As of December and in addition to my roles at The Beguiling and TCAF,  I officially became the Marketing Director for UDON Entertainment (http://www.udonentertainment.com). For those of you that don’t know UDON, they’re a publisher here in Toronto releasing about 24 books per year, mostly licensed video game-related art books and manga translated into English and distributed internationally. They’re also producing licensed comics (based on the Street Fighter video game franchise) and original comics and artbooks. I’ve cited them before as being people who I think take doing licensed work seriously, and I’ve always admired their commitment to quality and that they truly believed in their products.

I mention this now because I’ve started doing more public work for the company in the past few weeks and, while it wasn’t really a secret, I figured it might be a bit weird not to mention that here since I’ve been so public about my professional life at Comics212 for the past 15 years (srsly). I’m proud to be working with Erik, Jim, Matt, Stacy, Ash, and the legion of talented creators and production folk that make up the company. I like that, because I’m working in the comics industry in so many other capacities, UDON is really doing their own thing, and the potential for conflict of interests is more or less zero. In the eventuality that something does pop up, like UDON choosing to debut their new graphic novel Makeshift Miracle at TCAF this year, Marketing Coordinator Stacy King (handling primarily our kids/young adult lines and kids manga) will be able to take over.

The reality of the situation is that I’d been good friends with the folks that make up the company since its inception 11 years ago, and I’d been helping out at various times and in various capacities (mostly running convention booths for them) for the past few years. Formalizing the relationship feels pretty right, and while it’s mostly confined to working with press and developing relationships there, occasionally I’ll do something nice and public like write about out of print books or conduct an interview with a mangaka. In short, stuff I’d probably do anyway.

It’s a good fit and I’m happy to be here. Thanks to Erik Ko for the opportunity, and thanks to Peter Birkemoe at The Beguiling for his faith that I could do both jobs without fucking them both up. So far, so good.

- Chris

(Incidentally, and this seems to be glossed over a lot these days, DC pissed off Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons originally because they started selling merchandise related to Watchmen, even though that wasn’t in the contract (if I remember correctly), and because they declared it was “promotional” and therefore Moore & Gibbons weren’t entitled to any of those profits. Rift created.)

Now there are spin-off books being released, and one of the original creators who feels taken advantage of by DC (and I happen to agree with that by the way, he’s been basically defiled by DC) doesn’t want anything to do with them. He feels that they’re being published by a company that does not ethically treat the people who work for it, and every inch he’s given them in the past has been taken for a mile.

A creator feels utterly mistreated by a corporation; the corporation is now making spin-offs of his original work and he is not okay with that.

You’re either okay with that or you’re not.

- Chris

I was quite happy to see Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples’ new comic SAGA on the cover of this month’s PREVIEWS catalogue for a couple of different reasons. For one it’s an independent, fully creator-owned series from Vaughan, whose “Y The Last Man” and “Ex Machina” are at least partially owned by DC, despite him creating them from whole cloth. For another it’s the highest-profile work Canadian Fiona Staples has ever done, and she’s wonderfully talented and deserves all the accolades sent her way. It’s another high-profile book for Image and I’m always happy to see them in the spotlight. And the cover features two action/adventure heroes, one with a sword and one with a gun, a man and a woman standing shoulder-to-shoulder, and the woman’s even breastfeeding her baby. If there’s a better “our family against the whole universe” image I can’t really think of what it might be.

Then I thought “Maybe I should point this out on the blog, this is a cool thing.” Then I thought “If I’m the first one to point out breastfeeding on the cover of Previews and the cover of a comic book, it’s just going to tip-off some neanderthal who objects to a woman’s breasts (but covers that up with some other sort of rationalization).” Then I thought “I’ll just enjoy that it’s happening, let those who would object discover it for themselves.”

Cut to: Vaughn and Staples end up with a feature in USA Today! As expected, the wide release/distribution of said image did bring an unsavoury objection from someone in comics, in the form of a nasty little screed from Dave Dorman, since deleted. I had a list of awful conservative comics ‘pundits’ who I thought would be the first to take a swipe at the image… Dave Dorman though, who’da thunk? His objections mostly centered around the fact that the image of a baby being breast-fed was inappropriate for children to see (think about that for a moment), and that the act of breast-feeding on a comic cover was exploitative, but unspecifically exploitative, as the rest of his post seemed concerned with “women having it all” and what not… it was a muddled and confused thing, that post, very irrational and for someone like me an absolute joy to read. Basically, whatever point he may have thought he logically had was so totally obfusticated by his puffery and indignation that he came off, rightly, like an ass.

Now of course the reactions/round-ups have been posted (I’ll link to my friend Andrew Wheeler’s because maybe he gets paid by the hit or something: http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/01/09/saga-fiona-staples-dave-dorman-breastfeeding/), and people on the internet have torn a strip off of Dorman. As I’ve noted, Dorman has pulled down his post and is doubtlessly going to follow-up explaining that he was ‘misunderstood’ doesn’t find breastfeeding objectionable, just that it’s been exploited for this comic, yadda yadda yadda. Same old bullshit internet spin cycle, no one is accountable for anything, everything’s misunderstood, and it all gets swept under the rug as soon as Marvel makes an announcement about a new variant cover or some other such bullshit.

I’m just saying, congrats to Vaughan and especially Staples, on a great-sounding new series, on a lovely piece of promotional artwork, and on the boost to your sales that will surely follow a 10s of thousands of people being made aware of your series that might have missed it otherwise, even on the cover of Previews.

- Chris
P.S.: If Dave Dorman is reading this, hey, I like your work. Sorry you said something stupid on the internet. As someone who was there for the ‘birth’ of internet comics journalism, which you now find yourself trapped in, I strongly suggest you just flat-out apologize, with no conditions or ‘explanations’. Anything else will just be incessantly picked apart by blogs/websites/angry fans, who honestly have nothing better to do until Marvel makes that variant cover announcement. Just “I’m absolutely sorry, I spoke entirely in haste without thinking, my apologies to the creative team, I wish them well.”  That will placate all but the craziest of commenters. Then spend a few days and figure out where all of that anger is coming from inside you about breastfeeding and maybe try and work that out, because… yeesh.

Good times! :D

- Chris

Happy New Year!

I had a pretty great year, all told, and I’m probably gonna go over that in it’s own post in a day or two. But for now, I just want to wish you all the best, and I hope you all have the 2012 that you want. Up top you’ll find a special “Year Of The Dragon” Kit Kat that was gifted to me (Thanks Jocelyne!) on my recent trip to Japan, and that is just adorable, and this is also a plug for you to go check out my other blog http://oyatsubreak.com, where I’ll be blogging every day this week. :)

All the best,

- Christopher

Lovely!

http://www.ralphbakshiart.com/3/artist.asp?ArtistID=34588&Akey=7HKQV3HR

- Chris

Season’s Greetings from UDON ENTERTAINMENT!

http://udonentertainment.com

- Chris

Happy Holidays right back atcha, ICv2.

http://icv2.com/

- Chris

And a happy nude year to you too, Kevin Colden.

http://www.kevincolden.com/

- Chris

So here’s a cool thing! To celebrate The Louvre (the renowned Museum in France), the Louvre and a French Publisher co-published a series of graphic novels with The Louvre as the subject. Comics / bande desinee / graphic novels / manga, calll them what you will, these works have been fascinating to read and enjoy and have to date included Nicolas DeCrecy’s Glacial Period, Marc-Antonie Matthieu’s The Museum Vaults, Yslaire’s Sky Over the Louvre, abd Liberge’s On the Odd Hours.

