Yes. Yessssss.
– Chris
Hipster manga
I’m sure I’m being too sensitive about this, but this was annoying:
“Hm, front page story in the NYT Arts section…hipster manga just got a lot more hip in New York. This is definitely the art manga equivalent of the cover story on art comics from the NYT Magazine that kicked off the whole “comics are an art form” thing a few years ago.” – Heidi MacDonald, The Beat
That’s Heidi talking about Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s A Drifting Life coverage.
Seriously, if any hipster-douche can make it through an 850 page autobiography of a manga pioneer set in post-war Japan, I’ll stop automatically adding the word “douche” after the word “hipster”.
Really? Hipster manga? I actually can’t think of a more dismissive term than that. Anything outright critical could at least be argued, that’s just… yeah. Whatever.
Props to Peggy and D&Q for the amazing coverage though.
– Chris
P.S.: I am clearly biased because I’m hosting Tatsumi and D&Q in Toronto in 3 weeks, so feel free to ignore, but again, I’d like to stress: what-ever.
Moomin Anime Opening!
I had no idea.there was a Moomin anime. I knew it was popular in Japan, but… neat-o! Thanks to JH for the tip-off.
Edit: More Moomin at Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=????&aq=f
– Chris
TCAF Event Announcements…!
We’ve just put up most of the TCAF Events that will be happening in Toronto surrounding the Festival. We’re nailing down the dates on others, but yeah, it’s pretty outstanding, if I do say so myself. You can check it all out at http://www.torontocomics.com/tcaf, or if you’re more of an RSS person, all future updates are going to also be made via the blog on the front-page of http://www.torontocomics.com.
I am pretty proud of all of this I gotta say.
– Chris
Scott McCloud Returns To Toronto for TCAF
Yay!
– Chris
NYT Bestseller Follow-up
In the comments section of my last post on the New York Times Graphic Book Bestseller List, a commenter named Tommy Raiko comes to different conclusions about the list than I did. It’s a thought-provoking response:
“If we assume that the NYT is indeed getting actual sell-thru data from comics stores to form the bestseller list, we still don’t necessarily know which stores form those reports. Maybe the stores that reported their sales had exceptional success with this promotion, actually using it to sell dramatically more copies of the book to customers. That’s gotta be possible, right?” – Tommy Raiko
The reason I had initially discounted this possibility–the thought did occur to me–is that prior to about two years ago, there was almost no method of reporting sales data from individual comic book stores. It’s really only been in the last 5 years that direct market comic book stores have moved, in a major way, towards digital inventory tracking and control. I know that Hibbs has been chronicling that change at his various writing outlets. When I think to myself “What possible data could they be using?” it never even occurred to me that they might have access to DM sell-through data, because historically, they didn’t. No one did. Many comic book stores didn’t (don’t?) even have paper tracking methods (generally referred to as “cycle counting”), let alone weekly digital inventory counts that they could pass along to The Times.
Let alone a centralized hub for that sell-through data to be collected and disseminated, let alone Diamond having that data…
But in responding to Tommy’s message, I allowed that the possibility did exist… however small.
“That’s an excellent rebuttal, and you could be right. In fact, a few hundred comic stores are now using Diamond’s proprietary sales tracking software, and perhaps its the sales of those hundred stores that are being submitted as comic book store data. Sure.
“But the appearance of specific books on the top 25 (I don’t want to name them because singling out books in a negative way, in the context of this discussion, isn’t really appropriate), not to mention Occam’s Razor, lead me to believe my conclusions are closer to the truth…” – Me!
Over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about it. Diamond has been slowly rolling out a proprietary sales tracking software (ComicSuite) last year, that works with Microsoft RMS (Retail Management System). The sales data of stores with this software is now, I believe, automatically being reported to Diamond. I’m not 100% convinced that it’s really “a few hundred stores” using this software, and I don’t believe Diamond has announced how many people have bought in. But yeah, Diamond is collected accurate sales data from a limited group, so it is possible on some level that this could be based on existing sales.
Why this still doesn’t matter: If all of this is true, an alternate theory to the one in my last post, it still means the reporting method at the NYT is broken. Why? Here: The sample size of sales is still small. Probably very small. It’s also limited to stores that can afford to drop a few grand on this software, plus pay a yearly fee for life. It’s also comprised of early adopters, folks who are generally a little more hands-on with their business, and that usually translates to ordering habits that go outside of the Marvel/DC areas. That weighs the number. Like any first-year statistics student will tell you, voluntary surveys are already biased towards people that are willing to take a survey.
