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Following Up: Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, Then And Now

The following was written on January 2nd, 2009:

monster_vol_18_200px

So following my last post on the recently completed Naoki Urasawa’s MONSTER, I went for a drink with my friends Derek and Gary, and we shot the shit about the series over beers. I have to say I feel a lot better about the ending having bounced my thoughts off of a couple of smart, well-read comics fans.

So, Spoilers.

Essentially, I wasn’t sure if all of the plot threads that had been developed had actually woven together in the end. My biggest problem was that the exact nature of the lessons were never really revealed. We even got to see into them at one point, but it seemed to be mostly recitations of a few songs and books… I ended up filling in the gaps, realising that the same sort of subliminal manipulation that Johan had been using throughout the series is the same way that he was manipulated, that the books/songs were part of that… but considering the volume of… data… dumped on the reader in the last few volumes, it would’ve been nice to get more than a peak through a partially-opened door. But yeah, I made my peace, and the theme of tearing down society being repeated from small to large (Johann manipulating individual children, the orphanage, the cartels, and finally a whole town) helped put all of it into perspective.

The other thing that bothered me was the cross-dressing. It was immediately obvious to me that Nina and Johann were switched during the scenes with the children being taken away to the Rose Mansion the first time, that it was Nina that was “awakened” and that Johan was fucked up in other ways, but I don’t understand why they were both dressed as girls as children. I suppose it’s because their mom would’ve gotten kicked out if she had two children rather than one? I don’t remember that being addressed though, and it just struck me as a little “surprise for surprise’s sake.”

Finally, I had a general sense of unease about the very ending, the conversation between Tenma and the twins’ mother, and the ‘conversation’ between Tenma and Johan. Essentially, I thought the former should have been more explicit, and the latter seemed like a cheat. My friend Derek put forth the theory that the conversation between Tenma and Johan really didn’t happen, and instead, Tenma’s dream was actually the content of his conversation with the mother. Johan wouldn’t have known about the mother’s decision. That kind of works, for me, but it requires some logical leaps that aren’t really in the story. I’m inclined to be more foregiving because I enjoyed everything up to the end very much, MONSTER is really a fantastic page-turning read, but I also feel it’s the kind of series that, because it turned on its plot reveals, needed an ending that was really conclusive and put all of the toys back in the box. Abhay has the right idea in the comments section:

“I was really disappointed with Monster’s ending when I read it, but having looked at it again since, I think it’s an okay set of chapters on its own terms, that just suffers just in terms of the expectations that are built going into it, based upon 17 previous books with more at stake. On its own terms it’s as thoughtful and entertaining as any previous episode– just as an ending, I felt disappointed.” – Abhay 

…and then I stopped writing. I got distracted by the site re-design, and my manga industry posts, and tenthousand other things. And now it is February 16th and I have something to add.

Since beginning to write a follow-up on my reaction to Monster, I’ve had a chance to really ruminate on the series and discuss it with people. A good number of my customers read this site now, and so they’ll come in to the store after reading something I’ve written here and ask me questions like “So you didn’t like Monster’s ending… should I keep reading it?” and my gut reaction is “Yes, of course.” Not because I’m a salesperson (heh) but because when I think about the time I spent reading Monster, I realize that I really, really enjoyed it. My disatisfaction with the ending was for what I thought were very specific reasons, but the ending very clearly didn’t ruin my enjoyment of the rest of it. And! And the more I thought about it, the more I really enjoyed it.

Okay, I’m going to stop talking in bold.

So, I went back and read the comments to my last post on Monster a couple of times and I think that, really, there are different readings of the series and some of them work and some of them don’t. Myk, one of the commenters, said this:

Well, it’s been something like two years since I read Monster, but I always thought that, as much as it is a riff on the classic “innocent fugitive wants to prove his innocence” theme, it is also an allegorical take on the creation process of an author.

Case in point, the huge role that books play in the second half of the series, how theMonster is created and all that. I saw Tenma and Johann as the two main forces an author has to fight with, when creating a work of fiction.

Tenma – the good guy – as the author’s side that is necessarily in love with the characters he created, who wants to preserve them, save them and keep the safe from harm.