Now NBM brings us the first Japanese co-production, and it’s got a hell of a pedigree. Created by Hirohiko Araki, author of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, comes Rohan at the Louvre, featuring ‘Rohan,’ a super-powered manga creator from the Jojo’s series in a stand-alone, spin-off volume. Araki is known across Japan and Europe for the Jojo’s series as well as for his fashion and art works, including a 2011 collaboration with Gucci to celebrate the brand’s 90th Anniversary this year.

This is kind of a big deal! The solicitation text for the book, as well as a preview of the volume, follows.

More at http://nbmpub.com/

–

ROHAN AT THE LOUVRE
Hirohiko Araki

After Glacial Period and The Sky Over the Louvre comes another completely original story with stunning art by a leading mangaka. Rohan, a young mangaka, meets a beautiful mysterious young woman with a dramatic story. Seeing him draw, she tells him of a cursed 200 year old painting using the blackest ink ever known from a 1000 year old tree the painter had brought down without approval from the Emperor who had him executed for doing so. The painting meanwhile had been saved from destruction by a curator of the Louvre. Rohan forgets this story as he becomes famous but ten years later, visiting Paris, he takes the occasion to try and locate the painting. Little does he know how violently powerful the curse of it is until he has the museum unearth it from deep within its archival bowels?

7 ¼ x 10 3/8, 128pp. full color hardcover, $19.99 ISBN 978-1-56163-615-0

–

Preview Page One (read right-to-left):

Preview Page Two:

See the complete 4-page preview at http://www.nbmpub.com/comicslit/rohan/pre1.html.

- Chris @ The Beguiling

Happy Holidays from NBM & Papercutz, and the Smurfs too.

http://www.nbmpub.com/

http://www.papercutz.com/

- Chris

Happy Holidays from Owlkids, and all of the children of the world!

http://www.owlkids.com/

- Chris

Some Lovely Carla Speed McNeil art to celebrate Dark Horse reprinting FINDER in 2011.

There was a slightly different version of this here earlier but I took it down, as it was apparently  joke that didn’t quite translate. Merry Christmas, Dark Horse. :)

http://www.darkhorse.com/

http://www.lightspeedpress.com/

- Christopher

It’s an interesting thing to see Courtney re-released, mostly because if successful, there are a host of graphic novels from just before the ‘boom’ that would likely find a much more favourable audience now. Here’s hoping.

I don’t usually do this, but I quite like this series and creator Ted Naifeh is a lovely gentleman, and so I invite you to thrill to the 5 page preview of the first volume and press release, immediately below. Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things, the first volume, will be out in April; I highly recommend picking it up for yourself or for the kid who appreciates ‘spooky’ things in your life.

- Chris

PR: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 12.20.2011

COURTNEY CRUMRIN IN COLOR FOR THE FIRST TIME IN NEW SPECIAL EDITION HARDCOVER REPRINTS

Ten years ago Oni Press brought fans the magical world of Ted Naifeh’s Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things. The series quickly became a favorite amongst fans, enticing new readers to comics while giving existing comic book aficionados something new and fresh to get excited about. Spending a decade amongst the goblins and ghouls is a tall order for any girl, but one that Courtney is more than equipped to handle. To celebrate her 10th anniversary, Oni Press will be reprinting Naifeh’s perennial series as special edition prestige hardcovers. And, for the first time in Courtney’s history, fans will get to see their favorite spell slinger in full color!

Courtney Crumrin, Volume 1: The Night Things, Special Edition will be on store shelves April, 2012. Volume 1 kickstarts a full reprint program with new colored special edition hardcovers of all the original Courtney Crumrin books to follow. Naifeh has returned to his beloved series to remaster the material, working closely with colorist Warren Wucinich (Rascal Raccoon’s Raging Revenge, Jam!) to create a spooky palette that accentuates what everyone loved about the original black-and-white art while providing a completely different way of seeing Naifeh’s fully realized world.

“Readers love Courtney Crumrin for how vividly Ted renders the magical world he has dreamed up,” said Oni Press editor Jill Beaton. “The original versions were wonderful and Ted is one of those cartoonists who really understands how to use black ink on a white page. Despite the level of detail, he avoided over-rendering his drawings, meaning that the work is still open and has room to breathe. It also means there is space for color. Warren is highlighting what is already there, filling in an extra dimension that previously was left to the reader.”

In addition to the color treatment, Oni Press’ art director, Keith Wood, is pulling out all the stops to make the Courtney Crumrin, Volume 1: The Night Things, Special Edition truly special. “In talking with Ted about what we wanted to do with the hardcover,” Wood said, “he told me that it should look like a book you’d find on Uncle Aloysius’ bookshelf, something Courtney might stumble on when snooping around his office. It’s going to be a cool object as well as a good read.”

“I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished with Courtney Crumrin,” concluded Ted Naifeh. “It’s been ten wonderful, creative years, and I’m happy to have done it at Oni Press. The fans have shown us tremendous support, and I hope they will enjoy the chance to relive these adventures with a brand-new hue.”

Courtney Crumrin, Volume 1: The Night Things, Special Edition features a special silver ink, embossed cover, and an old-fashioned ribbon bookmark placed in the sewn spine. The 136-page, 6” x 9”, graphic novel will retail for $19.99 and debuts April 2012.

- Chris

I received this adorable little Christmas Card from Sonny Liew, creator of Malinky Robot, this morning. What better time to remind you to all rush out and pick up a copy of this book for someone on your Christmas list?

For the uninitiated, It’s a bit like TekkonKinkreet without the ultra-violence, or the FLIGHT anthologies before there were FLIGHT anthologies. Gorgeous sprawling cityscapes and small stories about big things, the detritus of childhood writ large, it’s fun stuff.

Malinky Robot: Collected Stories & Other Bits
Created by Sonny Liew
Full Colour, 128 Pages, $16.95
Published by Image Comics

I’ll try and run all of the comics-related Christmas Cards I get this year up here on the blog… it’s the least I can do during this very low ebb of content.

- Chris

More info at the website, http://graphicmedicine.org

You can click the “continue reading” link at the bottom to see the whole PR.

PR:

Comics & Medicine: Navigating the Margins
22-24 July 2012
Toronto, Canada
Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
Biomedical Communications Program, University of Toronto
Office of the Vice-Principal, Research, University of Toronto Mississauga

The third international interdisciplinary conference* on comics and medicine will continue to explore the intersection of sequential visual arts and medicine. This year we will highlight perspectives that are often under-represented in graphic narratives, such as depictions of the Outsider or Other in the context of issues such as barriers to healthcare, the stigma of mental illness and disability, and the silent burden of caretaking.

The conference will feature keynote presentations by comics creators Joyce Brabner and Joyce Farmer. Brabner, a comics artist and social activist, collaborated with her late husband Harvey Pekar on the graphic novel Our Cancer Year (1994), which won a Harvey Award for best graphic novel. Farmer is a veteran of the underground comics scene who nursed her elderly parents through dementia and decline as shown in her graphic memoir Special Exits (2010), which won the National Cartoonists Society award for graphic novels.

We invite proposals for scholarly papers (20 minutes) or panel discussions (60 minutes) focusing on medicine and comics in any form (e.g., graphic novels, comic strips, graphic pathographies, manga, and/or web comics). In particular, we seek presentations on the following—and related—topics:

• Graphic pathographies of illness and disability
• The use of comics in medical education
• The use of comics in patient care
• Depictions of the illness experience from the perspective of loved ones and family caregivers
• The interface of graphic medicine and other visual arts in popular culture
• Ethical implications of using comics to educate the public
• Ethical implications of patient representation in comics by healthcare providers
• Trends in international use of comics in healthcare settings
• The role of comics in provider/patient communication
• Comics as virtual support groups for patients and caregivers
• The use of comics in bioethics discussions and education

We also welcome workshops (120 minutes) by creators of comics on the process, rationale, methods, and general theories behind the use of comics to explore medical themes. These are intended to be “hands-on” interactive workshops for participants who wish to obtain particular skills with regard to the creation or teaching about comics in the medical context.

