements caused direct market retailers, particularly with regards to Image and Dark Horse deciding on Diamond after DC had made their deal. Has the consolidation of the direct market to, effectively, Diamond Comics Distributors, shown a noted increase in stores, sales, or market strength over the past 10 years? Particularly for any company that isn’t Marvel or DC? Not at all, and yet the consolidation continues, leading many publishers to believe that there’s no other way to do business and succeed (or at least stay afloat) in the market.

Honestly, we order the majority of our Fantagraphics product through Diamond, all of our frontlist and the occasional backlist. But when it comes time to do actual store restocks on perennials like Ghost World and the works of Dan Clowes, Love & Rockets, the Ignatz Books, Mome, that order goes to Fantagraphics because of a solid discount, and because if the book is in print, the publisher will have it in stock. Right now Diamond doesn’t seem to have Ghost World in stock, which is perhaps just an unfortunate coincidence. But the first time that we try to order something from Diamond and can’t, and that backorder takes weeks or months (don’t laugh, it happens all the time), and that book would have been available to us direct from Fanta? That’s a lost sale for Fantagraphics and for us, and truly unfortunate.

Hopefully Diamond will keep all of these books in stock under this new deal. Hopefully with thousands of new book-format comics coming out every year, Fanta titles now solely available through Diamond won’t get lost in the shuffle. We know that the good folks working at Fantagraphics will be responsive to our needs as their customers just as they always have been; we just hope that history proves us all wrong and that Diamond is responsive to theirs.

We wish them the best of luck.

- Christopher Butcher, Manager, The Beguiling

–

That’s the entirety of what I sent Tom yesterday afternoon, and I’ve been thinking on it since then. In my head, my vision of the comics industry is one where comics are available if not everywhere, than at least everywhere you’d otherwise find printed material. The key to that, in my mind, is more access, and not less. I’m not unaware of economies of scale, of how much cheaper and easier it is to deal with two major distributors than dozens of smaller ones. I just honestly don’t see any smaller store that stocks Fanta/Eros stuff going through the hassle of opening a Diamond account and trying to meet monthly order minimums in order to get something better than a 35% discount when they do a backlist order. I hope there are other options, grandfather clauses, whatever, that keep Fanta’s reach as broad as it ever was. I really do wish them the best.

- Chris

I’m just finishing up the monthly Previews order for the store, and noticed something a little peculiar. We ordered just-about as many volumes of Fruits Basket this month as we did every other manga they publish, combined. For those of you not in the know, they publish around 40 titles a month (41 in the April Previews).

Why is this a reason for worry?

APR084108 FRUITS BASKET GN VOL 20 (OF 22)

I hope they’ve got something awe-inspiring up their sleeves debuting in the next 8 months. Like, “Final Fantasy 7: The Manga” level awesome.
- Christopher

+ Flight contributor and graphic novelist Neil Babra recently completed an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet for the “No Fear Shakespeare” line of graphic novels published by an arm of B&N. The “No Fear” line basically “translates” Shakespearian English into more direct or contemporary English, to make the stories more approachable for young readers. I have a complex array of feelings on the idea of changing the language of Shakespeare without a full modernization, particularly because I don’t think the plot of Shakespeare is as important as the actual language… But that said, I think there’s still value to this approach, both as a study guide and additional learning tool for readers who need a way “into” the works. Luckily Neil has lots of ideas on adaptation, translation, and Shakespeare’s language as well, and he addresses them all on the just completed information page on the No Fear: Shakespeare graphic novel adaptation of Hamlet. It’s really wonderful reading.

Also, I have included a more literal adaptation of my own to My reading of the classic; Neil draws Horatio hot all the way through the book.

+ Has anyone noticed that the new colours on the remastered hardcover edition of Batman: The Killing Joke are kind of boring? Check out this side-by-side comparison of the original colours and the new edition over at PopCultureShock. I think my problem with it is that while artist Brian Boland brings a high degree of craft to the new colouring, he’s drained all of the emotion and… art… out of the work. Little touches like the cast-shadows on the cuffs of the Joker’s sleeves, for example, added more personality and depth to the art than all of the soft airbrush modelling in the world could hope to accomplish. At work my opinion is in the minority, with the majority of customers loving the hell out of the new look. Enh.