Johann on the other hand as the destructive force, that knows that there must be destruction, tragedy, to propell the story forward to a conclusion.

So is Monster just an author’s extended internal monologue on how to treat his creations? Might be. Might be I’m reading too much into it. But at the very least I think people are not giving Urasawa quite as much credit as would be due. – Myk

monster_johann_childAnd that’s fair. And the more I think about it, I do think that judging the series entirely on how it sets up, and then follows-through, on the plot is maybe not entirely fair to the work. Or as Myk said, extending enough credit to the author. I know that in the one comic I’ve written in the last 20 years, the plot wasn’t nearly as important as emotion and resonance, and so maybe I should extend the same consideration to the author?

Further, as you can see above I really was starting to come around on the plot, that most of my initial problems with how it came together worked themselves out once I was able to start a dialogue about the work. Sort of like an impromptu book-club, discussing the work to see if it succeeded or not. In short, I think Naoki Urasawa’s Monster is a successful series (though not without its problems), and I feel a lot better about it now then after I read the whole series in a single day (surprise, surprise). I’ve got no problem recommending it to folks, and I’ll be keeping copies of all 18 volumes on my bookshelf, to be re-read again sometime (maybe with a bit of a break between volumes though…).

Thanks to everyone who chimed in with their thoughts on the series both in the comments and at the store!

– Christopher

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Viz To Publish More Good Stuff

So I twittered excitedly when I heard the news, but just to follow up, I’m really happy that this:

gogomonster.jpg

…is coming to North America! Taiyo Matsumoto’s original graphic novel (a real rarity in Japan…) Go Go Monster! is a book I’ve personally been looking forward to seeing for years. Back in the day, a website I was visiting when I was researching Matsumoto put up the then-new television commercials (!) for this book, and it was the distillation of that desire for the unknown that I feel feeds a lot of what I love about manga. Youtube has one of the commercials:

I’ve had copies in my hand a couple of times, in Japan I decided another heavy hardcover book was probably a bad purchase and so I left it on the shelf when I was buying one of everything Matsumoto… Mostly because the book has been widely available in French-language translation for years now and we’ve had copies at the store pretty regularly. But I held out hope for an English edition, and lo! And Behold! We’ll all have a chance to pick it up this fall. I’ll try not to be obnoxious in recommending it.

Meanwhile! New work from Taiyo Matsumoto wasn’t the extent of Viz’s new license announcements. Most websites have run with the lead story–New Work From Rumiko Takahashi! I like Ms. Takahashi’s work a great deal, but seeing her work in English, at this point, is something of an inevitability. No, I was much more interested in seeing that Viz was going to be releasing this:

notsimple_cover_interiors

During my trip to Japan in 2007, I spent a lot of time digging through manga stores like Book-Off and Mandarake, and I visited pretty much every single bookstore we came across. A then-new release caught my eye in several of the stores, and–you guessed it!–it was Not Simple by Natsume Ono. Funnily enough, I actually bought it TWICE while I was there for two weeks, because everywhere I went I kept picking it up, being amazed by it, and then putting it back down… or so I thought. It’s a really interesting book, it reminds me a little bit of Sexy Voice and Robo which Viz published a few years back. The storytelling is superb, very easy to follow even in another language. I also found myself drawn to the art style, which uses heavy blacks and simple lines to communicate a wide range of body-language and emotions, it’s great. I also figured out that Ono also does yaoi and gay-themed work under the nom-de-plume “Basso”, and I bought up a bunch of that as well.  Heh, I actually bought a couple of books of her work at the New York Book-Off this past weekend before I heard the good news. So despite having paged-through this one 3 or 4 times already, I’m pretty darned excited about really reading it for the first time.

So, in closing, it’s gonna be a good fall ’09.

– Christopher

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Diamond Order Minimums Follow-Up

“If comics shops are to stop being the place to get all the comics and simply become, say, the best place to get comics, there’s a ton of work to do in that direction. If they are just another place to get comics, there’s work to be done to prepare for the greater competition they have today. If they are the place to get a certain kind of comics, they need to be ready for the implications of that stance, too. I don’t see the Big Picture gain. I don’t see a Big Picture.