We envision this gathering as a collaboration among humanities scholars, comics scholars, comics creators, healthcare professionals, and comics enthusiasts.

300-word proposals should be submitted by Friday, 28 February 2012 to submissions@graphicmedicine.org.

Proposals may be in Word, PDF, or RTF formats with the following information in this order:

author(s)
affiliation
email address
title of abstract
body of abstract
Please identify your presentation preference:

oral presentation
panel discussion
workshop

While we cannot guarantee that presenters will receive their first choice of presentation format, we will attempt to honor people’s preferences, and we will acknowledge the receipt of all proposals submitted. Abstracts will be peer-reviewed by an interdisciplinary selection committee. Notification of acceptance or rejection will be completed by 14 March 2012.

Please note: Presenters are responsible for session expenses (e.g. handouts) and personal expenses (travel, hotel, and meeting registration fees). All presenters must register for at least the day on which they are scheduled to present.

*Information about the 2010 conference, “Comics and Medicine: Medical Narrative in Graphic Novels,” in London, England, and the 2011 conference, “Comics and Medicine: The Sequential Art of Illness,” in Chicago, Illinois, USA, can be found at www.graphicmedicine.org.

VIZ MEDIA TO RELEASE ART FOR HOPE DIGITAL ART ANTHOLOGY IN DECEMBER

Innovative Art Book Created In Partnership With Autodesk To Benefit Japanese Disaster Recovery; Exhibit Of Artwork Also Takes Place In Las Vegas At Autodesk University

VIZ Media has announced the upcoming debut of ART FOR HOPE, a limited edition digital art book anthology created in partnership with Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) to benefit Architecture for Humanity. The anthology will be available for a limited time, from December 1, 2011 to May 31, 2012, for $4.99 through VIZManga.com and the VIZ Manga App for iPad®, iPhone® and iPod® touch. 100% of VIZ Media’s net proceeds will support Architecture for Humanity’s ongoing disaster reconstruction efforts in Japan. To learn more about these rebuilding projects, please visit: www.ArchitectureForHumanity.org.

Each of the 40 artists participating in the ART FOR HOPE anthology used Autodesk® SketchBook® digital paint and drawing software applications in some way to create original pieces for the anthology. The artists, both professional and amateur, hail from around the world and from diverse fields, and range in style from the realistic to the fantastic, each illustrating the theme of “Hope.” Notable contributors include Eisner Award and Harvey Award winner Rob Guillory, Harvey Award winner Lark Pien, muralist Sirron Norris, and MAMESHIBA artists Jorge Monlongo and Gemma Corell.

Selections from ART FOR HOPE will also be exhibited at the Autodesk annual user conference, Autodesk University, taking place at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, NV from November 29th to December 1st. Access to the exhibit is free to the public within the Creative Studio a unique hands-on space to celebrate the creative spirit and showcasing a variety of Autodesk software and products. More information on the exhibit and conference is available at: http://www.sketchbooknews.com/news/creative-studio-art-exhibit.html.

VIZ Media and Autodesk are very proud of and grateful to the following artists for their contributions to the ART FOR HOPE digital art anthology:

Janet Alvarado, Don’t Lose Hope
Asuka 111 (Patipat Asavasena), Hope
Azure, Untitled
Greg Baldwin of CreatureBox, Sheltered
Alan Bay, A Little Piece of Hope
Drew Blom, Calvin Hedge and the Iron Golem
Steve Boura, Bright Future
Carsten Bradley, A Wish for You
Matthew Britton, Regrowth
Veronica Casson, The Guest Room
Geikou Chen, Rainbow Bridge to Tomorrow
Gemma Correll, Pierre, le Chat Français
Kalii Delarosa, The Rainbow in the Rain
Conrado Hernan, Villa Gil Untitled
Dave Guertin, First Flight
Rob Guillory, Hope
Rodolpho Langhi, A New Sunrise
C. Lijewski, Light Side of Dark
Chris Lui, Birds of a Feather
Holly Mongi, Good Morning, Friend
Jorge Monlongo, The Sprout and the Bean
Brian Muelhaupt, Ojizo-sama
Shaun Mullen, Kodama (Tree Spirits)
Susan Murtaugh, Enduring Beauty
Ray N., Deliverance
Joe Ng, Rise Above the Storm
Sirron Norris, Kibou
Jacques Pena, Love
Luis Peso, Gathering Hope
Lark Pien, Wishes, Dreams
Kyle Runciman, Ready to Roll
Francesco Salvati, DEAR HOPE
Janet Shaw, The Hope of Japan
Brad Silverman, Dancing Dragon
Joseph Strachan, Flight of the Phoenix
James Turner, Never Give Up
Colie Wertz, Sea Turtle
Pinar Yalcin, Beam of Light
John Yandall, One Little Sign
Jim Zub, Seed Starter

For more information on the ART FOR HOPE project, please visit www.VIZ.com/artforhope.

Art Credits:

Love © 2011 Jacques Pena
First Flight © 2011 Dave Guertin

So my answer there was a sort of a glib place-holder, intended to be expanded upon after a few people had had their say on the topic because, frankly, The Beguiling has probably the best reputation in the industry for stocking and supporting “non-superhero” comics. And then I got caught up in heading to Japan and I didn’t have time to respond and everyone ended up looking more eloquent and nuanced than me. My fault for trying to be funny.

So, briefly: The “non-superhero market” is alive and well from my perspective, yes. At any given time there are 10-15 ongoing monthly or nearly-monthly series that I could recommend to readers that don’t fit the ‘superhero’ mold, but are clearly genre-based or genre-inspired works. I think Image is going through something of a renascence right now in terms of the creator-owned work they’re publishing, and Icon, IDW, SLG, Dynamite, Boom, and Oni have all usually got at least one monthly comic worth following, and sometimes two or three. We even got a new issue of Optic Nerve this year!

And that’s before you get into the graphic novels. On a given week, we’re getting 40+ new graphic novels in, and only 25-33% of that is superhero related. Classic comic strips, art-comix collections, mainstream-bookstore stuff. It’s good. One side-effect of Marvel and DC’s “Throw it at the wall to see what sticks, and make sure everything gets collected in trade” business model is that their sales are so diffused among so many products that it’s next to impossible for them to have a ‘hit’ on any title. No one comes in asking for a specific “Green Lantern” or “Avengers” trade, because there are dozens and dozens of books featuring those characters, and it’s impossible to market them or promote them individually… but if someone comes in asking for Buffy, The Walking Dead, Scott Pilgrim, Skullkickers, Criminal, Chew, Locke & Key, etc.? We start them at v1, they read til there’s no more to read in that line, and we start making recommendations from there.  That definitely affects how we order.

And hell, manga. MANGA.

Realistically, the superhero material we stock at The Beguiling (and make no mistake, we stock all of the superhero material, every comic and ever trade) makes up a minority of our comics sales. We like some of it, we’re glad people like it, and we like its dependability, bringing customers into the shop every week that will buy a variety of stuff. While the last couple months have been very strong for superhero material, thanks to the DC relaunch and some high-profile Marvel books, realistically “non-superhero” works are still our bread and butter and I don’t really see that changing any time soon.