+ I’m really glad that Johanna Draper-Carlson put the leg-work in to try and peel away some of the secrecy surrounding comics’ only national holiday (or outreach event…), Free Comic Book Day. I’ve never understood the lack of transparency or accountability that surrounds this event, and I find it incredibly frustrating every single time it rolls around. This time out? The organisation mandated that all books had to be all-ages appropriate, thus reflecting a vision of the industry that doesn’t actually exist. They disallowed the participation of a publisher and then apparently lied about the reasoning (see the comments section). Getting answers is like pulling teeth. They stopped answering. And then somewhat mysteriously retailer Joe Field, the founder of FCBD (before turning it over whole-hog to Diamond), a man who has made very specific mention in the past of his arm’s-length from FCBD, ends up responding to questions that were sent to Diamond.

I’m not one to critisize without putting the work in myself; I do lots of comics outreach. But I think you can do it without the secrecy and misdirection, and a damn site better than what’s gone on. And if Mr. Field wants to ask me for suggestions that generally aren’t followed up on, again, here’s one: Name the people and organizations on the FCBD comittee. Who’s making the decisions, specifically? I’d feel better about the organization and more inclined to support it if decisions weren’t being made behind closed doors, and without any more general consultation of the direct market.

+ My friend Mr. Bryan Lee O’Malley was interviewed on NPR’s “Fair Game” last week about Scott Pilgrim. It’s a fun little interview and it’s the last segment, so fast-forward until there’s about 10 minutes left in the program.

+ The New York Times’ “Papercuts” blog offers up The 7 Deadly Sins of Book Reviewing. In keeping with the form, the 7 sins are particular words that are overused by reviewers and critics to the point of uselessness… Are the standards in comics criticism high enough that something like over-use of word “poignant” is something we have to worry about? I mean, how often are we likely to see the word “lyrical” in the latest plot-recap of last week’s Avengers? Or am I just being a bitch? Or both?

+ At Gay Pop Culture Website AfterElton.com, prominent gay comics fan/writer Lyle Masaki has been covering comics and geek culture turning on the broader gay audience to all that’s gay in comics (though mostly the superhero and Buffy set). “Six Gay Geeks Who’ve Improved Popular Culture” is a recent piece from Lyle that tags comics mainstays like Phil Jimmenez and Andy Mangels for their comics-centric contributions to geek culture. It’s a solid read.

+ I found myself needing to write a short history of comics in North America recently, and found the website The History of Romance Comics to be a really useful compendium of knowledge on some of the most popular and bestselling comics North America has ever seen. Who knew that they also feature a great collection of romance comics reprints as well? Check out their fantastic collection of pre-code romance comics and history articles.

+ Thank you John Jakala for pointing out that Paul Levitz isn’t so hot at the math. Unfortunately, the platform for Mr. Levitz’ creative accounting is the blog & Newsarama, and the comments section there is such a fucking pit that any legitimate criticism of the facts presented in the column is likely to get drowned out by mouth-breathers still angry that every DC comic doesn’t come with bound-in $50 bills. Le Sigh.

+ Finally, though it isn’t specifically about comics I wanted to talk a little bit about bookstore culture… Here in Toronto the bookstore landscape is a-changing. Our neighbors at Ballenford Books on Architecture will be closing their doors in the next few months. They’re currently working to liquidate inventory which means some nice sales on some beautiful books… I really like this store and bookstores in general. It’s always sad when one decides to close their doors.

Meanwhile, one of my favourite indy bookshops is closing as well, but with a happier ending. “This Ain’t The Rosedale Library” will be closing their 22 year old spot in Toronto’s Gay Village, and moving to a smaller (and likely much cheaper) space in Kensington Market. They’re also having a pretty amazing sale right now, with 50% off of the already low prices on remaindered books. I’m going to try to get over there first thing tomorrow…

And that’s it for this post. Thanks for reading!

- Christopher

Customer interaction 1 minute ago.

