Alright, I totally need a little help here.

I’m pretty up on the manga, I do my best to research the market, talk to fans, all that stuff. I’m spectacular at doing this within my field (comics retailers) but still at least pretty decent when compared to the legions of die-hard manga fans that populate the interwebs. But I totally need a hand with this, because the upcoming Anime North convention in Toronto at the end of the month? It manages at least one big surprise every time.

We do a massive set-up for this show, 18 tables in an island, something like 180 feet of frontage the way we set it all up. We try and bring every manga you can think of, because a lot of fans save up for months to come to AN and pick up the manga they love, that they’ve only read about on the internet (or in scaaaaaaaaaaaans) and they want to own it and love it and squee all over it. And we want to have it for them.

Every year we get blindsided by one major title, and it always pisses me RIGHT OFF.

2005: “Do you have Chrono Crusade?” Sure, we had like maybe 3-5 copies of each volume. That lasted about half way through the first day, and then the next 22 hours of convention were “I heard you guys have Chrono Crusade!? PLEASE! I NEEEEEED IT!” and I’m all “oh noes.”

2006: “I NEED OURAN HIGH SCHOOL HOST CLUB! O! M! G!” and I’m like are you kidding? We sell like 2 copies of that at the store. But yeah, getting asked 20 or 25 times a day for that book for 3 days? I can guarantee you we totally stock deep on that one now. It did us no good at the show, however.

2007: “Vampire Knight Vampire Knight Vampire Knight Vampire Knight” and I didn’t even know what that was. Seriously. Either like 1, or maaaaaaaaaybe 2 volumes had come out, and I figured it was some ultra-rare Infinity Studios title or something. No, Shoujo Beat again, we were barely selling it at the store, and it was the book we got the most requests for (of course, we ended up selling like a case of each volume of Death Note and Naruto at that show, we didn’t do too badly…)

So the 2008 Anime North show is coming up May 23-25, and I think I’ve done my homework this time and I’m trying to stock up on fan-fav series, but I’m sure that we’re forgetting something.

Soooo, if you’re going to Anime North, or if you just want to promote your favourite manga series (and it looks like I’m a little weaker at predicting the Shoujo/Crossover-appeal series than the Shonen) then I’d love to hear from you in the comments. I’m totally aware that this is asking you to do my work as a retailer for me, and I apologize for that, but I’m asking because I want to satisfy as many customers at the show as possible. Hopefully that counts for something!

Thanks in advance,

- Christopher

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

I hinted at it in some of my brief New York posts, but I thought I’d maybe blog a little more thoroughly about my conversation with Marc Weidenbaum, the fella at Viz in charge of Shonen Jump and Shojo Beat, about his work developing a new line of original comics for Viz. We found a bench to sit and chat for an hour on the Friday of the New York Comic Con–just after the announcement of ULTIMO! a collaboration between Stan Lee and Hiroyuki Takei debuting in Japan that very day. It’s worth noting that, for the purposes of journalistic integrity, Marc and I have become fairly cordial over the past few years, and our conversation about the new developments at Viz were much more friendly than professional. I even offered to send this to him before I posted it (something I don’t normally do) in case I got anything wrong, but he said not to bother. So, here’s my take on what’s happening at Viz with their forthcoming line of original comics.

First and foremost, Weidenbaum’s new title at Viz is “Editor-in-Chief, Magazines. Vice President, Original Publishing” which kind of makes sense, as the two manga magazines are where more-or-less all of the original content is being generated at Viz right now. The recent cover-art/interview/short comic by Bryan Lee O’Malley on Shoujo Beat sort of brought this fact to everyone’s attention, though Viz has done original content in the past, including a Pokemon comic strip for newspapers a few years ago. But the original publishing aspect of Marc’s title will likely become very important to the comics industry in the next few years.

According to Marc, it’s all about television.