I have thought and continue to think, though, that defining the comics industry between superhero and non-superhero works is false and bizarre. Even asking that question and having me respond with a phrase like “actually, non-superhero works as a grouping do better for us,” is exactly the sort of statement that gets die-hard cape fans’ dander up, and I don’t think it’s either necessary or helpful for anyone. So, just to reassure the superhero fans reading this: I don’t and we don’t hate superheroes, it’s okay, and we’re happy to serve you regardless of the types of comics you like to read. :)

- Christopher

The initial reports from all the sites linked-to above have settled in on cost-cutting measures rather than performance issues with those let go. This may put Marvel in the position of having to explain to some super-involved fans and the professional community… why cost-cutting had to come for what by most rational measures is a very successful publishing enterprise that serves as a powerful R&D arm for movies and licensing. Marvel saw three movies with its characters out this summer, two from Marvel proper, and has at least two major movies (one from Marvel itself) coming out in Summer 2012. All of those films anchor significant licensing campaigns, and the company in general has moved far past the more confused days of the 1980s and early 1990s with that era’s hat-in-hand licensing deals and is partnered up seemingly across the board with major players in dozens of fields. Ironically, another piece of Marvel news Thursday was that they sold a Punisher TV show, which underlines the continuing potency of Marvel’s characters in terms of securing such deals and selling related material. - Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

The current problem seems to stem from a publishing forecast that didn’t get hit when the actual numbers came in. It doesn’t matter that Marvel is still a very profitable company. This is not a matter of losing money. It just wasn’t as profitable as it thought it might be. The shortfall in the margins wasn’t huge — it was less than 5% in an economy where that’s practically considered stable. But whatever the shortfall was, instead of looking at ways to build the business or bolster areas with huge potential — books, anyone? — Ike’s only reaction is to slash, slash, slash. - Heidi MacDonald, The Comics Beat

My best wishes go out to the folks who lost their jobs yesterday. I hope you manage to land on your feet.

- Christopher

East Bay Alternative Press Book Fair
December 10, 2011, 10am-4pm
@ Berkeley City College

PRESS RELEASE:

Hello Bay Area!

As a d.i.y. kick in the ass to the holiday shopping season and a way to discover those lovely treasures to wile away the long winter nights, zinester Tomas Moniz of Rad Dad Zine, artist Brooke Appler, and others are organizing a one day event to celebrate the amazing quality and diversity of independent writing, publishing and all around crafting of the Bay Area.

The event will take place on Saturday, December 10th in downtown Berkeley at Berkeley City College (one block from Downtown Berkeley BART) from 10 am – 4 pm. With over 60 different tablers sharing their wares, this year’s Book Fair will be cram-packed with opportunities to talk with, mingle, and support local and independent artists such as Manic D Press, 1984 Printing, PM Press, and The Littlest Elle, and so many more. We also will have a Variety Show featuring work and art the evening before the book fair at Rock Paper Scissors Collective on December 9th. Some tables still available!

For more information, give us a holler!

East Bay Alternative Press – ebapbookfair@gmail.com
Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/event.php?eid=235581366488296
Review from last year: http://www.berkeleyside.com/2010/12/09/cartoons-and-comics-ondisplay-at-berkeley-fair/

The first issue of Shonen Jump in North America.

I like Viz a lot and so this totally pains me to say, but I’m actually pretty bummed about the move to digital-only on Shonen Jump [ref].

Yes, I absolutely think it is a good move to combat piracy. Yes, I think it will significantly improve the reading experience of thousands of die hard fans. I think it being successful will pave the way for other digital partnerships and initiatives at Viz, another good thing. There are a lot of up-sides to this move, and I don’t want to take away from them, but there’s a huge downside to this move that I haven’t seen discussed yet.

The move to digital pulls cheap, accessible comics off of the newsstands of huge parts of North America, where there might not otherwise be comics or manga. Shonen Jump sold in Walmart. It sold in corner stores, it sold (probably terribly but still) in comic stores, it sold to people without Very Expensive pieces of digital technology. It’s read by kids–and teens, and adults too–but it’s $5 and 300 pages of action, adventure, and even romance, and it has all sorts of articles, free Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and more, it is perfect for kids. I know kids read it, and I’m going to come right out and say that it is the single best way that the medium of comics reaches younger readers–100-200,000 copies of Shonen Jump available on magazine racks across North America.

Some kids don’t have credit cards or Apple digital devices or much more than $5 to spend on a comic, and Shonen Jump is how we as a medium get that $5.  $5 at Marvel buys you about 1.25 issues of Ultimate Spider-Man. It’ll get you 1.66 issues of Teen Titans over at DC. But at Viz $5 gets you 300 pages of new comics every month. There’s just nothing else like Shonen Jump.

The folks at Viz are smart and passionate people and they love manga, I have no doubt they’ve explored every angle and come to the conclusion that this is the best move on a number of levels. I’m not second-guessing them here. They published this anthology, aimed at kids and tweens and teens, this wonderful ambassador of manga and of comics, of visual storytelling, and they’ve done so for round-about 10 years now. That is a longer and more sustained commitment to comics outreach than Marvel or DC have managed, combined, since Crisis. Viz deserve a huge round of applause for that, and I hope those last few print issues of Shonen Jump will be appropriately celebratory for their fantastic accomplishment.

I just wish it didn’t have to end, because frankly, comics needs Shonen Jump in print every month.

- Christopher

First up, Brian Wood rejoins with Kristian Donaldson (the team previously paired on Supermarket from IDW and DMZ from Vertigo) for THE MASSIVE, a new ongoing series from Dark Horse debuting in June. As the graphic says there’ll be a 3-part prequel running in Dark Horse Presents magazine starting in January. The news has been somewhat overshadowed by the announcement that Wood will be re-teaming with another frequent collaborator, Becky Cloonan, on a new Conan series all for DH. I’m all for that too, Becky told me a little about their plans for the character and they sound… Metal.

Next, it’s FATALE, the new collaboration between Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (Criminal, Incognito), coming from Image Comics. CBR has an interview and 4-page preview of the work here, and I really think the mix of the teams’ noir stylings with near-Lovecraftian levels of horror has the potential to hit with contemporary comics audiences. Despite my best efforts the duo’s Incognito was always an easier sell than Criminal–I think the sorts of comics audiences likely to pick up monthly comics these days want a supernatural ‘hook’, and this is poised to deliver. The first issue of Fatale, currently scheduled to run at least 12 issues, will drop in January.

Speaking as someone who enjoyed the previous collaborations of both of these creative teams, and is always happy to see new monthly comic books on the stands? This was a great day for comics announcements.

EDIT: Whoops! Guess I shoulda kept reading my email. Look what was buried in there:

Here is the complete press release; there is almost no information in it other than “3 issues” and “2012″. But If I don’t post that here I will get a dozen people asking for more info.

GEOF DARROW’S SHAOLIN COWBOY RETURNS IN AN ALL-NEW THREE ISSUE SERIES FROM DARK HORSE!

NEW YORK, NY, OCTOBER 14– Five years after it’s initial run ended, Geof Darrow’s (Hard Boiled, Big Guy and Rusty) returns in 2012!
Originally published by Burlyman Entertainment, Shaolin Cowboy is a loaf of wry in a wonder bread world, a nicotine patch in a ten pack-a-day universe. He wonders as he wanders through a world where yesterday, today and tomorrow exist in a collage of carnage of his own making!

“Geof Darrow’s relationship with Dark Horse goes back to the early days of the company. I can’t tell you how excited I am to again be publishing his amazing work” said Dark Horse president, Mike Richardson. “Geof’s art literally stopped me in my tracks when I first met him more than two decades ago and his work is every bit as stunning today. Geof has influenced a generation of artists and I am proud and excited to have him back partnered with Dark Horse.”

Shaolin Cowboy returns with all-new stories in 2012!

That is very good news indeed! It’s a great book, and one that’s been absent for far too long. Hopefully an announcement of a collection of the first series will follow soon.