So yeah, even if they’re using sell-through data from Diamond’s incredibly small, biased survey group, and then extrapolating it out to all 3000-ish Diamond accounts? It still corrupts the overall list, Bookscan is measuring a (debatable) 70% of the bookstore market. At best the Diamond numbers are 10% of the comic store market, and clearly being given a lot of weight. It’s why we end up with Dark Tower at #1. It don’t make sense.
—
Edit: Brian Hibbs says some interesting things in the comments to this post:
“For what it is worth, ComicsPRO is working with the NYT to get more stores involved in reporting their individual numbers to the list.
“For what it is worth, I believe that more DM stores are using MOBY than using ComicsSuite from Diamond (probably by a factor of two or more)
“And IF ComicsSuite is reporting sell-through to Diamond (and I doubt it is), Diamond has not disclosed that, and, so, that would probably be illegal.” – Brian Hibbs, Retailer, Comix Experience
So is that confirmation that individual stores are reporting sales to the NYT? Fascinating. I still feel like it could only be an incredibly small sample-selection as it stands, but I’m heartened to hear that someone, somewhere is selling the books that make it onto the list. I’m also glad to see my theory about Diamond reporting sell-through data shot down, it was a little ‘big-brother’, even for me.
Now back to the end of the post:
—
And here’s another thought I had. I know it fits into my last theory/post, and I feel like it does here, but I’m not entirely sure how. I know it’s true though, so here goes: The NYT Graphic Novels Besteller List clearly favours comics and books that are exclusively orderable through Diamond; books for which Diamond has a direct-market exclusive, AND books which are distributed to bookstore by Diamond. But why? Because as Brian Hibbs pointed out in the response to my PREVIEWS LIVEBLOG a few weeks ago, many, many of the books in the Previews catalogue are available cheaper through other sources, other distributors. Smart retailers are figuring this out, and moving their orders elsewhere. Except in cases where they can’t, where Diamond is the Only Source. So if the Bestseller charts are based on Diamond sell-in, and not sell-through, and extrapolated out and weighed equally with reporting bookstores, then books only available through Diamond are going to have a huge advantage; those sales are going to be reported wheras comic store sales of books ordered from Ingram or Baker & Taylor or any alternate distribution source? Those don’t get reported through bookscan, and they wouldn’t get reported through Diamond under my scenario… Unless the NYT lists are taking Ingram and B&T sales into account, and I don’t believe they traditionally have (because that would measure sell-in, and not sell-through, and we’re back to where we started).
Anyway, that’s where I’m at with this. I think the New York Times Graphic Novel Bestseller list? It’s nice as a promotional tool, but I’m utterly unconvinced that the list means much at all. Much like every other half-assed piece of data we have, it’s at best a tool for measuring popularity over the long term. Watchmen’s on the list for every week? It’s probably a best-seller! A children’s graphic novel from a Diamond-exclusive publisher debuts on the list and is never seen again? Probably doesn’t mean a whole lot, sales-wise.
– Christopher
#amazonfail – Amazon.com Exposes bias against gay and lesbian books
Amazon’s “adult materials” policy (I didn’t even know they had one) is thus:
“In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude “adult” material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature. – Amazon.com”
Which is annoying nanny-state garbage that disinclines me to use their site, but fine. However, it seems that some patrons of Amazon have noticed differences in the way this policy is applied, and that it tends to classify many books with gay and lesbian themes that aren’t necessarily explicit as “adult”, while keeping many heterosexual explicit works in the public eye…including a graphic novel:
We would like to hear the rationalisation for allowing sales ratings for explicit books with a heterosexual focus such as:
–Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds by Chronicle Books (pictures of over 600 naked women)
–Rosemary Rogers’ Sweet Savage Love” (explicit heterosexual romance);
–Kathleen Woodiwiss’ The Wolf and the Dove (explicit heterosexual romance);
–Bertrice Smal’s Skye o’Malley which are all explicit heterosexual romances
–and Alan Moore’s Lost Girls (which is a very explicit sexual graphic novel)Yet the following books, which have a gay or lesbian focus, have been classed as “adult books” and stripped of their sales ratings:
–Radclyffe Hill’s classic novel about lesbians in Victorian times, The Well of Loneliness, and which contains not one sentence of sexual description;
–Mark R Probst’s YA novel The Filly about a young man in the wild West discovering that he’s gay (gay romance, no sex);
–Charlie Cochrane’s Lessons in Love (gay romance with no sex);
–The Dictionary of Homophobia: A Global History of Gay & Lesbian Experience, edited by Louis-George Tin (non-fiction, history and social issues);
–and Homophobia: A History by Bryan Fone (non-fiction, focus on history and the forms prejudice against homosexuality has taken over the years).Please tell us, Amazon, why the explicit books with a heterosexual focus are allowed to keep their sales ratings while the non-explicit romances, the histories and the biographies that deal with LGBTQ issues are not. – Petition against Amazon’s policy
I like Lost Girls as much as the next guy, but how is that not an “adult” work when a non-fiction history of Homophobia is? Maybe it’d classify if adult if someone told Amazon about all the hot lady-on-lady or man-on-man action?