Marc Weidenbaum: “We’re in a golden age of television right now,” specifically referring to the critically and commercially successful serialized entertainment offered up by HBO, BBC, Showtime, and even some of the networks. Marc feels that there are all of these wonderfully episodic shows that build up a serial storyline with amazing cliffhangers that you can’t miss. And he doesn’t seem inclined to cow-towing to any particular ’style’ or genre of story either, with a crime drama being just as interesting and well produced as a comedy or historical epic… Editorializing a bit here, it’s no mystery that Brian K. Vaughan (for example) was picked up for LOST–his work on Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, and even Runaways is built on the gripping last-page reveal, and his work is structured in an incredibly compelling way. If I’m reading Marc correctly, he sees this not so much as a model, but as inspiration for a new line of comics work: One that has broad appeal, strong construction, and the benefit of a talented and trained editorial staff.

That last part is particularly intriguing to me, because while producing licensed material does have Viz editors sharing some of the same duties as their original-content producing counterparts in the rest of the North American comics industry–scheduling, proofing, working with creative talent–the Japanese editorial system, the one that Marc referenced a couple of times, is quite different and even more involved than anything you’ll find in North America… In a bit of a coincidence I picked up a new manga by Fanfare/Ponent-Mon at the New York Comic Con just before I was talking to Marc, called Disappearance Diary by Hideo Azuma. It’s about this manga-ka that goes nuts from stress and becomes a bum living in the mountains. In it, the protagonists manga editors are variously portrayed as abrasive, mean, and egomaniacs who threaten and taunt him, draw over his artwork to change it to their liking, and ignore or encourage any number of truly life-destroying behaviours on the part of Azuma-san… as long as the work comes in on time. It’s a comedy. And autobiography to boot.

But Marc’s a smart guy with–believe it or not!–creator interests at heart. He seemed to be talking about a sort of a hybrid system, where he and other editors at Viz had worked closely with Editors within the Japanese comics production system to learn from them, and have brought this system back to North America to put their own spin on it. This also tied in nicely to the fact that Viz’s big guest-of-honour the NYCC weekend wasn’t a manga-ka, but rather an editor, (one Mr. Asano who edits Bleach and Shaman King amongst other top-of-the-charts releases). Marc has a lot of respect for editing and editors in general, and the idea of working with a creator to produce the most successful and strongest possible work. It’s the kind of idea that I can feel myself bristling at, as I type it out now, but hearing it come out of Marc’s mouth I totally believed it… I do have to say that will not be the sort of editorial guidance that every creator is looking for, particularly not in an industry where the idea of editorial mandate from DC and Marvel has become so reviled that it seems every other comics publisher’s editorial guidelines are a hands-off reaction against them.

I was having a hard time getting an idea of this ‘line’ at this point in our conversation, what it might look like, and I couldn’t tell if it was going to be akin to Tokyopop’s “hire’m all and let the market sort’em out” original content strategy, or something a little different. So I asked him flat out–name five books published in the last few years that you could see as part of this line. His response? “None.” Really, not one book? “Not really, I don’t see a lot of the work fitting our ideas. Maybe elements of Scott Pilgrim come closest to it, or Ed Brubaker’s Scene of the Crime or Sleeper. Stuff that’s really good, solid concept-stuff but with a twist to it, a hook.” I believe I mentioned that Scene of the Crime and Sleeper sold fairly poorly at the time, but I don’t remember what, if any, response came of it.

Said I: “I’ve talked to a number of creators working in the ogn or straight-to-collection format, and many of them have very similar concerns about the system of creating a graphic novel with little-or-no input for a year, and releasing these graphic novels to sometimes little or no feedback, and then going back to the drawing board. The idea of shorter serialization has been floated as a possible remedy…” Marc responded that things were still up in the air regarding format, but had heard and shared many of the same concerns. We talked a little bit more about various successes and failures but Marc was reluctant to name names, which I can appreciate…

“You know,” I said. “As soon as I post this you’re going to get flooded with submissions. Horrible people sending you their ideas for a sequel to Dragonball Z, all that shit.”

