Comics212

Shaun Tan Signing in Toronto
In Support of his new book, Tales from Outer Suburbia
Tuesday, October 28th, 5pm-7pm
@ The Beguiling, 601 Markham Street, Toronto
Free to attend
The Beguiling is proud to welcome Australia’s Shaun Tan to Toronto, on tour for his new book Tales from Outer Suburbia. Despite being an accomplished and award-winning illustrator, Tan first came to the attention of graphic novel fans around the world for his epic, wordless graphic novel The Arrival. The Arrival won all sorts of awards and brought the extremely talented Tan to the attention of the comics industry, a rare “crossover” and, according to lumnaries like Art Spiegelman, a graphic novel in the truest sense of the phrase.

Tales From Outer Suburbia is a fascinating hybrid storybook and graphic novel, showcasing Tan’s gorgeous art through prose, comics, and gorgeous full-page illustrations. A collection of short stories to be enjoyed by readers from 6 to 60, Tales From Outer Suburbia is exactly the sort of book that could become anyone’s favourite.

The book will go on sale for the first time at this event.

For more on Shaun Tan, check out his website at http://www.shauntan.net/.

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I’m quite excited about this signing. I’m sorry I haven’t mentioned it until now, but if you can manage to make it out you won’t be disappointed. All art from Tan’s new book, Tales From Outer Suburbia, Copyright 2008 Shaun Tan.

- Chris

It looks like I’ll be calling my friends at Top Shelf in a few minutes. This morning the awesome alt-manga blog SAME HAT! broke the news that Top Shelf would be publishing a 400 page anthology, comprised of work from across the impressive history of alternative manga anthology AX. From SAME HAT!:

“I am very, very excited to share some fantastic news for Same Hat readers, and for all fans of indie manga and experimental cartooning. Top Shelf will be publishing a 400 page AX ANTHOLOGY, a selection of stories from the bimonthly underground manga anthology AX, all available in English for the first time!

We’ve posted extensively about AX before, but remember that it’s an anthology book published by Seirinkogeisha, that took up the reins of GARO after they closed their doors and ran with the weirdness. Tokyo Zombie originally was serialized in AX, along with works by Suehiro Maruo, Shinichi Abe, Nishioka Kyoudai, Naoto Yamakawa, Usamaru Furuya, Toshio Saeki, Akino Kondoh, Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Toyo Kataoka, and many many many other amazing mangaka.” – Ryan Sands, Same Hat!

Sands finishes out the announcement my mentioning that a 16-page sampler of material from the forthcoming anthology will be distributed next weekend at the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco, California. Like I said, hopefully my friends at Top Shelf can drop a copy of that into the mail for me…

Also of note, and semi-related, Adam Stephanidies at the blog Completely Futile brings note of a rare thing in this month’s Previews: A Really, Really Good Japanese Art Book.

“One of the items in the latest Diamond Previews (under Books: Japanese Books) is a 136-page art book by Usamaru Furuya entitled Flowers, which Previews describes as follows: “Flowers collects some of Furuya’s best artworks. In addition to never-before-seen oil paintings and illustrations of beautiful girls trapped in brutal, even terrifying worlds, Flowers contains short manga stories and a lengthy interview with the artist. Japanese text.” There aren’t many comics artists, Japanese or otherwise, whose art book I would spend nearly forty dollars on, sight unseen. In fact, the only one I can think of is Furuya.” - Adam S, Completely Futile

When I was in Japan, I bought every single book I could find by Usumaru Furuya. So inspiring, hilarious, and skeevy was his two volume series Short Cuts (published by Viz back in the day) that I simply had to have more. Everything I bought by him is fucking awesome, but somehow I missed Flowers. I shall be rectifying that with this month’s Previews order.

Even at forty dollars.

- Christopher

So I said this on October 2nd:

So, I read Deb Aoki’s transcript of the panel The State of the Manga Industry from last weekend’s New York Anime Festival. Did you? You probably should, it’s very interesting in spots, particularly Kurt Hassler’s answers about Yen Press’s plans as they approach their first anniversary (Black God Volume 1 shipped through Diamond on October 10th, 2007).