This is pretty gross. I realize the world is filled opportunity for outrage these days, but if you could muster some against a policy which will very, very likely be changed with enough attention, I’d appreciate it. Head over to:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/in-protest-at-amazons-new-adult-policy
and sign up.
EDIT: If you’re looking for more on this story, Jezebel has a great write-up, more examples of books stripped of their standing, and what it all means. Check it out at: http://jezebel.com/5209088/why-is-amazon-removing-the-sales-rankings-from-gay-lesbian-books
– Christopher
Why The New York Times Graphic Novel Bestseller List Is Broken
“Last week, Marvel’s 2007 adaptation of the Stephen King fantasy epic appeared, as if by magic, atop the hardcover list, unseating Watchmen. Although I couldn’t find an obvious reason for the book’s performance, I was willing to accept that the upcoming release of The Dark Tower: Treachery hardcover or another miniseries might’ve renewed interest in the original. (Or did I completely miss a new edition or reissue?)
“But this week The Gunslinger Born is nowhere to be seen. Watchmen again rests comfortably upon its hardcover throne, followed by a trio of Batman-related books.
“It’s as if last week never happened.” – Kevin Melrose, Robot 6 @ CBR
Sorry, I didn’t realize that no one had addressed this.
It’s pretty clear that the NYT Graphic Novel Bestseller lists are equally weighing all of Diamond’s direct-market sell-in with all of the other sales channels’ sell-through. What this means is that every book shipped by Diamond to a comic book store counts exactly the same on their list as every book actually sold by a bookscan-reporting store. It means that, on the week that comic-store-favourite graphic novels get released, their positions on the bestseller list will be abornomally high… but they will most likely never be heard from again. Unless their reorder velocity in a given week is incredibly high… maybe if that item was put on a sale or something?
So how did we end up with Dark Tower: Gunslinger Born on the list? That’s tricky. Marvel is a very litigious company, and has all sorts of warnings about reproducing their private personal information in public. Blah blah blah. So, let’s talk about me instead, because I doubt even Marvel would be able to argue that retailers aren’t allowed to talk about their own businesses. So: There was a time period last month where I ordered Dark Tower: Gunslinger Born and received a higher-than-average discount on that book, and for every copy I ordered, I got another copy of the book for free. I did this, it happened, and I am talking about my actions as a retailer (litigious!). So the week that all of those discounted copies and free copies of Dark Tower that I ordered shipped to me, the book ALSO appeared on The New York Times Graphic Novel Bestseller list. Do you see the correlation there?
I don’t think Marvel tried to game the system with this maneuver; Diamond Comics also reported the first Dark Tower collection as being the top-seller for the month, likely because of this promotion. Apparently according to Diamond, something that sells at a reduced price—even if that reduced price is zero—is still a sale, and when they report data to the NYT? A sale is a sale.
Basically, in the larger bookselling community, the “end customer” is the reader, the consumer, because bookstores can return unsold product to the publisher (or distributor), and so a sale is really only final once it leaves the store. But in the Direct Market of comic book stores, the “end customer” is the retailer–the comic book store owner–because the comic book store owner can’t return the books; the final sale is when the books arrive at the store. Worse than that, comic book store owners are expected to front-load their orders–order heavily up front with no immediate promise of further availability–to secure a better discount from Diamond as a supplier, which further weights the Diamond’s numbers on the day-of-release.
So two largely incongruous sales systems are being merged–pretty badly it looks like–to generate a list that has books with little long-term sales spiking on release and never appearing again, and heavily prone to being thrown entirely out of whack by promotions, sales, discounting, and… hell, just giving stuff away for free! It’s one of the many, many problems of the apples-to-oranges sales systems that we have in comics. And yeah, it’s why The New York Times Graphic Novel Bestseller List is Broken.
– Christopher
24 Hour Delay
Hey there, everyone trying to get a hold of me! My e-mail filled up (unbeknownst to me) last night at 5:18pm, and didn’t get cleared until about 1pm today. So if you sent me something, resend, I didn’t get it.
If you need a backup address, please use the 2009@torontocomics address.
And if you’re waiting for an answer from me for something, it’s going to be another 24 hours.