He knew it, but made it pretty clear he had no interest in submissions right now. “Maybe in a few years we’ll open it up to submissions,” said Marc. “But right now I just want to see already completed work. What you’ve done, what you’re capable of.” So if you’re sitting on the world’s best manuscript for a 3400 part serial about a new level of Super-Saiyan, can it. At least for a little while. But I do have to say that Marc seemed quite genuine about wanting to see published work and specifically mentioned webcomics, mini-comics and self-pub’d work as well as professionally published material…

It’s at this point in the conversation that my friend writer Ray Fawkes (Apocaplipstix, coming this summer from Oni Press) walked by the little concrete benches where we were seated and came and said hello. Ray has 4 projects in development with four different publishers at the moment, is incredibly talented, and above-all sounded like the exact sort of person who would be doing books that would fit with Marc’s idea for the Viz Original Content Line. I introduced them and mentioned something to this effect, and sure enough there was a warm exchange of business cards and a plan to talk further about an exchange of work… So if Marc wasn’t being genuine when he said he would happily look at published work, he was at least putting on a good face in front of my friend ;).

Sidebar: It’s worth noting that at the big Viz Panel the next day, this exact situation came up. Here, I’ll quote from “A Geek By Any Other Name”:

“Someone just asked about whether they’d be accepting any original series, and they answered that they weren’t really looking for anything, which is a little counter to what Brigid and other bloggers heard yesterday.”

I think that’s a pretty clever answer, actually, because Marc made that quite clear to me as well: They aren’t looking for anything in particular. They’re looking for talented people who’ve done great work–at this point in the game–and are probably looking to develop something with them as opposed to just accepting or rejecting a pitch. An important bit of semantics!

Now, you have to understand, all the while I’m having this conversation with Marc… I’m feeling pretty good about all of this actually, but this nagging phrase wouldn’t stop repeating itself in the back of my mind: “THE TOKYOPOP DEAL”. I fucking hate The Tokyopop deal, flat out. It’s awful and abusive of young creators, and while I haven’t gotten up and shouted I TOLD YOU SO at anyone two years later, the number of disenfranchised and angry Tokyopop creators has more-or-less done the work for me. I’m not particularly happy about being right of course; it is, at best, a pyrrhic victory.
“Marc,” I said. “Who owns it?” I was honestly not anticipating the response.

“The creators do. It’s going to be a standard book-industry type contract, although even there we’re doing a bit of tweaking. I believe in that, and we wanted a fair deal.”

Huh, how about that. We discussed it a little further, mentioning things like other-media adaptation rights and all that, and while we really only talked in generalities, it all sounded really reasonable. Maybe even… good. Marc relayed an anecdote about visiting a comics class at SVA the previous week, I think either he mentioned either Tom Hart or Matt Madden or Jessica Abel were teaching, and he was talking about this very line. The instructor sort of built up this menacing tone and said “And now we’ve got a hard question for you, Marc! WHO OWNS THE WORK!?” which I have to admit that’s kind of amazing, that ownership and contract discussions are a part of comics instruction now. But Marc said “oh, the creators.” and just sort of deflated the instructor’s bubble (it was funny, not dickish, at least when Marc told it). You have no idea how heartening it was to hear this, the idea that copyright (amongst many other rights) would reside with the creators of the work. Of course, no contract is perfect and each one is different and be sure to get a lawyer to read things over before you sign them, etc., but just hearing an affirmative and positive reaction to creator ownership coming from the spokesperson for a massive international corporation? Even one with Marc’s long history of publishing and working with comics creators (google him)? It’s fantastic.

Our conversation sort of drifted from that point as it seemed that I’d wrapped up everything I had to ask, and started mulling over my opinions of the prospects of this line. I can’t help but feel that the possibilities of a company as well-invested and an editor as well-intentioned as Viz and Marc both are could seriously shake up comics production, where the money becomes in line in both frequency and scale as Marvel and DC; where they could develop a very creatively supportive but still professional environment; where serialization and the possibility of easy access to the Japanese market (and work produced in a Japanese-fashion) could attract a whole new generation of manga-inspired creators.