[Customer is a full-grown man(child) standing in front of one of the anime cases, jumping up and down. Ostensibly to see the top shelf.]

Chris: Bit of glare on the case I guess, can I help you with anything sir?

Customer: Do you guys have sales?

Chris: Usually on boxing day. That’s about it…

Customer: Oh, I want that anime but it’s too expensive. That’s why I asked if you have sales. You guys should lower your prices or I’ll have to download it.

Chris: Excuse me?

Customer: People will download it if it’s too expensive. You should lower your prices.

Chris: So if you walked into a store and didn’t like the price of a can of coke you would just rob them?

Customer: Oh… uh, I’m not going to rob you.

Chris: You’re going to rob the company instead.

Customer: Yeah.

Chris: That’s awful. That’s awful.

Customer: Uh…

Chris: You are awful.

[Customer sheepishly leaves store.]

End Scene.

- Christopher

Odd: Going to a website and seeing a picture of yourself you’ve never seen before.

Odder: Googling yourself to find out where that picture came from, and finding that you have been replaced by a picture of a truck, in a sunset.

–

Apparently this was a web-error, and I will be featured in a story in The National Post tomorrow (Saturday the 8th). But it still provided 10 minutes of disconcerting.

- Christopher

Being a gay dude who is at least nominally interested in the bears (not the sports team) I’m pretty-much spoiled for choice when it comes to eye-candy in the comic book store: chubby, hairy, muscley guys are the majority demographic. Granted: I am married now and so I don’t have those thoughts anymore. But what about the poor, single, (ostensibly straight) nerds at the comic shop, where are they supposed to find love? Why, at Comic Book Singles Night!

This past Friday, February 8th, Brave New World Comics in Newhall, California held their first ever Singles Night, encouraging ladies and gents to head to the shop and maybe meet the nerd of their dreams. As you might expect, just dumping a bunch of folks that would describe themselves as ’socially awkward’ into a room is not, necessarily, the best idea for a good time. It’s to the credit of Brave New World owners Atom! and Portlyn Freeman that things went so smoothly, as they shored up the event with live bands, food, and booze. To be honest, I think the idea of getting a bunch of nerds drunk is kind of amazing, but probably for different reasons than the organizers intended… still, by all accounts the evening was a huge success.

I got a chance to talk to Atom! Freeman (his real name) about the event.

“My goal with most in-store events is to break-even, get an opportunity to say the store’s name in public and see new faces,” said Atom! “[For Comic Book Singles Night] we doubled our break-even number … our event got mentioned by 5 local radio stations including an interview on a highly rated morning program and we got a half-page write-up on the front page of the local newspaper!

“Business-wise it exceeded all of my expectations.”

And how about romantically? Anyone hook up at the event? “I hope so,” said Atom! “Because the point of this was to find our friends someone they could enjoy being with. Turns out, more then just our friends responded. I know a lot of numbers were exchanged.”

According to Atom! more than 100 singles showed up to the event, with a 60/40 gender split weighed towards the guys… a hell of a lot better than I, for one, was expecting. Personally I’d worry about setting up too many of my existing customers with each other… what if they decided that they only needed one copy of a given comic that they could share? I know it’s blasphemy, but apparently when two comics nerds get married they actually start mixing their respective comics collections! Heresy! Apparently the key to events like this is involving the larger community and bringing new faces into the comic book store to pair off with your shoppers. Of course, I think the fact that Atom! referred to his customers as his friends says a lot about the very genuine community-driven motivation behind the event, but he also figured out the key to getting a whole bunch of potential customers to see all that Brave New World had to offer: Local Bands.

“[My biggest surprise was] what a draw local live bands are,” said Atom! “At one point in the evening, just looking over the crowd I guesstimated that it was 50% fans of the band who just came for the music. While we didn’t do huge sales numbers that night, the weekend was huge because for the next couple days, people came back to buy things they had seen that night.

“I’m now looking into what it will take to have a live music night every 6 weeks.”

What struck me most about this event, and what made me want to write about Comic Book Singles Night in the first place, is that the language used to describe the event in the press was very open-ended regarding gender and sexuality. Brave New World made it pretty clear that whether you were a guy or a girl looking for a guy or a girl, you’d be welcome to come and try your luck at the comic book store.