- Chris

Air Canada, who I booked my flight to NYC with, was scheduled to have their flight attendants walk off the job 6 hours before my flight. Today we hear the strike may or may not be blocked by the Federal government, or they might be legislated back to work, or something.

Oh, and, the airport I fly out of? The security people are currently on a work-to-rule campaign which is slowing things down so much that Air Canada “is advising customers travelling from/to Toronto Pearson that some flights might be delayed or cancelled today.”

What I’m saying is, fuck Air Canada, fuck the stress of flying, and while I am sad to be missing my first NYCC, I’m not going to stand in what may or may not be an infinite line for a flight that may or may not be cancelled, and may or may not be staffed and therefore may or may not be cancelled again. Fuck all y’all and the horses you rode in on.

I’m staying home.

Have fun at the show guys and gals.

- Christopher
P.S. Yes, I should’ve flown Porter.

Students from Carlton University at the Manga Wall we donated from The Beguiling. Photo from here.

The time has really, really flown by. It’s already October 7th, and that means just 3 days left for the exhibit JAPAN/JAPON at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa (actually, in Gatineau, just across the river from Ottawa).

I spent a few years going back and forth with Alan Elder and Claire Champ from the Museum, and they were delightful, passionate people, interested in painting a broad and varied picture of Japanese culture, past and present. I was delighted to provide curatorial assistance to this project, and to work with The Beguiling to help provide this fantastic wall of manga, both showcasing contemporary Japanese culture and encouraging visitors to interact with it themselves.

It was just about a year ago that I was in Japan, scouting and sourcing some of the material–manga, anime cels, books, scripts, etc.–that would eventually make its way into the exhibition. It was such a great trip, and I have to say I learned a lot about the early days of manga through the dedicated acquisition of time-period specific works. I’ve been hit with a wave of nostalgia for that trip, now that I’m just a few weeks away from taking my next one.

Anyhow, if you’re in the area this weekend, I hope you’ll give one last look at the exhibition before it disappears. I’m also hoping that it proved popular enough to warrant touring, as there are a number of fantastic pieces of art and design history in that collection that should be seen by Japanophiles everywhere.

Thanks again to Alan, Claire, and everyone at the CMC of the opportunity.

- Chris

Consumers want graphic novels available on their digital devices for download. They don’t (generally) download novels a chapter at a time, so downloading a graphic novel an issue at a time (and for $0.99-$3.99 a go) is stupid. I can see that, I guess, and customers should vote with their wallets. They probably have been, digital sales numbers are reportedly quite low, despite near-ubiquitous availability.

Then there are the class-action lawsuits over the pricing of books, which I honestly cannot wrap my head around at all. How can a consumer legislate the price of a consumable? Particularly when we’re not talking basic-survival-goods-in-a-crisis scenario. [Ref: Graeme McMillan].

Does that mean Canadian book-buyers can launch a class-action lawsuit against Canadian distributors who tack-on 20% or more to the cost of a book even though our currencies are more-or-less at par? Because, frankly, I am down for that. Someone show me where to sign.

Really, the whole thing is kind of aggrivating from a business standpoint. I’m a firm believer in consumers voting with their wallets. If you don’t like paying $3.99 for a digital comic book because you feel there should be an inexpensive all-in-one graphic novel version, don’t, and tell them why. And if you don’t like how the material is presented, you’re mad at the company, whatever, then just don’t buy their product. Take a stand. Like Barnes & Noble did. [Ref: Publisher's Weekly]

For those of you that don’t click on links, here’s what PW has to say:

“In what looks like the first shots of a new tablet content war, Barnes & Noble has instructed its stores to stop selling and remove the physical copies of the 100 graphic novels DC Comics plans to sell [digital versions of] exclusively through the new Amazon Kindle Fire tablet. “ - Publisher’s Weekly

You dig? That’s the last remaining bookstore chain telling a publisher “If you’re not going to play fair with us, we are not going to work with you.” That is a very big deal, and I wonder how DC will respond to that.

As for me? Well I’m writing something longer about this for an outlet (to be named at a later date), but the long and the short of it is that I don’t have a horse in the race as a retailer. Comic book retailers have either been entirely excluded from digital comics downloads or treated to abhorrent terms in order to participate (looking at you and your incredibly shitty setup, Comixology), so these two corporations fighting it out over a format we don’t/won’t get access to is amusing, depressing, and ultimately out of my hands.

I will take a moment to remind you though that these books will remain on the shelves of thousands of comic book stores nation-wide, and across the world. Like The Beguiling, in Toronto, Canada, for example (plug). To find the comic book store nearest you, visit http://www.comicshoplocator.com/.

- Chris

Today is voting day all across the Province, where we decide who will govern us for the next 4 years, give-or-take.

Now, I know it’s not an easy choice this year, what with the incumbent administration having allowed the horror of the G20 on their watch… The tax thing doesn’t bother me as much because the previous administration spent us into a horrorshow of a deficit, all through tax cuts for big business, and what were they gonna do? At least they were reasonably upfront about it.

I generally like the NDP, although I am not terribly inspired by them this election. Their politics–socially, economically–are generally the closest to my own, inasmuch as that matters to you reading. They are probably who I am going to vote for in my riding, which I believe is a reasonably close race between them and the Liberals.

(I don’t care for the Green platform.)

Which brings us to the Conservatives. If there was any chance that the conservatives might take my riding, and the next closest candidate was a Liberal one, you can be sure that my vote would go to that Liberal because Tim Hudak is, by his own account, a terrible human being. He has run an anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-intelligence campaign. He and those running under the banner of the Conservatives have campaigned on fear and outright lies (there will be no tax cuts, there will be no increase in services), and this is for me a rare case of not just disagreeing with someone’s politics, but actively hating the man himself for what he’s trying to do to the political discourse in Ontario. I mean, he called actual Canadian citizens “foreign workers” because of where they used to live. Look it up.

What I’m saying is, please go out and vote against the Conservatives this election. I don’t care who you vote for, but if there’s a chance that you can reduce the hold of an American-style conservative politician over the voting public of Ontario, then please, do it. For yourselves and for the rest of us that are trying to have a civilization over here while the Conservatives do their best to tear it down.

Sincerely,

- Christopher Butcher

I’m trying something a little different.

Over at my Flickr, I’ve just posted a walk through Nakano, one of the suburbs of Tokyo. It’s 2 or 3 stops west of Shinjuku, and in addition to being a lovely little area of town, it also houses Nakano Broadway Mall, home to nearly 10 different outlets of the used nerd good chain Mandarake, which I’ve talked about before. You can see my first visit to Nakano Broadway at http://comics212.net/2008/02/06/japan-2007-nakano-broadway-mall/, if you’re curious.

On our 2010 trip, our friend Jocelyne took us to a cute little vegan/vegetarian restaurant a 10 minute walk away from Nakano Broadway and from the JR station, and I decided to catalogue the walk with my new camera.

If you’d like to check it out–and there’s a tiny little bit of comics content in there too–please head over to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/comics212/sets/72157627680799795/.

Best,

- Chris

Mom: “Do you think this Starfire is a good hero?”

7 Year Old Girl: “Not really.”

“Do you think the Starfire from the Teen Titans cartoon is a good role model?”

*immediately* “Oh yes. She’s a great role model. She tells people they can be good friends and super powerful and fight for good.”

“Do you think the Starfire in the Teen Titans comic book is a good role model?”

“Yes, too. She’s still a good guy. Pretty, but she’s helping others all the time and saving people.”

“What about this new Starfire?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’s not doing anything.”

- Go read the whole brutal exchange at IO9

It’s like they took this comic by David Willis and made it real, and somehow sadder.

