[JAPAN]
Word comes via Kotaku that Japanese Police Are Hunting Otaku… okay, it’s not “most dangerous game” territory (yet!) but the rumours had been spreading amongst the online fan community in Japan that visible Otaku were being stopped and interrogated by police for… seemingly no reason? A Japanese website called “Tanteifile” sent a reporter into the field dressed like a stereotypical otaku, camoflage pants and all, and sure enough he was stopped and interrogated, made all the funnier/sadder by the fact that they’d planted a special note on him mentioning how sad it was that the police were targetting otaku. You really oughtta read this story, as it’s pretty amazing, and as clear a delineation of how Otaku are treated in the east versus how they’re treated in the west. {Link via}
[COMICS KICKING REAL BOOKS OUT OF THE LIBRARY]
From Derek Weiler at The Quill & Quire blog comes word that literary fiction is facing an increasingly tough time of it… not necessarily in the marketplace, but before it even gets there. Many publishing reps are admitting that it is the commercial prospects, and not the quality of the work, that’s determining whether a work is published. The Guardian’s Mark Lawson:
“At the Christmas parties, many publishers were talking guiltily about new books by authors you might have heard of – winner of a Whitbread 20 years ago, writer of that book that became that film – that they have been forced to turn down because marketing was alarmed. This has happened largely because of a shift in the priorities of libraries, which used to be a guaranteed haven for several thousand copies of hardbacks that take a bit of brain work, but which are now rapidly ceding shelf-space to Citizens Advice Bureau leaflets or DVDs.“
Sure, he doesn’t specifically cite graphic novels, but read between the lines! All of the advances of graphic novels in libraries have to have come at a price… What happens when fields that graphic novels have supplanted start firing back! Will the massive circulation numbers of Naruto be able to ward off the accusations that kids should be reading Literature? Fortify the battlements!
[BEST OF 2007]
Not much more to say other than that Dirk Deppey’s best of 2007 list is really quite good, and one of the best I’ve seen so far. His number one choice is interesting too. Really well-written article, go check it out.
– Christopher