Moreso than Vertigo’s announcement at the show that they were actively scouting out “original graphic novels” and, to my mind, trying to directly take projects away from Oni Press, Slave Labor, and Top Shelf, this feels like something that just isn’t being done in the industry right now, but when laid out as Marc Weidenbaum did for me, makes it seem essential… Possibly even as important to original comics content creation as manga was to the bookstores. It doesn’t take a genius to see that serialized original content with a strong narrative hook and enticing cliffhangers are part-and-parcel of the manga experience… perhaps with Weidenbaum’s affection for top-notch (and often very mature) television shows and evocations of Brubaker’s crime fiction, this line of books could be that mythical ’stepping stone to adulthood’ that everyone wonders about for the aging manga demographic.

Or not. It’s pretty easy to look at what I’ve written here and see it as corporate-controlled comics, with nothing to offer the comics auteur. I can’t speak for Marc on this point but I do see validity to that point of view. There’s a reason that someone like Seth designs his books right down to hand-lettering the indicia and choosing the colour of the foil-stamping on the hardcover, you know? I don’t see that as what this line is about, and quite frankly there are lots of places to publish that sort of material that do it very well (Drawn & Quarterly, Fantagraphics, Pantheon, First Second, etc.). But a vision of the comics industry where compelling commercial comics don’t mean superheroes, half-assed movie pitches, or the occasional fluke from the majors (and let’s not forget that Y: The Last Man’s commissioning editor was fired by Vertigo shortly after its launch…!)? At the very least, you can put me on that mailing list.

Anyhow, those are my impressions of the conversation I had with Viz’s new Vice President of Original Publishing. All of which are subject to the haze of memory and just having come off of a panel where I sat 15 feet from Stan Lee for an hour. Following our chat I walked Marc to a cab and resisted the urge to invite myself to his dinner with important people from Japan, which showed some tact on my part (though obviously less-so now that I blogged it). I ended up having a great dinner anyway (thank you, Dave & Raina), and didn’t see Marc for the rest of the weekend. Just goes to show you that it’s important to make time when you can, at these sorts of shows.

Thanks again for being so generous with your time Marc! I hope your inbox is not immediately flooded.

- Christopher

Kazu Kibuishi signs the movie contract for his graphic novel Amulet. The movie has been optioned by Will Smith’s production company. Kazu is pretty excited to meet him. :)

There’s 3 announcements in this picture, if you look carefully. The big one is the exceptionally good news that Stephen Robson of Fanfare/Ponent Mon has signed the contract to do the English-language adaptation of Jiro Taniguchi’s masterful graphic novel series “Faraway Neighborhood” (transliteration, it could be translated a number of ways). This is, from people in the know, the Taniguchi book. In the background you can see poster promoting two new works, including Disappearance Diary by Hideo Azuma and My Mommy, by Jean Regnaud and Emile Bravo. This is great news, more on this later.

Asano-san and Mr. Lee talk about cross-continental collaboration, in advance of the new Shonen Jump series Ultimo!

Having a great time, wish you were here.

- Chris

1. Last week’s wrap-up of Superman & The Golden Age Legion in Action Comics was really, surprisingly enjoyable and probably the best comic Geoff Johns has ever written. I can now actually recommend a Geoff Johns comic. Who’da thunk it?
2. On the Secret Retailer Forum, I’d been watching and not one retailer out of the hundreds that participate there was asking for more copies of Secret Invasion #1. Apparently no one at all sold out. And yet… due to “demand” Marvel is releasing a second printing a week later. I’m curious where the demand was… I couldn’t see any. Does anyone believe that story anymore?
3. Hibbs kicks Wizard in the teeth and deservedly so. Go read it.
4. I have no problem at all selling manga, specific manga, to non-manga readers at the comics shop. Stuff that would otherwise fit their tastes of course… But I will never sell a manga to a “superhero” reader, because I don’t think they’re interested in the medium of comics so much as the superhero content via any delivery system. Maybe this is obvious, but the sales of recently-completed series’ Death Note, Dragon Head, and Drifting Classroom to a wide array of people who would say or have said that they “hate manga” really put that into perspective for me.
5. I’m personally aware that producing regular single issues and competing in the direct market is not “the way” for alternative and art comix, but at the same time I miss having weeks where every single new comic on the stands wasn’t a superhero/fantasy/zombie genre book. No more Love & Rockets, no more Eightball, and a minimum of a year between issues of everything else… I think that except for Young Liars #2 and Ganges this week*, every other comic book is a mainstream/direct market/fantastical element sort of thing, and that’s just a little disappointing…?