Look, since everyone is weighing in on this thing: Not every comic needs to be for every audience. Not every depiction of someone being slutty is a problem–even in superhero comics. I think it’d be lovely if the[second] biggest company in comics gave a damn about creating a diverse line of books that appealed to people other than straight white dudes, 24-40, which would make the occasional sexual inference and cheesecakiness less de rigeur. I would absolutely adore that–I’d sell more comics! There is an inherent weariness to this argument, to reaction to these books, and it creeps me out a little bit that a mom is putting a picture of her sleeping preteen daughter on the internet to make a larger social point about appropriateness of content. We’d all do better to engage the material we enjoy and discuss and promote it, or better still, create our own material to enjoy and ignore the rest of the shit entirely.

BUT ALL OF THAT SAID: DC Comics, Scott Lobdell, Cheesecake Artist #827, You Screwed The Pooch on this one. For all of our sakes own up to radically sexualizing a children’s character that is still in reruns for children today, admit it was a mistake, fix it. That’s it. “People did not like this new direction, we’re going a different way, we appreciate your passion.” Fix it.

Fix it.

- Christopher

I liked to dance as a kid too. Weddings were my favourite, because everyone was dancing and you didn’t have to be self-conscious about the fact that you liked to dance quite a bit more than the other boys.

My parents liked music a lot, my mom’s tastes sort of calcifying around the time of late 80s radio pop, my dad’s much earlier in the late 60s and early 70s–classics but not so far ‘out there’ as Led Zeppelin or anything. Anything earlier than that and it was their parents’ music, anything later and it was ‘crap’. So the soundtrack of my youth was a steady stream of pop music from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Middleschool introduced me to a slightly wider variety of mainstream popular music, as pop R&B and Rap artists of the day–Milli Vanilli, NKOTB, Boys II Men, Whitney, Mariah, Paula, Salt n Peppa, and many more were added to my musical lexicon. And that’s where I discovered R.E.M.

Pop hits like Radio Song (featuring KRS-One, of course), Losing My Religion, and Shiny Happy People were mega-successes, and while I had remembered hearing Stand on the radio, it was that triumverate of songs that caused me to remember who was singing them. It’s kind of funny, I still enjoy those songs a lot, but my favourites from Out Of Time are still Country Feedback and Half A World Away, probably my first exposure to southern gothic anything. They still resonate today.

And then when I was 15, about a month after starting grade 10, they released Automatic For The People. Someone lent me a tape of it, and I listened to it incessantly for months. The first single, Drive, had done my head in. When you’ve just broken up with someone, every song on the radio sounds like a sad love song. When you’re an alienated 15 year old, every song on R.E.M’s Automatic For The People sounds like it is about you and about your life and they are performing the songs directly in your head. I spent about 3 solid months being powerfully depressed about my life and about the world with “MAYBE YOU’RE CRAZY IN THE HEAD” echoing around thanks to Michael Stipe. Drive, and then Try Not To Breathe… how’s that for a one-two-punch to start off an album? For a depressed 15 year old? To this day, Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight still seems sad to me, sandwiched as it is between those two songs and Everybody Hurts.

Everybody Hurts. Fuck. After just months and shitty months, that song on the tv, on the radio, on my cassette player, hearing it constantly from all sides. It was catharsis, a good cry. I still didn’t really snap out of my misery until almost a year later (came out, got some gay friends outside of school), but it was a start. I made a wonderful friend named Isaac during the time, who liked R.E.M. a great deal more than I did, and shared their back-catalogue with me. Green, Out of Time, Document, and the Eponymous singles collection. Their easily-available back catalogue, I guess I should qualify that. Actually I remember Isaac loving Pretty Persuasion and a few other songs, South Central Rain, from their I.R.S. years, but I really don’t remember listening to those songs with him. Probably my fault that they didn’t stick. But Eponymous, that stuck. It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) was my favourite song for almost 10 years, after that. It’s still up there. I still know all the words. That collection of their early years was the then-perfect survey that I needed.

I was a total convert by the time Monster rolled around. My friend Franz lent me Life’s Rich Pagent, Fables of The Reconstruction, Reckoning, and Murmur. I’m still not entirely sure I’ve owned Chronic town. I was pretty well-versed in their catalogue by that point, and I welcomed Monster with open arms. Their fans… did not. I didn’t really understand at the time, I didn’t realize how anyone who liked Drive couldn’t ‘get’ Let Me In, or the clear musical transition from Everybody Hurts to Strange Currencies. And What’s The Frequency Kenneth and Star 69 just kicked ass. But the instumentation had shifted to crunchy rock-guitars that put off their earliest fans, their sexiness and specifically their queerness put off the radio-fans. They still toured to sell-out stadiums, but the show didn’t end until the encore where the hits came out to play.

I finally saw them in concert, on the tour for Monster, by the way. I was 17. It was exactly what I’d hoped for.

And then came the album they recorded on tour for Monster, and it was called New Adventures in Hi-Fi, and if people didn’t like Monster, man did they not like New Adventures in Hi-Fi. It was dark, dark dark dark. The first single, E-Bow the Letter, was the most southern-gothic thing they’d ever done, they brought Patti Smith to wail over top of it. That’s sort of the opposite of radio-friendly. Bittersweet Me had some of the old R.E.M. flavour to it, and it’s a great song, but the video aggressively confused members of my family, with its homaging to obscure italian cinema. It was a bit like a Francesca Fiore/Bruno Puntz Jones thing, but with models. Electrolite would’ve been a touching love song for the radio, if anyone knew Michael Stipe was singing about exactly. I bought the album on release day, and I listened to it over and over again, and I really did like it… But for an arena-rock album it was pretty fucking complicated. Best listened to lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

Then Bill Berry left the group, and ‘everyone’ agreed that the band should break up, and they didn’t, and their next album had a drum machine on it and that was pretty much the end of R.E.M. in the public eye. In private though, I loved Up. Just, just loved it. It represented a departure and an evolution, dovetailed nicely with my broadening musical tastes (dance, electronica, and an unhealthy fascination with the lost Beach Boys album SMILE thanks to Matt Fraction). It was a good run for them, and I was secretly quite pleased that I was a fan of one of the biggest bands in the world, but seemingly no one else I knew was. It was all the benefits of both populism AND being avant-garde and cliquey, with none of the work!

I tortured my roomates with Daysleeper. Tortured them.

Sure R.E.M managed to stay relevant and in the headlines. Mike and Peter were on tons of side-projects and events. Michael produced films and music, guest appeared on stuff. Velvet Goldmine was Stipe and friends. And then the Andy Kaufman bio came out and R.E.M. was all over that, with Imitation of Life from Reveal prompting the radio-fans to give them one more go. But Reveal revealed the band wasn’t the same as Green or Out of Time or Automatic for the People, and nor should they be… that was more than 10 years earlier. Summer Turns to High, I’ll Take The Rain, All The Way to Reno? Still make my list.

Then Around The Sun. Then Accelerate. Then a Live Album, finally, after years and years of high-quality bootlegs. And then today, they broke up.

Honestly I’m still processing it… that’s what this is. R.E.M. was not my first music, but it was probably the first music that well-and-truly spoke to me. They’ve been a constant in my life since I really started paying attention to music, and they’ve been recording almost as long as I’ve been alive. They formed when I was 3. I’m sad that there aren’t more R.E.M. albums coming. I’m happy that they made so many and gave me such good music. I’m frustrated at myself that I didn’t respond as intensely to their last few releases, I kind of feel like this is my fault somehow? I’m glad I can turn on my computer and all of their music is there. I’m going to miss them.

I didn’t come to R.E.M. early, and I didn’t recognize them right away, but they have been profoundly important to me for longer than they haven’t. Thanks to Michael, Mike, Peter, and Bill for everything.