“In 1997 Diamond could make decisions and know that it was doing so in an insulated world where there only fall-out was contained within that system. In 2009, there exists no such insulation.”

– Tom Spurgeon, Comics Reporter

So, seriously? I haven’t got much of a follow-up, I think Tom Spurgeon’s excellent essay really says it all, a marvelous and passionate defence of comic books and an excoriation of Diamond’s decision, while offering lots of tenable solutions designed to strengthen the direct market.

I did want to address two comments from my last post on the subject though:

“Is the market failing because of Diamond’s actions, or is Diamond acting like this because the market has already started to fail? Are massive price rises and a drastic cutback in the product line signs that the market is already collapsing of its own accord, and that Diamond can’t think of anything to reverse it?”

– Paul O’Brien

Both, and no. Firstly, the market is changing, but I don’t think the market is failing anymore or less because of “changing market conditions” or “the economic crisis,” and the fact that Diamond is also a  bookstore distributor sort of points to them seeing a change in the system coming. Diamond’s difficulties in serving the direct market are well-known, and no one has made any compelling argument that the nature of the direct market–a specialty retail market like any one of hundreds in North America–is specifically doomed by anything other than reductive actions like these. As for the latter question, you’re not right, but you’re almost there: This order minimum is a massive failure of imagination, and I have no problem pinning that award to their chests. See Spurgeon’s post for ideas.

As to Franklin Harris’ comments, Dirk Deppey refuted them excellently last week, and I don’t think much more needs to be said other than “Oh come on.”

– Christopher

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At the New York Comic Con

hendricks

Hello, readership! I actually wanted to follow up that post yesterday and address some of the stuff in the comments section, but I’m going to be a little busy at the New York Comic Con for the next few days. I just wanted to give a heads-up that you can follow me on Twitter and Flickr for updates from the con-floor.

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/comics212/

Twitter: http://twitter.com/comics212dotnet

I’m currently getting ready for the afternoon programming at the ICv2 Conference (the morning stuff on the internet seemed strange–no web-cartoonists on the webcomics panel?–so I passed) and gotta get my but in gear to get to the show. Very public thanks to my lovely host Liz who put us up in Brooklyn and took us out for delicious gin cocktails last night, as seen above. 

Cheers,

– Christopher

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The Diamond Post

So! A little while ago I promised to explain the following statement in more depth:

“Diamond’s new order minimums increase is going to hurt the DM worse than Marvel’s Heroes World Debacle did. It is essentially the beginning of the end for the Direct Market, in my estimation. Specifically because Diamond Comics Distributors is a monopoly.” – Me, a couple weeks back.

Then I got too busy to follow-up. Since then Bill Schanes at Diamond has followed-up with a couple of interviews, and most-everyone has weighed in on it. But since it’s about 6 hours before I have to get up to go to work, I figure now is the perfect time to, you know, offer my thoughts.

FACTS:

– Diamond’s job is to serve the Direct Market, and specifically the network of comic book specialty stores that make up the direct market.

– Diamond’s goal is to make money at this.

– Diamond does this by buying comics at a deep discount from publishers, and selling them to the retailers at a lesser discount.

– Somewhere along the line, they calculated what it costs to solicit and ship a book to those retailers versus what it makes them, and came up with a dollar figure for their comfortable-profit-zone. I do want to note that this order minimum has never been expressed as “the break even point”, this is just where they make a profit on the book they’re comfortable with.

– Recently, they raised that minimum so that you have to sell $6250 or so of comics, retail, to get distributed. That effectively means anything not in their “top 300”, most months. The books just never show up in stores, despite being ordered.

– They announced these increases under the increasingly specious cover of “economic downturn.”

– They did this and it was pointed out that their sales were DOWN 4% IN 2008!