- Chris
*: I totally forgot about Criminal #2, which I just read, and was fan-fucking-tastic. Best book of the week. Faith in comics: Maintained!

I was out wandering the various Asian malls that make up Toronto and surrounding areas, and was reminded by this poster just how awesome Junko Mizuno is. Mizuno is a mangaka whose work has sporadically been published in English, primarily as part of the defunct Pulp line by Viz. Her three fairy-tale inspired graphic novels, Cinderalla, Hansel & Gretel, and Princess Mermaid mix her trademark cute-grotesque style of art with an end-of-the-millennium Japanese cultural mania and inject them into classic and seemingly comforting tails. In addition to the triumverate of colour fairy-tale manga, Mizuno has also had two black and white manga translated into English; Pure Trance and The Life of Momongo (which appeared in the out of print anthology Secret Comics Japan). Pure Trance is probably Mizuno’s masterpiece, a sprawling and depraved journey through the end of the world and the breakdown of society, as viewed through a sort of Kabuki-cho-Powerpuff-Girl lens, though Momongo is probably my favourite for its distillation of Mizuno’s themes and style down to a short, sharp story.

As you can see above, that top illustration is just a small part of this larger poster, the art of which inspired these plush toys from the PostPet line… I didn’t end up buying the toys, sadly, though I could’ve got the pair for $40! Maybe they’d have thrown in the poster too? Anyway, if anyone loves me as much as $40, now you know what I’d like for my birthday. 

Back to our subject… Mizuno has always been a solid illustrator, and recently she’s been moving more and more into the illustration/high-end vinyl toy/fine art world, much to comics’ loss (though there are still many volumes of her work that remain untranslated… I’ve got 3 myself!). In addition to these plush toys, there’ve been a ton of great vinyl adaptations of her work and you can see more at her blog (linked below). An outstanding collection of Mizuno’s illustration is on display in the Mizuno art book Hell Babies, as notable for all of the great illustration it contains as it is for its superlative presentation; puffy, sparkly vinyl covers house die-cut rounded pages and multiple paper stocks. Published in North America by Last Gasp, Hell Babies is out of print at the moment but fret not! A new edition of Hell Babies was released in Japan last year with an additional 16 pages, and I’ve been led to believe we’ll see an English edition sooner than we think…

Of course, for those of who can’t wait, The Japanese edition is currently in stock at The Beguiling, thanks to a trip to Japan… It’s pretty awesome, and looks lovely as part of my little Junko Mizuno collection. If you want one drop us a line at mail at beguiling dot com, but they should be available everywhere by the end of the year.

Oo! Look! Extra pages with the shiny paper! How can you resist?

For more information on Junko Mizuno, here’re a few links:

jaPRESS (Mizuno’s North American Agents): http://www.japress.com/
Junko Mizuno @ Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junko_Mizuno
Junko Mizuno @ Viz: http://www.viz.com/products/products.php?series_id=86
Junko Mizuno Website (Under Construction): http://www.h4.dion.ne.jp/~mjdotcom/
Junko Mizuno’s Blog: http://jmnews.exblog.jp/

- Christopher

On June 17th, Viz Media will release CAT-EYED BOY, a two-volume collection of the shonen horror classic by Kazuo Umezu weighing in at over a 1000 pages combined (for a bargain-price of about $50 total). This is a pretty radical publishing departure for Viz, and they’re putting a lot of promotional effort behind one of the most unique and important manga-ka in Japan, and one of his most beloved works.