- Chris

Great short doc about Tokyo and Japan’s creative class following the 3/11 earthquake and tsunami, featuring Pharrell Williams. Definitely worth the watch.

Sorry for the autoplay, nothing I can do about that. But click the trailer above to go to the website and view the whole thing, or http://www.palladiumboots.com/video/tokyo-rising#part1

- Chris

On our walks through Shinjuku, we’ve already been to the flagship Kinokuniya store, located at the New South Entrance of Shinjuku station. Renown for having more-or-less the best collection of English language books available for sale in Japan, nearly a whole floor devoted to them.

But there is… another.

Perhaps this will be shocking to those of you who’ve grown up in North America, but the Kinokuniya bookstore chain has another massive, multi-floor location on the other side of the train station! It’s busy too, and while there is a dearth of English language books the Japanese manga section is perhaps even larger than the flagship.

I thought it might be fun to visit the Kinokuniya found at the East exit (actually, it’s the North End, but you get to it by the East exit), and take you on a walk through yet another bookstore full of delightful treats that will make you ache to visit Japan the way I do. ;)

Ready?

Walking in through the entrance above, I encountered the incredible display. Apparently it was magazine season, and, better still, each of the magazines also came with their own cloth shopping bag. Apparently reusable shopping bag fever had hit Japan, and so with your Yves St. Laurent magazine/catalogue/lifestyle product, you could also get a rare YSL-branded shopping bag. But it was slightly more illustrated periodicals that I was looking for, and so we headed onwards through the store.

So if you walk into the complex pictured at the top, and then walk through it you will come to an annex to the main book store, and it is called “Forest”, and it’s where the manga and the DVDs and all of that reside. It’s pretty fantastic.

Here’s the floor-guide!

By far the grandest display was for the then-newest volume of Thermae Romae, a collection of short stories about the history of bathing and public bathing in manga form! A surprise hit, the first volume featured a roman fella (a senator I think) being magically transported from ancient Rome to present-day Japan, to draw parallels between both sorts of public bathing!

It seems like a fun series, and I love that the book covers all feature the great statue illustrations. I’m kind of hoping that the series eventually makes its way to North America, but given how uniquely and weirdly Japanese it is, I’m not holding my breath.

Here’s a wide shot of the manga floor, with some after-work shoppers lining up with their purchases. It’s an absolutely sprawling store, with shelf after shelf of manga, art books, manga magazines, and other assorted bits and bobs.  You can see a bunch of different signing boards from visiting mangaka, and it’s cool to see them around. I like that even in a ‘corporate’ store, there are great touches like this.

Zooming in closer we get a look at some of the popular art books of the day, including the two One Piece collections, something called “Blue”, the Gelatin collection (sort of like ‘ROBOT’), and more.

And here we have the shelf that’s present in basically every book store or manga store I’ve visited in Japan–the Tezuka shelf. I don’t think it’s possible to overstate the reverence with which Tezuka is held in Japan, nor the ubiquity of his manga.

This shelf featured a selection of classic manga, and what looked to be contemporary classics. I was drawn in by these collections of the Speed Racer manga (called Mach Go Go Go in Japanese), available here in 3 volumes (a 2 volume slipcase in North America), but a lot of the manga on this shelf looked really neat, and I had almost no familiarity with any of it. It’s kind of amazing how much is out there, what a huge and great history of material… and how very little of it we’ll ever see in English.

This was a neat shelf, consisting of the work of Shigeru Mizuki. To me, this looked like the Japanese edition of the recent Drawn & Quarterly release Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths, but there are three volumes here. I can only wonder if these are additional volumes? Expanded books? Or perhaps text/novelizations of those books? It’s all there, alongside other famous Mizuki works including Kitaro and his recent autobiographical collections. I could have spent a small fortune here.

Speaking of which, this is actually a novelization of Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s A Drifting Life, published in English by Drawn & Quarterly. It never occurred to me that someone might write a novelization of a manga but I guess they do. That’s kinda neat.

Another shot of one of the many large aisles.

More still!

So one of the cool manga-related happenings is that mangaka Fumi Yoshinaga’s Ooku had been adapted into a live-action period drama. Well, sci-fi period drama. This special edition of the first volume had been released featuring the lead actor and his manga counterpart!

The shop even set up this elaborate display, playing episodes from the tv series! Very cool cross promotion and something I kind of wish I had the budget to enact at our store, in some way. Well, actually, it’s not so much the budget as it is the fact that our store is full floor-to-ceiling with product already, and squeezing in a TV would be next-to-impossible. ;)

And that brings us to the end of the store, the check-out counter. I’m not entirely sure if buying a complete set of One Piece for 32,430 yen (about $400) counts as an “impulse purchase” but beggars and chosers. I ended up buying a surprising amount of stuff at this location despite the fact that it was early in my trip, and I was going to spend the rest of the trip in used/discount stores, which is a testament to just how well-stocked and put together this location is! While it is a little tougher to get to than the store at the Shinjuku JR new south exit, it’s worth it anyway.

- Christopher

All photos by Christopher Butcher, except top photo of Kinokuniya Shoten exterior from http://www.essential-japan-guide.com/.

This guy David Murray makes t-shirts under the company name SEIBEI, and he’s got all kinds of great/weird/cool designs and they’re well-designed and he is totes a cutey. Then his van filled with all of his shirts got stolen on his way to a show. Now he is having a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to print new stock and get cool shit done.

The Kickstarter campaign includes exclusive t-shirts by Seibei, but also Bryan Lee O’Malley (SCOTT PILGRIM), Chad Manzo, and Ashley Davis. You can donate all sorts of amounts of money to get tees, totes, baby onesies, buttons, whatevs. The $250 and $650 pledge lines are crazy-sauce as well, where you get an insane amount of Ts and stuff for your donation.

I am hoping to come up with $250 in the next few days to get the one-of-everything pledge level, but I’ll be totally happy if I can do the $100 or $60 levels as well… See what you can find in your pockets or your Paypal account, and head over to Kickstarter before September 12th.

“It was going to be an adventure action story starring attractive superheroes. But that is when 9-11 and the war broke out, and that made me think about violence and justice. The story changed…”
- Taiyo Matsumoto, on the genesis of No. 5, from the app-exclusive interview

Read my interview with Taiyo Matsumoto

Get the iPad app for No. 5 complete (bilingual English/Japanese)

Thank you to Deb Aoki and M.K. for the wonderful opportunity.

- Christopher

Infinite Kung Fu Launch Party – Featuring Hop Fu!

Friday September 2nd, 2011 @ Revival Bar, 783 College
Doors open at 8:30 – Presentations start at 9pm!
$5 or free admission with book purchase.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=157265297683859

Presented by The Beguiling, Top Shelf Books, and Revival Bar

THE LONG-AWAITED DEBUT! It’s the official book launch for Kagan McLeod’s INFINITE KUNG FU, a massive 464-page graphic novel by Kagan McLeod. Serialized in comics, serialized on the internet, with short stories in jams across the world, the whole story is now complete and ready for you to put in your hot little hands!

FEATURING HEADLINERS HOP FU – New York-based scratch champions DJ 1XL and DJ Excess perform as Hop Fu, providing a live remixed score to a screening of the Shaw Brothers classic kung fu film “Super Ninjas.” Must be seen to be believed!

CHIP ZDARSKY hosts the evening and interviews Kagan about the book!
KAGAN McLEOD signs copies for fans!
DJ ILLSCIENCE keeps the evening lively and fun, dance if you wanna!
THE BEGUILING will be on hand selling books and prints

This will be the biggest book launch of 2011, don’t miss out!