I’d like to point out that sales were down 4% after numerous increases, year-over-year, for the last 5 years at least. Here’s what ICV2 had to say about the comics industry in 2007:

“It is clear that overall 2007 was a very strong year for comic sales (up 7% compared with 2006), graphic novels (up 18%), and combined sales (up 9%), though the increases in comic and combined sales not quite as strong as in 2006, during which comics (when compared with 2005) sales rose 14%, while graphic novels were up 8% and the combined total was up 13%.” – ICv2

OPINION:

So… what? The combined total sales for comics and graphic novels was up at least 13% in 2007 over 2006, and this is not just the Diamond numbers but I’d be shocked if they weren’t right-in-line. So now comics slip by 4%, putting them what, a few points above 2006, right? 2006 where we actually delivered books that we solicited? Hmm.

I doubt their stated reasoning, flat out. This is all, at best, suspicious. Year-over-year growth in the midst of the graphic novel and manga boom, there’s a slight slip, and now it’s time to cut stuff? Huh.

FACTS:

– Let’s give Diamond the benefit of the doubt on the economic necessity of their moves. Why not.

– After all, Diamond cut the salaries of numerous staff in January. Seriously.

– Diamond is still a monopoly.

– That’s not just a cute word I’m throwing around here… Diamond seized power in a time of uncertainty, eliminating all other national and local specialty distributors of comics and graphic novels by signing prohibitive exclusivity agreements that meant that the vast majority of published comics and graphic novels could, realistically, only be distributed by them. There is no other distributor of comic book periodicals, at least non-returnably (there is the newsstand, but there are lots of reasons that has nothing to do with anything…).

– These were really sweet deals they offered to companies too, to sign exclusive and ditch doing direct-sales to retailers, or work with other distributors. It had nothing to do with the bookstore market, or sales to customers (like companies with a webstore), or any other form of sales. These were exclusives For The Comic Market, designed to make Diamond the only distributor for the comic market.

OPINION:

Fine, let’s… let’s pretend for a moment that this is all okay too. Sure. Why not. Capitalism, right?

FACTS:

– Diamond made themselves the only outlet for comic book periodicals, and graphic novels. Diamond IS the Direct Market.

– They made retailers dependent on them for the vast majority of their business. Diamond IS the Direct Market.

– They systematically removed other avenues of sale for publishers through their exclusivity tactics. Diamond IS the Direct Market.

– And now that there are no competitors, and no other avenues, they are dictating stricter and stricter terms to pubs who won’t play ball with them (ie: sign a brokerage agreement, sign an exclusive, sign a contract to have handle their bookstore distribution).

– They admit flat out this will result in the delisting of 20-30 companies in the first month, with more to come.

– Diamond IS the Direct Market. Distribution, publishing, retail.

OPINION:

This is not a good thing. Monoculture is not a good thing, it leaves us susceptible to disease, to being wiped-out entirely.

I have always argued this, and while my arguments haven’t fallen on deaf ears, exactly, many companies have made decisions that embrace a “streamlined” DM, to what I feel will be their eventual detriment… Once you eliminate the bottom, the middle becomes the new bottom. I’m having a hard time seeing how anyone is going to be renegotiating their exclusivity deal with Diamond from a position of anything approaching “strength” in the next few years. Diamond has just told you that they want the low-hanging fruit, and that fruit’s just gonna get lower and lower.

But even more importantly than that: Diamond is pushing content out of the Direct Market.

Let me say that again:

Diamond Is Pushing Content Out Of The Direct Market

We established this way up at the top there, “Diamond’s job is to serve the direct market.” So you tell me, by denying entry to creative people, by setting the minimums above what _all comics_ not in the top 300 can accomplish, and only ‘working’ with their core publishers, how are they serving the direct market?

The only answer that comes to mind is “because this will allow them to continue to exist.” No insider information here, nothing that’s not out in the open, but staff cuts, salary cuts, and big cost cutting? I’m sure New York will be a-twitter.

Because seriously?

If this is not a necessary move, then it’s an incredibly stupid one.

Diamond’s job is to serve the Direct Market, so why are they sending publishers to find other ways to sell their books, ways that aren’t the direct market?

I help run a direct market comic book store, one of the best in the industry. I’m going to be honest with you here: We will weather the storm.