And then today this:

Hachette’s Yen Press manga and graphic novel imprint will join Orbit, Hachette’s science fiction and fantasy imprint, in a new division named Orbit, with Orbit’s Tim Holman as VP and Publisher of the division, reporting to CEO and Chairman David Young.  Holman had success with Orbit in the UK, where it is “the market-leading imprint,” according to Young. Kurt Hassler, formerly Yen Press Co-Publishing Director, will become Publishing Director; Rich Johnson, who was Co-Publishing Director with Hassler, will leave the company at the end of October. – ICv2.com

So, uh, I guess we know the plans that were made, approaching their first anniversary.

ICv2 is pretty gentle with their re-write of the press release, I think. Being downsized and absorbed by another imprint, a year into your publishing effort? That’s not a vote of confidence in your vision, or at the very least, your results. I’m tempted to make a comparison to Minx, but really there is none. Except that hindsight is 20/20 of course, and maybe a 1-year-mark course correction could have resulted in a different outcome there. Or not.

The Haruhi manga is selling well here at the store, and the anthology is selling surprisingly well (issues 1-3 sold out at Shonen Jump numbers, #4 is fairing less well…). That’s two feathers in Yen’s cap.

- Chris

“ We picked up our marriage license yesterday and we will get legally married before November 4th. For this and for the following, I want to apologize. I want to apologize to my family because you can’t be here for this. There’s no time to get my mother and Matt’s parents here for the legal ceremony. I am sorry that in order to live the American dream, we are forced to elope.” - Ed Matthews, PopImage.com

Hey, there’s a U.S. Election in a few weeks. You may be aware. If you’re voting In California, you’ve also got a chance to vote to ensure people like my friends Ed & Matt can get married, and stay married. They’re good guys, and they’ve been together for something like 10 years. I want them to be happy.
Ed put me and Mal up in his living room for 2 or 3 days the first time I visited New York, which was easily the most amazing time I visited New York. Ed took over PopImage for me when I went on “break”, a break that has lasted about 5 years at this point. Ed’s even put his money where his mouth is, and published a few comics I really enjoyed, like the full-colour Young Bottoms In Love anthology collection from a few years back.

This week Ed is back at PopImage, and has written an editorial about his life–his desire to get married to the man he loves, the fact that he had to uproot his life and move from New York to California to do it, and how he wants other couples like him to have that same opportunity.

I will have been married for two years next week, to a pretty wonderful guy. My life has improved immeasurably since I met him… Hell, any of you who’ve followed my writing for a few years will notice that right around 2004 I stopped screaming at people all the time. He made me a happier guy, and while I still rail at the injustices of the comics world, I’ve managed to keep it to once or twice a month, rather than once or twice per day. I want Ed & Matt to have what I have, because it’s great, and it’s the right thing to do.

Ed is imploring all of you who live in California to Vote No on Proposition 8, a proposition which would amend the state constitution to ban marriage between Homosexuals. Further, he’s hoping that you can spare a little money and donate to the Vote No on 8 campaign. I can’t, unfortunately, because I’m not a U.S. Citizen. But I can blog about it, and hopefully send a few people from here their way.

California courts have already decided that equality is a right enshrined in the state constitution, and a bunch of people that don’t believe gay folks are equal to straight folks are trying to change that constitution. Being happy, being married to the person you love, it isn’t a special right. Everyone deserves a chance at happiness. I hope that, those of you reading this, can do a little bit to ensure that that’s true.

SPX 2002: The Big Gay Dinner, featuring (l to r): Dave, Aman Chaudhary, Tim Fish,
Jay Laird, Ed Mathews, David Frankel, Christopher Butcher.

http://www.noonprop8.com/
http://www.popimage.com/content/viewnews.cgi?newsid1224622428,65514,

- Chris

“Update: Simon and Schuster representatives wrote CR Monday evening claiming that the number of images used in the publication of this interview (eight, including cover) Sunday morning surpassed the number of images they allow anyone to use for free.” - Tom Spurgeon, Comics Reporter.