I’m growing ever more interested in the localization and design of manga as it makes its way from Japan to North America. The culture and design of manga in its native country is a pretty unique beast; Japanese graphic design (at least so far as it extends to manga) is very different, generally, to how book design is presented here in the west. So when the fellas over at the Same Hat blog announced that the next Viz Signature manga (read: mature/arty/non-mainstream) would be Kazuo Umezu’s CAT-EYED BOY, I was both excited and curious to see how the work would be presented to North American audiences, and I was lucky enough to score an interview with the folks responsible at VIZ to talk about the ins and outs of the process.

Anecdotally I’ve heard from several manga publishers (and mangaesque publishers) that book buyers favour book covers with big faces on the cover. Covers that prominently feature the lead characters, big images, emphasizing their manga-ness, if possible staring directly at the reader. Contrast this with Japan and Japanese manga design… The covers are frequently dense with text (both on the monthly magazines and the book collections), with a greater range of stylistic choices available to the artist. Frequently in North America, we’ll see manga book covers that feature interior illustrations blown up and re-coloured for the cover, as North American publishers decide (for a variety of reasons) that the Japanese covers just don’t work for this market…

Viz is almost finished releasing another Umezu manga, Drifting Classroom, to much critical acclaim in North America. The story of a an entire elementary school (full of children!) whisked away to a post-apocalyptic wasteland is incredibly compelling; vicious and bleak in its treatment of its young protagonists and wearing a grim opinion of the human condition on its sleeve. Nevertheless, it is amazing, and one of my favourite comics released in 2007. It’s also being released in North America as a “Mature Readers” book, implying a readership of 18+ (but not in an Icarus sort of a way). But when it was originally released in in the early 1970s, this story was intended for readers a lot closer in age to its 10 year-old protagonists (originally running in “Shonen Sunday” Magazine) than to the readership it is finding in North America. So when published in North America, did Drifting Classroom get the “Shonen Jump” treatment, featuring bright bold heroes in full colour grinning at the reader with a GANBATTE! spirit?

Not exactly, no. Instead, the books are coloured and designed to look as unsettling as possible. Contrasting colours in sickly shades and terrified children are the stars of the show; only the meanest parents would pick this one up alongside Naruto and Shaman King for little Billy. I mean, the life-lessons in Drifting Classroom are probably much more important to any 10 year-old (i.e.: When the shit goes down, your friends are more likely to stone you to death than they are to pull together and work for the greater good…) but far less likely to be imparted by a loving parent… or loving manga publisher.

So back to Cat-Eyed Boy. When I saw these covers on the SAME HAT blog I loved the hell out of them.

These are the covers for the “perfect” collections of the manga in Japan, which roughly correspond to the forthcoming English omnibus editions. They’re everything that I want out my classic manga. Solid illustrations, an eye-catching logo, a clarity of design, intent, and audience. It’s all really, really good… for Japan (and for me…).

Looking at it from a North American publisher’s perspective, there are some problems. Having a naked little boy on a book cover doesn’t fly in North America, for the most part (even if he’s got creepy claw feet). The book also looks a little young… Though its original audience is likely that same “Shonen Sunday” crowd as Drifting Classroom, in North America these are quite clearly going to be intended for an adult audience that is equally as likely to appreciate these works as viscerally enjoy them. (Though I feel it’s important to note that these re-releases were probably intended for an adult audience in Japan, likely the same adults who bought the stories as children originally). I’d love to own these two book covers, and chances are I’ll just pick them up next time I’m in Japan, either that or a nice Umezu art book maybe? But on North American shelves, they’d be pretty unlikely at best.

So what IS Viz cooking up for their North American editions of this material?:

These covers are striking, bold, and graphic, but very different in style and tone than the Japanese editions, even though they incorporate original Japanese art by Kazuo Umezu. The acid magenta and cyan tones are just-about the most eye-catching colours you can print on a book without adding a special ink, implying that this is a book that the publishers really want to catch your attention. It also features the unsettling silhouette of the boy staring you down, which is pretty darned creepy (and attention grabbibng!). Very different… a much bolder statement about the work.