But we’re also on the front lines of indy publishing and retailing: Between my independent comics festival and my indy comics friends and my goddamned zine rack, and our Diamond orders where the back of the catalogue is almost always worth more than Marvel, DC, Image, and Dark Horse combined. The publishers that are going to be the ones that disappear out of the back of the catalogue are ones that we order, and the books that have customers who come to my store specifically for them. So, you know, I know what I’m talking about here.

This move is going to push publishers to produce comics that effectively _can’t_ be sold by Diamond, by the Direct Market. Webcomics, digital print-to-order, print-on-demand, comics with low profit-margins, produced in small numbers, sold directly by the creator to the reader.

And it’s probably going to work.

Already some of the solutions that have been floated for small publishers tout this method. More importantly, more and more comics creators–and I want to stress that many of these people are my friends, this is not anecdotal–are making a living solely through the digital publication and distribution of their work. Either through merch or advertising or other sales. Comics creators have found a successful alternate way of making money doing comics, that has nothing at all to do with comic book stores.

And Diamond has provided the kick-in-the-ass to get more people to follow that path.

Diamond is serving the Direct Market, by encouraging publishers to stay the FUCK OUT of the Direct Market. Sending books that I want to sell, and customers I want to sell them to, to a completely different distribution stream where I don’t make any money.

FACTS:

– The margins on digital-print-to-order and POD books are too poor for the books to be sold competitively through most comic book stores.

– Think that webcomics can work as a “proving ground” for books, only to be embraced by the direct market when they’ve “proven themselves”? Think again! The Direct Market hates webcomics! Check this out:

Johanna Draper-Carlson: Publishers are currently preparing their giveaway titles for Free Comic Book Day (FCBD), which will be on May 3, 2008. Three planned webcomic-related titles won’t be included, though, because even though their publishers participated in previous years, they were rejected for 2008. I’ve interviewed Chris Crosby about his reaction to this decision.

Will you be participating in FCBD this year?

Crosby: Apparently not, as all three titles were rejected by Diamond on the advisement of their FCBD committee. The reason given was “no core title being currently published, or the current books sales not warranting the FCBD promotional support.” … Most of our 3 million+ readers do not read print comic books, not including print collections of webcomics. Not because webcomics are free and webcomic readers are cheap, but because they haven’t yet been exposed to a print comic that interested them enough. When webcomics participate in FCBD, we are actively promoting the event to millions of readers. Those are potential new comic shop customers, assuming you can grab them enough with a title they’ll want to try while they’re in the store. … Since we’re not being allowed to participate in FCBD 2008, we won’t be trying to drive our millions of readers into comic shops this year.

OPINIONS:

Yeah.

I’m not a dullard, I know that the digital revolution is well underway and the paradigm? It’s shifting. But it isn’t shifted, and it’s a little disconcerting to see my largest retail partner pushing content away from my market and into one I can’t touch. I think that’s a WEIRD DECISION TO MAKE.

I’m going to say this flat out, probably the most indefensible part of this whole post, but here goes: Diamond has a responsibility to the market it has created. And that responsibility doesn’t start and stop with making money.

“It is essentially the beginning of the end for the Direct Market, in my estimation.”

Is that hyperbole? I can’t tell. Once upon a time a friend of mine wrote an angry-young-manifesto imploring all who would hear him to tear the direct market to the ground and let something else rise up out of the ashes. I feel like we’re closer to that now than we’ve ever been, but I never thought it would be Diamond doing it. Diamond can’t afford to distribute comic books to comic book stores. Not all comic books of course, just the ones that aren’t superheroes or licensed other-media tie-ins. Or exclusive to Diamond.

No retailer is immune to the effects of this. No publisher (save 2…) is immune to the effects of this. This is going to change the market quicker and in ways that none of you would ever have expected.

And in the end, none of this ensures a healthy Diamond Comics Distributors. We’re all still taking are chances with a distributor that the vast majority of comic retailers and publishers spend great amounts of time ripping-on, in public and private…

Good luck in 2009 everyone.