“This was one of the first factors that we felt needed resolution before we went ahead with the event,” said Atom! “Our intention was never to exclude anybody. The only way that we even made it gender specific was the raffle and even that was “put your ticket in this box if you want to be paired with a boy, in this box if you want to be paired with a girl.”

“I see a major part of my job as a retailer is creating a community. To create a place where people with similar interests can gather and interact. I don’t see gender or orientation as major components in that job. Our store is located in a Victorian-styled strip mall with a bridal shop, hair salon, yoga studio, and antiques boutique. If we wanted to focus on the single white straight male comics fan, we could be much more profitable in the industrial center with a roll-up door that only went up 4 times a week. Our goal is to reach as many people as possible and expose them to art, culture, and entertainment that they wouldn’t normally run across.”

In the past I know that Eisner Award-winning comic shop Zeus Comics in Dallas, Texas has done social ‘mixers’ for their clientele, including a specifically queer-themed mixer in late 2005. My experience with the comics industry is that it’s no more or less homophobic than the general public (and those that disagree should hang out on X-Box Live some time to see what fandom-oriented homophobes really sound like…), but that doesn’t change the fact that the comic store is generally a very heteronormative environment. Superhero comics in particular (the bread and butter of most comics shops) are notorious for this. Check out my Afraid Of Cock post for more. Many queer customers still don’t feel safe being ‘out’, so any actions that are taken to really include and engage gay comics fans I feel are worth noting. Would BNW ever sponsor a Gay Singles Night? “I would need more convincing that there would be a need for a more queer specific event,” says Atom! “But, a lot of our single queer customers and friends were here and some met each other for the first time, so who knows?”

That leads into the most pressing question of all, will there be more Singles Nights for the friends of Brave New World? “Without question… We’ll probably try it again in 6 months to see if it still draws and then quarterly and so on. [It was] easily one of the best events we’ve ever had.”

- Christopher Butcher
Images stolen from: http://www.keef.net/, http://www.comics.org/, http://thatsmyskull.blogspot.com/, and http://www.scottsaavedra.com.

Kazu Kibuishi & Kean Soo Signing
Wednesday, February 6th, 5pm-7pm
The Beguiling, 601 Markham Street
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
416-533-9168 - http://www.beguiling.com
FREE

Just in case you can’t make it out to the wilds of North York and would like a chance to get your graphic novels signed by these fantastic creators, The Beguiling will be holding a signing with Kazu & Kean the day after the TPL event, from 5pm to 7pm at the store. Now, we sincerely suggest that if you want to see some great a/v presentationing and see the creators interviewed, then you really ought to go to the event at the North York Public Library. But we are happy to welcome both creators to the store as well, and hope it will be as warm (and well-attended) a welcome as our last in-store signing.

For more on the event at North York Library as part of Keep Toronto Reading, check out:

The Beguiling post on the event:
http://www.beguiling.com/2008/01/reminder-kazu-kibuishi-kean-soo-in.html
Join the Keep Toronto Reading group on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=19746872808
RSVP to the event on the Kazu & Kean Facebook Page!
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=8322672055

–

Regular posting soon! Promise!

- Chris

Hey there. I started typing this a couple of times, but despite how wretched the behaviour has been by a couple of retailers (and the CBIA forum in general, as of late) I’m not quite ready to burn all of my retailer bridges just yet… but I did want to comment on this. So here my nice response:

The Beguiling is the premiere sponsor of The Toronto Comic Arts Festival, and the fest actively encouraged participating exhibitors to debut new works at the show. We did that because we wanted the exhibitors to have a good show, first and foremost. The benefit to us? As a local retailer, we knew there would be too much stuff for any one person to buy, and because every new book that comes out needs all of the promotion it can get, the excitement generated at the show that will last for the next couple of years and we’ll reap the rewards of all of that. So, you know, it’s actually more advantageous for us–as a local retailer–for these publishers to do big launches of these books, even if we don’t get all the sales, because more often than not, it’s these big launches/pushes that help put the books on the radar of our customers on the first place.