To discuss the changes between the two and maybe try and get some insight into the process, I conducted a short e-mail interview with Alvin Lu, Vice President, Pubishing, VIZ Media.

Christopher Butcher, Comics212.net: What led to VIZ Media considering the publication of Kazuo Umezu’s CAT-EYED BOY? Particularly in a format so completely different than other Viz Media releases… How do you expect readers to react?

Alvin Lu, Vice President, Publishing, Viz Media: VIZ Media is currently in the process of a long-held dream: gradually revealing to an English-reading audience a cross-section of the totality of the works of one of the 20th century’s greatest artists (all categories), Kazuo Umezu. Having completed our run of the long serial, the work many consider to be Umezu’s masterpiece, THE DRIFTING CLASSROOM, we are now embarking on releasing a representative earlier work, CAT EYED BOY, which we intend to publish, in swifter fashion, in its entirety. In the case of each of our Umezu releases, we consider the ideal format to feature that work. In such a long and varied career, a “one size fits all” approach is not necessarily appropriate.

This is a case where we would like the publisher’s motives and angles, and speculation over market reception, to be less the subject of chatter than simply the work itself. The work will speak for itself. Our role in the cases of these publications, which over time will be (and have already been) regarded as cornerstone works in the history of manga, is to feature the work to its best advantage.

Comics212: The trend in 2006-2007 was to collect older manga material in “omnibus” volumes. Did the relative sales successes of these omnibus editions affect your decision on the format for CAT-EYED BOY?

Alvin: The decision to publish CAT EYED BOY in this format was made around the time we decided to the same for TEKKONKINKREET. At the time, we had no real idea if the format would be viable in the marketplace or not, although it seemed to us that this would be ideal format to feature this work.

Comics212: The covers for the Japanese and English editions of CAT EYED BOY are very different, though the latter does incorporate elements of the former. Can you detail some of your decision-making regarding designing the English-edition covers? Do bookstore buyers influence your designs?

Alvin: VIZ Media wanted to create something exciting and strange, something that would make the book an object that wouldn’t be out of place within the manga itself. We do solicit and respect feedback from buyers, but over broader strategies. I can’t think of a case of soliciting feedback regarding a specific cover.

Comics212: Does Kazuo Umezu have any input into the English language editions of his work?

Alvin: When we first started discussions about publishing Umezu’s work there was more back and forth and yes, sometimes there is very specific requests on the proposed cover.

Comics212: Will the VIZ media editions of CAT-EYED BOY include any extras, along the lines of the “TEKKONKINKREET” release? Ie: original covers, posters, interviews, creator profiles, etc.

Alvin: Not on the same scale. As I said, the idea was to make the book as much an object as the contents of the book itself. The manga images themselves carry this out far more effectively than any other information… though there is an interview at the end of the second book.

Comics212: Finally, why should everyone pick up CAT-EYED BOY when both books are released June 17th?

Alvin: Because it is strange and beautiful.

It’s pretty clear that the content is a heck of a lot more important to Mr. Lu than the packaging, and in general I understand, though the art, design, and aesthetics of manga have become more and more a factor into my appreciation of the work. I think that the covers for the forthcoming English-language editions of CAT-EYED BOY are actually quite nice, fitting nicely into the design ideology for classic manga material defined by Vertical Publishing on their reprints of works by Osamu Tezuka, and Keiko Takemiya.

To be completely honest I was sold on CAT-EYED BOY before I saw any cover art at all. Umezu’s Drifting Classroom has been so consistently engaging and enjoyable over the past year that I can’t imagine not picking up everything released into English by this creator for as long as I’m buying comics. I think that the weight and heft given to this series by it’s massive binding and one-day release schedule will draw the right kind of attention to this work and continue to establish Umezu as a name worth knowing for North American comics readers.