– Christopher

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Diamond Order Minimums: Beginning of the end for the Direct Market

I’m going to write a full post on this, but I wanted to get this out there early:

Diamond’s new order minimums increase is going to hurt the DM worse than Marvel’s Heroes World Debacle did. It is essentially the beginning of the end for the Direct Market, in my estimation. Specifically because Diamond Comics Distributors is a monopoly.

So, yeah. All the reasoning is coming later (like: Scott Pilgrim Volume 1 would not have made the new retail cut off, based on its original initial orders). This Is Not Good.

Fun Fact: Do you know what it costs to be a direct market retailer? $600 minimum order each month. A cost between 4 and 10 times less than what it costs to be a publisher, apparently. Figure that one out.

– Christopher

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Drawn & Quarterly Solicitations for Items Shipping in May 2009

george_sprott

George Sprott
By Seth
Hardcover, 10 x 14 inches, 96 pages with gatefold, full color.
$ 24.95
ISBN: 978-1897299-51-7

The first major new graphic novel by Seth in 3 years.

Celebrated cartoonist and New Yorker cover artist Seth gives us the fictional life of George Sprott. On the surface George seems a charming, foolish, old man—but who is he? And who was he? Told as a patchwork tale, we come to know George, piece by piece, in a series of “interviews,” flashbacks, and personal reminiscences. George Sprott is a story about time, identity, loss, and the persistence of memory. Though, ultimately, this is the story of a man’s death, Seth leavens it with humor and restraint. Originally serialized in The New York Times Magazine, this greatly expanded and “re-mastered” version is George Sprott’s first publication as a complete work.

Note: An excellent companion to the Seth-edited and designed Collected Doug Wright.

********

collected_doug_wright_vol1

The Collected Doug Wright: Canada’s Master Cartoonist
By Doug Wright. Designed and Edited by Seth.
Hardcover, 9.5 x 14 inches, 240 pages, full color
$ 39.95
ISBN: 978-1-897299-52-4

A career-spanning retrospective of one of the masters of North American cartooning, featuring an introduction by Lynn Johnston

The first of a historic two-volume set, The Collected Doug Wright: Canada’s Master Cartoonist presents the first-ever comprehensive look at the life and career of one of the most-read and best-loved cartoonists of the 1960s. Compiled in cooperation with Doug Wright’s family, it draws from thousands of pieces of art, pictures, letters, and the artist’s own journals to provide a fully rounded view of Wright, both as a cartoonist and as an individual. Wright was a major figure in mid-20th century cartooning and his work was a major influence on the likes of Chester Brown, Dave Sim, Lynn Johnston, and Seth. From the 1950s to 1980, Wright’s weekly strip was read by over 2 million Canadians and was syndicated across the country. Designed by the acclaimed cartoonist and Peanuts designer Seth and featuring a biographical essay by journalist Brad Mackay, this lavish hardcover collection gives Wright’s career the recognition it has long been due. The introduction is by one of the most famous working cartoonists today, Lynn Johnston, of the syndicated heavyweight comic strip For Better or For Worse.

Note: An excellent companion to Seth’s new graphic novel, George Sprott.

********

Offered Again This Month:

Berlin Volume 1: City of Stones (New 5th Printing), by Jason Lutes
Berlin Volume 2: City of Smoke (New 2nd Printing), by Jason Lutes
Wimbledon Green, by Seth
It’s A Good Life If You Don’t Weaken, by Seth 

Product Information After The Cut.

Continue reading “Drawn & Quarterly Solicitations for Items Shipping in May 2009”

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Site survey

If I had a small banner ad (468×60) between every post on the site that was 1000 words or more (at the end of the post), how upset would you be?

1 is not upset, 10 is stop-reading-the-site.

Answer honestly, I can take it.

EDIT:

Hey, thanks for the support folks. It looks like, judging by people who bothered to respond, about 5% of you are going to end up annoyed with me. I guess we’ll find out soon.

And yeah, I have no plan to start using Google Adsense. The lack of control is really gross, I generally approve every advertisement that runs on the site, something I can’t do with Google. I know a number of my friends ended up with pro-Prop 8 ads through AdSense, for example, and I’d rather take my site offline then have something like that happen.

New post soon.

– Chris