Part two of all of this is the fact that I’ve worked on the publisher side of the table as well. I’ve been behind a publisher booth, at The San Diego Comicon, selling books that had not yet been released to direct market comic book stores. And you know what? I don’t really think that enough credit is being given to the customers in the direct market. I would say that the number one question I was asked was “will this be available in comic book stores?” when confronted with a debut book. It’s a different story when there’s an author signing accompanying the debut or something, but yeah, customers want to honour their preorders and don’t want to lug around books at a show that they can get at their local store in the next month. And the reality of the situation is, if the book is so popular and so desirable that customer absolutely must have it as soon as it’s released, then I think that this is indicative of the kind of excitement and buzz really affecting customers in a large way… and that they weren’t really “our” customer in the first place, so much as someone who just likes to buy comics where they find them.

Much to the detriment of my making friends at retailer get-togethers, I think this is more of a non-issue than anyone would care to admit, a matter of principle that doesn’t even come close to playing out in the real world. I’m actually a lot more concerned, on the release-date front, about Diamond’s continuing inability to process books that they receive as a distributor as fast as the bookstore chains. Most bookstores are receiving manga, “mainstream” book publishers graphic novel releases, and magazines like Giant Robot, between a day and a month before Diamond gets them into my store. This week Diamond shipped Negima Volume 16, and I’ve had that direct from Del Rey since before Christmas! Maybe it’s easier to issue veiled threats against independent publishers than it is against Diamond? There are serious distribution inequities within the direct market, but I don’t think this position paper begins to addresses them… they certainly aren’t coming from 100 copies of Kramers Ergot at the San Diego Comic-Con.

- Christopher

Hey there! Welcome back to the photo-tour of my trip to Japan. In case you’re just joining us, it took place between the 3rd and 15th of September, 2007. You can see all of the previous entries by clicking: http://comics212.net/category/japan/.

…so right after we get back from our sojourn to the Kansai area (Osaka/Kyoto/Nara/Himeji), we decide to head out to Shinjuku. In retrospect this was a huge mistake, because Shinjuku is a massive area of town with the JR Train Station right in the center, and really, it’s the hub of everything. To the west of the station is Tokyo City Hall and the financial district, to the east is Kabuki-cho, the naughty area of town. To the south though is an awesome building that combines a Tokyu Hands (see our Ikebukuro entry from much earlier for more on Tokyu Hands), a Takashimaya department store, and a massive 8-floor bookstore, Kinokuniya Books. Kinokuniya is probably best known in the west as the best place to get all of the cool untranslated manga, and they’ve got outlets all over the country. In Japan though, it’s just the largest bookstore there is, with the Shinjuku flagship store weighing in with 8 massive floors, including an entire floor more-or-less dedicated to English-language books.

We got to Shinjuku late as it was, and then spent 2 hours at Kinokuniya (when honestly, we could’ve spent a whole day). We should never have tried to do this on so little time. What were we thinking? Next trip we’re going to explore more of Shinjuku, but we also might just plan for a good 6 hours at this bookstore.

Read the rest of this entry »

I got my hands on a copy of the media kit for ADV’s new magazine PiQ. Since I didn’t see any note of this over at Brigid’s always-excellent Mangablog (http://www.mangablog.net/), I assumed no one else has posted about this yet. So let’s pour over the entrails together, shall we?
Designed to replace the popular Newtype USA, PiQ (pronounced “peek”) (although I keep saying “pie-cue” whenever I see it) is taking a hard line away from the beleaguered anime industry and branching out to be the high-end American Otaku lifestyle magazine of choice. Why? Well, as I mentioned the anime industry may have had its worst year ever in 2007 (although I see them regrouping and putting it all together in the second half of ‘08), and because as Naruto has shown us, Japanese culture is more than just anime (or manga), and with North American iterations of previously Japanese-only endeavours like Capsule Toys, Manga, Gothic Lolita Culture, and anime making their mark on the nerd-culture industry, it looks like a license of a Japanese magazine covering a troubled industry just wasn’t going to cut it, going forward.

But the question is, will PiQ?