Brazil… When hearts were entertaining June, we stood beneath an amber moon and softly whispered ‘Someday soon’. We kissed and clung together then; tomorrow was another day. The morning found me miles away with still a million things to say. Now when twilight dims the skies above recalling thrills of our love there’s one thing I’m certain of: Return, I will, to old Brazil!

- Christopher

“I have seen contracts within the comics industry shift frequently. Why, one of the biggies has a clause that grants them Universal rights to the work. You know, for the huge comics audience on Mars. Mark Smylie of ASP is a longtime friend of mine & one thing I can vouch for 100% is his honesty. I don’t think he would strong-arm anyone. Both of us had witnessed another indie publisher do that to other artists. If Mark says that the contract he came up with for Archaia artists was the direction the industry is headed, then I am sure that is his experience. Image is (to my knowledge) the only major *comics* publisher with a contract as creator-friendly & rights flexible as it is.” – Eva Hopkins, from my comment section.

BAD BEHAVIOUR ISN’T EXCUSED BY ITS FREQUENCY: IT’S STILL BAD BEHAVIOUR.

I am going to be completely inappropriate here, but maybe that means I’ll get quoted everywhere and people will get the message:

Saying that because most companies in the comics industry have shitty contracts and take advantage of people so it’s okay for one more company to have a shitty contract and maybe take advantage of them too? That’s a lot like saying that most guys at the bar you drink at are date-rapists, but you’re willing to take your chances with the new guy. Just go drink at a different fucking bar, it’s right-the-fuck next door.

Stop defending the comics industry when it behaves badly! Go get yourself deprogrammed from this Stockholm Syndrome Nightmare that tells you that this is just the way things are! It’s a lie! If your work really wasn’t worth anything, these assholes wouldn’t want a cut of you.

Image Comics! IDW Publishing! Slave Labor Graphics! Fantagraphics! Drawn & Quarterly! Five great companies that offer contracts that don’t take media or ancillary rights. All of them have published stories that have been turned into film or animation. Five comic book companies, bang! Then there’s a whole book industry with dozens of publishers doing graphic novel work ethically, working within a medium with a history of respect for creators’ rights. There’s self publishing, for fuck’s sakes. You have options! You don’t get the fake-prestige of working with someone blowing smoke up your ass telling you they’re going to give you 10% of your own movie deal which is practically in-the-bag, they-gotta-guy, but so what? If your work is marketable, people will come to you. Agents, lawyers, hollywood people, they swarm up and down the aisles at Comic conventions, on the web, the whole nine.

Quit shrugging your shoulders, comics. Quit giving in. Quit saying “that’s just the way the industry is going” like you’re powerless to stop it.

This guy’s got it:

“What they want to do is make a deal to do the graphic novel, which would be great, and there’s no money there, which is fine — obviously you’re doing it for the fun of it — but if a movie comes out of it, then they guarantee that they will not pay you for it, that they will screw you.” – Eric Bogosian, MTV Splash Page Article

Go to another bar.

- Chris

I’m kind of having a tough time finding stuff that I want to blog about, or having the time to do it. Sorry readers! Hopefully I’ll be back on the ball this weekend.

- Chris

I don’t know why everyone keeps going on about this “Archaia Studios Press” being bought out… I had thought it was the publisher of Publisher of Mouse Guard being bought out… Or at the least, The Publisher of Mouse Guard and they’ve got some good French licenses as well. I mean sure, The Publisher of Mouse Guard is publishing other books, and they’re all produced by nice-enough folks and there’s a general level of quality to the line which speaks well of managing editor Mark Smylie. But The Publisher of Mouse Guard publishes Mouse Guard, which is a phenomenally successful indy publishing story, possibly the best-selling indy comic of the past few years. It’s sold tons and tons in hardcover, and the soft cover edition was published and distributed by an imprint of Random House, Villard Books, which is a pretty big deal. So why hasn’t anyone mentioned Mouse Guard in all of these proceedings, then?

