Precocious Curmudgeon

Retailers seem to be lining up at ICv2 to voice their displeasure with Tokyopop’s on-line exclusives:

Ed Sherman of Rising Sun Creations:

“It doesn't make sense to pursue promoting poorer-selling titles online when there are so many hot Tokyopop titles that have been out of print for so long. I cannot get copies of Kingdom Hearts #1-3, Loveless #1, or Battle Club #1, just to name a few. These are all strong selling books that have been out of stock for months.”

(David Taylor offers his thoughts on Sherman’s comments at Love Manga.)

J. Carmody of Serenity Studios:

“Tokyopop was my first choice for the manga lines, however with their recent news, I will continue to promote and sell Tokyopop product but I will be selecting a different publisher to use as the flagship publisher in my advertising decisions for manga-related product from now on.”

Any volunteers?

Robert Brown of The Anime Corner:

“Holding titles hostage from the retail channel to force manga readers to come to their Website will resonate with fans as a form of coercion, and will not be well received.”

Brown also mentioned the difficulty in restocking popular titles, which seems to be coming up fairly often in reaction to this initiative. I don’t know if bookstore chains are having the same problem, but it seems… I don’t know… anecdotally common among Direct Market retailers.

Recovering retailer and veteran blogger Dorian looks at it from the perspective of someone who helps a shop fill out their monthly manga order:

“My first impulse, honestly, is to simply stop ordering any Tokyopop titles outside of what we need to fill pull-lists. Why should I take a chance on ordering a new series from Tokyopop if, two or three volumes later, they might decide that it isn't selling what they think it should be and make it an online exclusive item? Why should I attempt to build an audience for a title in the store if Tokyopop could decide that they'd rather cut out the middle-man and sell the title direct themselves? And what do I tell customers already buying a title when Tokyopop decides to take it exclusive?”

Good questions, I think.

And of course, there are the comments on this post at Chris Butcher’s blog, which include more reaction from Chris and this one from Jim Cosmicki:

“Unless these are print to order, they could EASILY still solicit these through Diamond as well as being online. Just don't send them through the bookstore distribution chain. But Tokyopop has a badly designed new webpage to justify, so they go for the cliched ‘web exclusive’ tag instead.”

Update: Dirk Deppy rounds up all this stuff and more and offers his own commentary in today's entry at ¡journalista!.

Update 2: Brigid at MangaBlog takes a trip around the blogsplosion and provides commentary as well.

There are a couple of interesting pieces on comics in libraries, a topic that obviously interests me a whole lot.

The first is a local overview in a letter to The Comics Reporter. Mason Adams uses the occasion of the Roanoke (Virginia) Valley Bookfest to check out the holdings of some local book lenders. Adams is a comics fan and writer for the Roanoke Times.

Steven Grant tackles the topic in this week’s Permanent Damage column at Comic Book Resources. Grant takes a somewhat spandex-centric look at the growing place of graphic novels on library shelves, but it’s an interesting read. And as usual, there are some gems of bluntness:

“Of major concern to many librarians are excesses we could easily get by, if we abandoned the notion that the medium and the art of comics are somehow improved by being a boys' club of unfettered pandering to our own basest instincts. Mainly characterized by triple-E cups and degrading male-dominated sexual content. Strange as it may sound, apparently girls, a large portion of the library comics audience, don't like things like that. Which might be grounds for schism right there, since, apparently, many artists seem to be attracted to comics not to tell stories but to indulge those particular fantasies.”

It’s not fair, as the timing couldn’t have been planned, but I have to chuckle at the simultaneous arrival of the uproar over Tokyopop’s on-line exclusives initiative and the gushy profile of Stuart Levy in yesterday’s PWCW. (David Taylor has a balanced run-down of the piece at Love Manga. At Dangerous Beauty, Lea Hernandez takes a skeptical view of the warm fuzzies.)

And yes, I bitch probably to excess over the mutual love between Publishers Weekly and Tokyopop, but look at some of these excerpts:

• “So you're the prophet.”
• “Tokyopop and manga have changed the bookstore environment completely.”
• “Is Tokyopop still growing?”
• “One thing about manga, and the American book market in general, is that people love to say something is impossible to do, until someone does it.”

And those are from the questions. Now, I’ve lobbed softballs in my time, but wow.

I was talking to a friend about the whole on-line exclusives deal, and we were wondering if (when?) Tokyopop might add a title that’s actually selling into this sales category. We couldn’t really think of any negative reaction that might prevent it, because they’re certainly getting plenty of negative reaction now, so why not try a book that might be more likely to turn a profit?

Kevin Melrose at Blog@Newsarama does a fine job collecting links to reaction to the initiative.