The PiQ media-kit I received included a letter from Publisher Gary Steinman, outlining the major changes that the magazine will undergo. It’s very important to note that throughout all of the commentary I’ve seen from ADV on this matter, including the media kit, PiQ is being treated as a name change to Newtype USA, and not as an entirely new magazine. While I have no firm answer as to why this is, I’d speculate that declaring it to be the same magazine but with a name change (not to mention a substantial format change…) means you get to maintain your existing distribution and subscription arrangements. But it’s pretty clear that the new boss ain’t the same as the old boss.

For starters, the magazine will shrink in size, both in physical dimensions and in page count. The new physical size is 8″ wide x 10″ tall, as compared to Newtype’s 9″ x 12″. The latest issue of Newtype weighs in at 160 pages, and the info for PiQ seems to be saying it’ll drop at around 130 pages. The price is also much lower, with the new magazine retailing for US$6.99/CDN$7.99, versus $12.98/$16.98 for Newtype. Oh, and the magazine will be perfect-bound rather than stapled, which means it’ll have a spine! No more free DVDs with each issue either, so far as I can tell. The big format change? PiQ will drop Newtype’s right-to-left Japanese reading orientation in favour of a standard left-to-right orientation. Essentially, the otherworldy Japanese “object” that was Newtype USA is gone, to be replaced by something that very-much resembles Wizard in size… and in tone.

According again to the Media Kit, the new editorial breakdown for PiQ will be:

• 20% Anime
• 20% Gaming
• 20% U.S. Comics / Japanese Manga
• 20% Genre Movies / TV / Home Video
• 10% Toys / Collectibles
• 5% Gadgets / Hi-Tech Gear
• 5% Lifestyle (fashion, accessories, events)

Apparently PiQ is “entertainment for the rest of us, squarely addressing the needs of a cutting-edge young male audience,” and they’re estimating a 70/30 split in readership, in favour of male readers. This reads to be to be very, very similar to Wizard magazine, a jack-of-all-trades scenario.

Some final stats from the presentation:

• PiQ is expected to have a 100,000 circulation at launch, with a target circulation of 150,000 by the end of 2008.
• PiQ will launch with 15,000 subscribers, all of which are former Newtype USA subscribers. So, now you know how many people subscribed to Newtype.
• The first issue of PiQ goes on sale March 18th, 2008.

Also included with the material I received, twice, was a mock-up of the first issue over. As noted on the cover itself this is a cover concept only, and is not necessarily going to be the final cover. However, it pretty clearly shows where the magazine is headed, and while it may have the bearing of Wizard, it looks an awful lot like video game magazine PLAY (which I love and is awesome). Lets take a look:

PiQ Issue One Concept Cover - Copyright 2008 AD Vision Inc.

So, what do we see here? Well, the first and most telling thing is the comparison between this cover and the most recent Newtype USA. Where Newtype USA Jan 2008 features the names of tons of new anime series (at least two dozen by my count), an anime creator profile, an anime art book, and the words “Anime, Manga, Games, Music, more!” the focus on the new cover is all over the place. A Tokyo Travelogue! Cosplay! Anime! But also video games and LOST and Battlestar Galactica and Red Hulk and the promise of bulleted lists! (No manga?)

So there you have it, the inside scoop on (what might be) the first issue of PiQ. All you have to go on about this magazine being the same one as Newtype USA is the publisher’s say-so, with the magazine looking significantly different, and more generic, than what has come before. But honestly? This is probably a really smart move on ADV’s part, with magazine publishing being almost entirely advertising-driven, opening up your mag to the extremely lucrative advertising of the extremely lucrative video game field makes a hell of a lot of sense, and ending a licensing agreement for a magazine’s name and content that may or may not be contributing to your bottom line anymore? The same. The only thing up in the air is what the fans, anime fans, Newtype buyers and subscribers, are going to think of something that isn’t quite as OTAKU as they were hoping for. Hey, there’s always Otaku USA for you Otaku out there!

Still, I’m looking forward to the first issue. I think that, much like the comics industry needs something like COMICS FOUNDRY, it also needs something like this to supplant the rampant misogyny in Wizard’s magazine… Good luck guys.

- Christopher