–

8:30pm: Doors Open
9:00pm: Q&A with Kagan McLeod, followed by book signing
11:00pm: Hop Fu performance…!

Shinjuku at night, November 2010

In the lead up to TCAF I was itching to travel. Despite the fact I’d been in Tokyo in October/November 2010, the bug had bit and I wanted to get away from it all for a few weeks. Air Canada was having a last-minute sale on Japan, where I could’ve gone for the first three weeks of may for like $1100, which is a great price if you’re flying Air Canada, and not bad for everyone else.

I didn’t end up going because I realized I might’ve totally fucked TCAF up if I took off for three weeks just a month before the Festival, and then I ended up missing out on the devestating Tohoku Earthquake.

It’s funny, ever since the earthquake my resolve about going back, my interest in returning to a country that has been beset by tragedy and is undergoing some pretty heavy psychological scarring at the moment with radiation fears and continued earthquakes, it hasn’t shaken. I’ve been wondering when the next time I could sneak away…pretty much non-stop. No time in May with TCAF and Anime North, no time in June with the move (ugggggh). I kinda refuse to go in July, August, and September because I’m not built for 40+ degree weather (celcius). And October was looking a little busy.

As soon as the tickets went back on sale (1200!), I booked for the first two weeks of November. I’m very excited.

Shinjuku at night, November 2010

Unexpectedly though, my booking made travelling back real, and reading the news feeds out of Japan right now hit me pretty hard this weekend. Particularly these posts by Danny Choo, detailing the massive devastation and loss of life in Tohoku.

I’ve heard from many friends and writers that while Japan is not yet back to ‘normal’, a ‘new normal’ has taken its place, and people are doing okay… except for the tourism industry, that is. I’ve heard reports from friends that ‘people’ aren’t travelling to Japan at the moment, and within Japan people are staying home a lot and not visiting bars and restaurants, worsening an economic recession that has gripped the country for the past few years.

I’m glad I’m going back, I’m glad that whatever few bucks I can contribute to the economy and to charity will make an impact, and I hope that somehow I can inspires folks like you reading this to do the same.

To that end, I’m going to work very hard to get the rest of my Japan photos up online from my previous trips (I think there are hundreds no one has seen yet), and I’ll try to keep you up to date on my trip planning here on the blog as I get things ready.

Thanks for reading,

- Christopher

Art For Hope - By Jorge Monlongo

VIZ MEDIA CALLS OUT TO DIGITAL ARTISTS TO SUBMIT WORK FOR ART FOR HOPE TO BENEFIT ONGOING JAPAN DISASTER RELIEF
Unique Art Book Project In Partnership With Autodesk Will Curate Digital Artwork Created With Autodesk SketchBook^® Software

VIZ Media reaches out to visual, graphic and manga/comic-inspired artists to submit original work and participate in ART FOR HOPE, a special limited edition digital art book anthology, to be sold through VIZManga.com and the VIZ Manga App for iOS devices, with 100% of net proceeds supporting ongoing disaster relief efforts in Japan. Artists interested in submitting work to be considered for the collection can get the full details at www.viz.com/artforhope.

The unique project was launched in partnership with Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK), a leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software, and was initially announced at the 2011 Comic-Con International.  All of the artwork for the ART FOR HOPE collection will be rendered using Autodesk SketchBook^® digital paint and drawing software applications.

VIZ Media’s editors will collaborate with Autodesk to review and select works for inclusion in the digital anthology, which will be released later this fall through VIZManga.com and the free VIZ Manga App, available on iPad™, iPod Touch™ and iPhone™.

“Save the date! We are excited to announce the debut of the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (or “CAKE” for short) in the summer of 2012! Taking place June 16th and 17th at Columbia College’s Ludington Building, CAKE is focused on celebrating independent and alternative comics of all stripes. The festival plans to feature over 100 exhibitors along with a two-day program of signings, panels, workshops and lectures. With Chicago’s long legacy as a stronghold for underground and alternative comics, the Windy City is an ideal locale to showcase some of the most wild, weird and wonderful contemporary comics talent.” – From the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo Press Release, http://www.cakechicago.com/

It looks like a new outlet for indy and art comics have thrown their hat into the ring! Everyone welcome the good folks from CAKE and mark June 16th and 17th on your calendars.

Meanwhile,

“The Small Press Expo (SPX), the preeminent showcase for the exhibition of independent comics, graphic novels and alternative political cartoons, is pleased to announce nominees for the fifteenth annual presentation of the Ignatz Awards, a celebration of outstanding achievement in comics and cartooning.” – From SPX’s email announcing the Ignatz nominees.

You can see the full list over at http://www.spxpo.com/ignatz-awards. I’m trying to stay out of commenting on awards, but it looks like most of the folks on my Twitter are quite pleased with this list.

Finally,

“VanCAF has been about a year in the making up to this point–we just chose to keep it on the down-low until we had some definite guests, in order to get people more excited once the announcement was actually made. We knew that the now-defunct Anime Evolution was in its dying throes so we were eager to think up an event that could replace it, since the artist’s alley was always full of great local cartoonists. So we took the opportunity to fill the gap with a show that was more about comics.” - VanCAF organizer Shannon Campbell, chatting with Sequential.

You can read the whole interview at http://sequential.spiltink.org/?p=9268. I know quite a few people have pinged me about the name of this upcoming fest. I’ve expressed my concerns to the organizers, and I’m helping them out with opinions and advice where I can. I personally think it’s exciting that there are new events cropping up and, if they want to pattern themselves after TCAF and our vision of a comics event, well that’s pretty cool. I think I can say without hubris that they have a lot to live up to with the name they’ve chosen, but I’m confident they’ll succeed with flying colours. And if not they can change the name for year two ;).

- Chris

I put a question to Twitter today, with the aims of improving those shows, thereby improving things for everyone. The question was:

“So, let’s say you are a comic (book/web/novel) creator, and you do small shows (Stump/Spx/Mocca/TCAF/local cons). Let’s say. Let’s say that tomorrow, the point of those shows went from whatever they currently are, to “let’s make comics creators a lot of money.” So instead of fundraising, enriching the artform, etc., it was just “exhibitors at our show need to make $$$”. What changes would need to happen? If you are a creator, what behaviours by shows do you feel are costing you money? Answer freely, it won’t affect exhibiting at my show.”

So far I’ve gotten I think a few hundred responses. They’re all interesting, and I’ve been careful not to disagree with any of it because I think the question, and the discussion, and having it in public, is important. Very important. I’m pretty happy.

To see what people are saying, you can search Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/comics212. If you’ve got suggestions feel free to jump in!

Unfortunately (heh) I’ve hit some sort of maximum-tweet limit, and I’m locked out for a few hours. I’ll follow-up on Twitter and here a little later.

- Chris

“I don’t really care for sports, and yet, this manga isriveting! This is about a high school baseball team. It has love triangles, fully-fleshed out characters, a story that subverts shonen manga tropes. It’s a really naturalistic, slice of life story.

“It’s so rare to find a book that just breathes like this one does. It’s a wonder to spend time in the world that Adachi has created — a suburban Japan of endless spring and summer. If you hate baseball, if you love baseball, even if you’re indifferent about the sport, so long as you like great comics then Cross Game is for you.”

Over at manga.about.com, Deb Aoki recaps our Best and Worst Manga of 2011 Panel from the San Diego Comic Con, apparently minus the ‘worst’ choices. I personally didn’t read enough manga last year to have a ‘worst’, maybe Bakuman would have been my pick for most frustrating, but even then it’s incredibly well-crafted and interesting.

I really like Adachi’s Cross Game (as you can see above), and me and my fellow panelists go over a bunch of our pics. Go check it out!

- Christopher