Let’s just throw some actual facts out there:

- ASP apparently had a great, great creator ownership contract. (Except for a strange non-compete clause).

- Mouse Guard sold a fuck-tonne of books, which would mean ASP would either have paid or would owe Mouse Guard creator David Petersen a fuck-tonne of money, because again, that contract was pretty good.

- David Petersen hasn’t updated his blog since July 30th, wherein he won two Eisner Awards. I haven’t seen any public comment from him anywhere throughout this whole ordeal or since that time.

-  Despite books continuing to dribble out from ASP over the past few months, despite the restructuring, we haven’t seen a new issue of Mouse Guard, with the second series stalled at 3 issues (of a projected six) since February 26th, 2008.

- Mouse Guard is ASP’s best selling book.

- If they’re in a situation of financial uncertainty, and they are publishing books occasionally, why aren’t they publishing their best selling book?

- Everyone, everyone, wants that second Mouse Guard collection. Diamond Book Distributors devoted more of their Book Expo America booth to Mouse Guard as a property than any of the other publishers). You know Diamond wants it. I bet ASP wants that second book. Villard too, probably. Booksellers want it (I want it).

So where is it? I can only imagine that whoever acquires ASP will want that book, that money, and the rights to make toys and cartoons based on the series too, and if I had to hazard a guess, that would be a big part of why we aren’t seeing it… Of course, that brings up the fact that no issues of the series have shipped since the end of February, and the “media rights” contract is a fairly recent development. Something else is going on.

I guess what I’m getting at here is that it’s fascinating that the crown jewel of the ASP line hasn’t been mentioned in any of these discussions; it’s the elephant in the room with an army of tiny adorable mice riding its back. If someone told me all 9 issues of Mouse Guard published to date sold more than every other comic book ASP has published combined, I wouldn’t even blink–I certainly know that’s true for us at the store, in our limited experience. I’d go so far as to say that the vast majority of the reason one would want ASP, and demand partial ownership of all of their properties, is solely to get a hold of Mouse Guard.

So let’s move from statements of fact to a line of questiong:

- What if you were the guy that owned the most successful indy book in years?

- What if your publisher went from a “fair” or even “generous” contract, to one that met the “industry standard” in an industry where that standard wallows in a sewer, rights-wise, most of the time?

- Where you were now expected to give up all of your media rights without so much as a bidding war, despite the fact one is very-much called for?

- Would you sign that contract?

- What if that “Industry Standard Contract” was a lie, in an industry with Image, or First Second Books, or even Villard (with whom you’re already working)? Where not every publisher demands those rights from you? In fact, factoring mainstream book publishers, most pubs don’t make those requests of you.

- What if almost anyone in the industry would publish your book on your terms, just because it would make them so much money on the publishing alone?

- What if not signing the new ASP contract meant that you couldn’t put out your series again for a year, or more, because of a “non-compete” clause in your original contract?

- What if that derailed the intense momentum of your series? Made it so that you couldn’t meet the deadlines of your other contracts with Random House? Severly disrupted your cashflow, your work schedule?

- Would you sign it then?

- How would you feel being put in that position?

It’s very easy to forget the human face behind words like “Strongarm Tactics” and “Industry Standard Contracts”. It’s easy to forget that PR spin is just that: spin. It’s easy to forget that just because someone describes something as “Industry Standard” doesn’t make it true… That just because one creator is willing to sign a bad contract (see: Platinum, Tokyopop, etc.) doesn’t mean that every creator is obligated to. That silence does not mean consent.

So how would I answer my own questions up there? Simply, I’d just go ahead and start publishing again, that second collection through Villard, and let Random House’s massive team of lawyers take all comers… If there were any contention at all of course. Sometimes legal posturing is just posturing. I think that would be the way to go, and it would minimize the interuption to my creativity, my cashflow, and my life. Because it’s coming up on February 26th again soon.

But then I guess we won’t know until The Author of Mouse Guard speaks up. I can’t wait to hear what he has to say.

- Chris
All art from Mouse Guard: Fall 1152, by David Petersen. Theoretically Copyright 2008 David Petersen.