- Christopher

Check The Viz English Edition Covers of Cat-Eyed Boy in a much larger size behind the cut:

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Oh man… Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo is helping celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Shonen Sunday Magazine by releasing a year’s worth of limited edition manga shirts! The first 10 shirts were released for sale on Monday, and feature a range of classic and contemporary manga series, all priced at just $15 a pop! I can’t figure out how to order them internationally, which means that you’ll probably have to pick them up IN Japan. But if you can? Duuuuuuuuuude. You instantly become the coolest otaku in town.

Shown above is the Ranma 1/2 shirt in black, by Rumiko Takahashi. If anyone’s headed to Japan in the next little while, I take an XXL…

More shirts:

Ashitaka No Joe

Cromartie Highschool!

Ge! Ge! Ge! no Kitaro! (Nifty)

- Chris

I think it’s important to point out that in the first issue of PiQ, the magazine calls its readership the following names: nerds, dorks, geeks, freaks, maniacs, and pervos.

They seem to mean these little bon mots with affection, but it does tell you quite clearly what the editorial staff thinks of its readership. Of course, the new magazine from ADV (nascent anime and manga publisher) is meant to replace Newtype USA, their former chronicle of otaku culture with a name and content licensed from the original Japanese Newtype magazine, and so some recognition that it is the hardcore fan who may be used to such derisive terms may simply be a way to ingratiate itself to the new readership. But it’s going to take a lot more than saying that we’re all nerds together and adopting the tagline “Entertainment for the rest of us” to convince me that they have anything to say, let alone that we’re all alike…

I previously covered PiQ magazine when I got my hands on the press-kit for the magazine prior to its release. The press kit broke down the aims of the magazine and their demographics quite clearly: they want men age 18-34. I’d say the magazine delivers on that promise, though they don’t quite realize that not every man in that demographic is interchangable…
I’m going to be upfront and say that I disliked the first issue. I’m not going to string you along listing good and bad before revealing my ultimate conclusion; PiQ Magazine #1 wasn’t very good. That out of the way, PiQ does have strengths to recommend it, and a lot of potential, but going by the first issue they’re going to have to work awfully hard to achieve any measure of success. It’s incredibly problematic and likely quite rushed, and with a lot of former Newtype readers already very, very angry at them, they’re going to need to improve, and quickly, to get a chance at long-term survival.

I’ve written an incredibly thorough page-by-page analysis of the magazine. It’s taken days to actually put it all together. I’ve included it behind the cut because people browsing here probably have no interest in a 6500 word essay on a magazine that they will never read, but when I say POST MORTEM I actually mean it. I am digging through the entrails of this thing CSI-style to find out what they’re doing and why. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, and you probably shouldn’t bother reading unless you’re really, really interested in the subject.

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The thing about Japan is, it’s where I’ve always wanted to go, and having been there, part of me thinks that it’s where I want to be. That’s not to say that I’m blind to the socio-economic realities of what that means; I’m aware that even the most acclimatized westerner is still gaijin, and that it would never really be my home the way Canada is. But Japan is, in many ways, the realization of many of my dreams about comics and culture, and about society as a whole. I can’t say that a day has gone by since I got back that I haven’t thought about returning. I feel like I only scratched the surface of the country during my last visit there, and despite frequently being hot, sweaty, tired, and wet (typhoon!), I was never, ever bored.

This is my last Japan Travelogue post, bringing us right to the end of my trip. The last two days marked a significant downturn in the lack of pictures taken, owing partly to the novelty of picture-taking wearing off a little, and partly due to the fact I lost the camera. Well, heh, I actually left it in the Ramen Museum overnight and had to rush back to Yokohama on the day of our flight out of Japan to pick it up.

Incidentally, I’d like to thank everyone for reading and enjoying these posts, particularly the people who’ve told me that they never had any interest in visiting Japan until visiting my blog. That means an awful lot to me, that’s why I’m here really: To Share The Joy. :)

With that, click “continue reading” to find out about my last two days in Japan.

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