Sorry.
– Chris
P.S.: The webcomics panel went fantastically well! Thanks again to Kate Beaton, Willow Dawson, Emily Horne, Brian McLachlan, and Ryan North!
2009 Shuster Awards Nominees
Last week the nominees for the 2009 Shuster Awards were announced. The Shuster Awards started off as Canada’s fan-awards, with Canadian comics fans invited to vote on the nominees as selected by a committee. It looks like they’ve moved to a jurried award this year, I have no idea if that’s new or from previous years? I’m sure someone will be along momentarily to clarify.
At any rate, the Shusters tend to have a different focus than the recently-announced Doug Wright Awards, but I’ve been trying to figure out a way to delineate the differences between the two awards and their aims for the past 10 minutes, in a way that won’t offend one or both of the committees who put their respective awards together, and I can’t do it. I think the fact that none of the nominees on the Wright Awards list are on the Shuster List, or vice versa, except for Mariko Tamaki and Kate Beaton? That speaks for itself right there. Variety is the spice of life…
Anyway, congratulations to all of those nominated!
—
JOE SHUSTER AWARDS 2009 NOMINEES for Work Published in 2008
Artist/Dessinateur
* Marc Delafontaine – Les Nombrils, Tome 3 : Les liens de l’amitié (Dupuis)
* Dale Eaglesham – Justice Society of America #12, 14-15, 18-22 (DC Comics)
* David Finch – Ultimatum #1-2 (Marvel Comics)
* Karl Kerschl & Serge LaPointe – Teen Titans: Year One #1-6 (DC Comics)
* Jacques Lamontagne – Les Druides, Tome 4 : La Ronde des Géants (Soleil Productions)
* Steve McNiven – Amazing Spider-Man #546-548, Wolverine #66-70 (Marvel Comics)
* Steve Rolston – Emiko Superstar (DC/Minx), “Familiar” – House of Mystery #4 (DC/Vertigo), You Ain’t No Dancer #3 (New Reliable Press)
* Stephen Sadowski – Avengers/Invaders #1-7 (Marvel Comics/Dynamite Entertainment), Superpowers #0 (Dynamite Entertainment), Jack the Lantern: Ghosts #2 (Castle Rain Entertainment)
Cartoonist/Créateur
* Grégoire Bouchard – Vers les Mondes Lointains (Paquet)
* Darwyn Cooke – “Chapter X: The Greater Good” Justice League: The New Frontier Special #1, The Spirit #12 (DC Comics)
* Francis Descharnais – Burquette (Les 400 coups)
* Jean-Paul Eid – Des tondeuses et des hommes (La Pastèque)
* Michel Gagne – “The Saga of Rex” Chapter 4 – Flight Vol. 5 (Ballantyne Books)
* Faith Erin Hicks – The War at Ellsmere (Slave Labor Graphics)
* Jeff Lemire – Essex County Vol. 3: The Country Nurse (Top Shelf)
* Seth – “Thoreau MacDonald” Kramer’s Ergot 7 (Buenaventura Press)
* Dave Sim – Glamourpuss #1-4, Judenhaas (Aardvark-Vanaheim)
Colourist/Dessinateur Couleur
* Jean-Francois Beaulieu – G.I. Joe: America’s Elite 31-36, Voltron: A Legend Forged 1 (Devil’s Due), Marvel Zombies 3 #1-3, Wonderful Wizard of OZ #1, X-Men: Divided We Stand #1, X-Men Legacy #215 (Marvel Comics)
* Blond – Team 14 #1 (Digital Webbing), Freshman: Summer Vacation Special #1, Magdalena/Daredevil #1, True Blood: The Great Revelation NN, Witchblade: Takeru Manga #11-12 (image/Top Cow), Ultimate Fantastic Four #50-59 (Marvel Comics), Beyond Wonderland #4, Grimm Fairy Tales 2008 Annual (Zenoscope)
* Chris Chuckry – Brave and the Bold #17-18, Countdown to Mystery #4-8, Simon Dark #4-7, Two Face: Year One #1-2 (DC Comics), Air 1-5 (DC/Vertigo), G.I. Joe #0 (Devil’s Due), Comic Book Tattoo (image), Amazing Spider-Man #546, 565-567, newuniversal: Shockfront #1-2, The Twelve #1-8 (Marvel Comics)
* Maryse Dubuc – Les Nombrils, Tome 3 : Les liens de l’amitié (Dupuis)
* Nathan Fairbairn – Fear Agent 21 (Dark Horse), Pilot Season: The Core #1 (image/Top Cow), Civil War: House of M #3, Guardians of the Galaxy #1-3, Secret Invasion: Who Do You Trust? NN, Wolverine: Origins #31, X-Men: Divided We Stand #2, X-Men: Kingbreaker #1, X-Men Legacy #217, X-Men: Manifest Destiny #1, 3, Young Avengers Presents #1 (Marvel Comics), Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jansen #3 (Oni Press)
* Lovern Kindzierski – Sandman: The Dream Hunters #1-2 (DC Comics), The Worlds of Dungeons & Dragons #1-2Coraline (HarperCollins), Giant-Size Incredible Hulk #1 (Marvel Comics) (Devil’s Due),
* François Lapierre – “Gédéon et la bête du lac” Contes et légendes du Québec (Glénat Québec), Magasin général 4 (Casterman)
* Dave McCaig – Star Wars: Dark Times #11-12 (Dark Horse), Action Comics #861-863, Final Crisis: Rogue’s Revenge #1-3. Joker’s Asylum: The Penguin #1, JSA Classified #35-37 (DC Comics), Family Dynamic #1-2 House of Mystery #4, Northlanders #2-8, 11-2 (DC/Vertigo), Broken Trinity: Angelus #1, First Born: Aftermath #1, Pilot Season: The Core #1 (image/Top Cow), Fantastic Four Cosmic Size Special #1, Secret Invasion X-Men #1-4, Ultimate Iron Man II #3-5 (Marvel Comics), Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jansen #2 (Oni Press) (DC/Johnny DC),
Writer/Écrivain
* Ian Boothby – Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror #14, Bongo Comics Free-For-All 2008, Futurama #35-39, Simpsons Comics #136, 141, 148, Simpsons Summer Shindig #1, Simpsons Super Spectacular #7 (Bongo Comics)
* Cecil Castellucci – Janes in Love (DC/Minx)
* Darwyn Cooke – “Dragster Riot starring Robin the Boy Wonder”, “Wonder Woman and Black Canary” Justice League: The New Frontier Special #1, Superman Confidential 11 (DC Comics)
* Maryse Dubuc – Les Nombrils, Tome 3 : Les liens de l’amitié (Dupuis)
* Ray Fawkes – The Apocalipstix (Oni Press)
* François Lapierre – “Gédéon et la bête du lac” Contes et légendes du Québec (Glénat Québec)
* Mariko Tamaki – Emiko Superstar (DC/Minx), Skim (Groundwood Books)
* J. Torres – The Family Dynamic #1-3, Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st Century #11, 13, 17-19, Teen Titans Go! #51-55 (DC/Johnny DC), Wonder Girl #5-6 (DC Comics)
Cover/Couverture
* Adrian Alphona – Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane Season Two #1 Variant (Marvel Comics)
* Darwyn Cooke – The Spirit #12 (DC Comics)
* Marc Delafontaine – Les Nombrils, Tome 3 : Les liens de l’amitié (Dupuis)
* Dale Eaglesham – Justice Society of America #14 Variant (DC Comics)
* David Finch -Amazing Spider-Man #572 Variant (Marvel Comics)
* Philippe Girard – Les Ravins (Mécanique Générale)
* Niko Henrichon – Hostile Tome 1 (Dupuis)
* Steve McNiven – Kick-Ass #1 Variant (Marvel Comics)
* Dean Motter – Mister X: The Condemned #1 (Dark Horse)
* David Sim – Glamourpuss #4 Zombie Variant (Aardvark-Vanaheim)
Webcomics/Bandes Dessinées Web
* Kate Beaton – Hark! A Vagrant http://harkavagrant.com
* Michael Cho – Papercut http://www.transmission-x.com/_papercut
* Lar De Souza & Ryan Sohmer – Least I Could Do http://www.leasticoulddo.com / Looking for Grouphttp://www.lfgcomic.com/
* Kathryn & Stuart Immonen – Moving Pictures http://www.immonen.ca/comics
* Karl Kerschl – The Abominable Charles Christopher http://www.abominable.cc
* Gisele Lagace – Menage A 3 http://www.menagea3.net/
* Ramón K. Pérez– Kukuburi http://www.kukuburi.com / Butternut Squash (w/Robert Coughler) http://www.butternutsquash.net
* Cameron Stewart – Sin Titulo http://www.sintitulocomic.com/
Publisher/Éditeur
* Aardvark-Vanaheim
* Arcana Studio
* Conundrum Press
* Drawn & Quarterly
* La Pastèque
* Les 400 Coups/Mécanique Générale
* Red 5 Comics
* Udon Entertainment
—
All of this information and much, much more available at http://joeshusterawards.com/.
– Christopher