There are certain comics that carry tremendous nostalgia for me. The squeaky teens of the Archie books and the adorable deformities of the Harvey roster take me back to long childhood hours in the station wagon headed from Cincinnati to Massachusetts or Missouri. When I think of super-heroes, images by Johns Buscema, Romita, and Byrne and George Pérez illustrate those thoughts.

In spite of relatively limited exposure to his work (The Rabbi’s Cat, Vampire Loves, a short in Japan as Viewed by 17 Creators), Joann Sfar has managed to make his way onto the list of creators whose work I feel like I’ve been happily reading forever. There are plenty of cartoonists whose work I admire and will happily seek out, but there’s something special about Sfar.

The imminent arrival of Klezmer (First Second) provides another opportunity to figure out exactly what that special quality is. It’s the first installment of a story of a ragtag group of musicians who find their way together through a shared focus on traditional Jewish songs. In it, Sfar covers familiar territory – faith, the intersection of cultures, love, death, and art.

As with his other works, there’s no apparent precision to Sfar’s storytelling. He has a tendency to wander off point and riff on subjects seemingly as they strike him. The tendency can manifest itself as a surprisingly tender and romantic look at the history of Odessa or a who’s-on-first exchange about life after the Yeshiva. But the wanderings end up contributing to the whole. In a Sfar book, you can learn as much or more about the characters when they aren’t talking about themselves as when they are.

And the cast is linked in their shared flight. The band leader saw his companions murdered. The singer is avoiding the inevitability of an arranged marriage. Two have been thrown out of their respective yeshivas. The guitarist almost died at the end of a rope.

Each is ambivalent about the world around them and the sudden arrival of companions as they travel through it. For some, klezmer is a recent discovery. It’s a useful way to make some money or simply the thing that they’ve decided to do next after their original plans fell apart. But the music and the act of performing it has the power to sneak up on them. It’s something they and their audiences can share, even if it isn’t the product of their culture or if it holds no particular nostalgia for them.

It all unfolds in a lovely way that’s both casual and powerful. More than just about any other comic creator I can think of, Sfar folds in big ideas without ever turning them into Big Ideas. His observations can be absolutely scathing, but they don’t curdle things; the tone of Klezmer is ultimately expansive, even if individual moments can be bleak.

His illustrations, done in watercolors, are perfectly in synch with the story he’s telling. Sfar’s visual style is distinct but incredibly versatile. It can be simplistic, even crude, and wonderfully expressive at the same moment.

I’m still not precisely sure how Sfar has managed to make such an impression on me so quickly. It’s enough that he always creates inviting, imaginative worlds to visit, places that are both warmly familiar and surprising.

(This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.)

Bill Flanagan has some thoughts on just why Tokyopop might be offering on-line exclusives over at Sensei’s Ramblings. It’s an interesting look at the costs and perils of getting a book onto the shelves, and Flanagan ends it on an optimistic note:

“If a publisher can sell weird and off-beat manga from their site and still make a profit, it means that there is a viable avenue for things like more Josei manga, more quirky seinen manga, more older manga, and more of any other genre that doesn't do well in retail by giving them a way of succeeding on fewer units sold.”

Flangan’s piece does make me wonder if the possibility of a sleeper manga hit – a title that builds an audience slowly but surely over time – really exists in manga publishing. How many titles are on the shelves at all because they’re being subsidized by their publisher’s hit books?

Speaking of Tokyopop, there’s an interview with CEO Stuart Levy in this week’s Publishers Weekly Comics Week. It’s pretty much what you’d expect, only more so. Like... cubed.

Brigid at MangaBlog, Kevin Melrose at Blog@Newsarama, and David Taylor at Love Manga have already covered ICv2’s interview with Tokyopop’s Mike Kiley, so I’ll limit myself to just one reaction: I have to go to their web site to buy Dragon Head?

Oh, hell.

Between that and my somewhat belated realization that DMP has put Bambi and Her Pink Gun on hiatus, it looks like I’m going to have to find some new twisted and violent manga to fill that reading niche. At least I still have Eden and Anne Freaks, the latter of which releases a new volume this week.

Aside from that (and Anne Freaks doesn’t seem to be shipping to my shop of choice this week anyways), there isn’t really any reason for me to hit the LCS on Wednesday. That probably should depress me at least a little bit, but construction, traffic and parking are all so horrible in town at the moment that I’m really, really relieved.

I’ll head over to the bookstore instead and pick up some recommended titles. And I have a coupon!

We went to a canine agility show this weekend. I’ve seen them on television before, and I assumed this would be another collection of slightly crazed border collies and Australian shepherds.

In reality, there were tons of breeds competing, from huge to wee tiny. And the longhaired Dachshund and Pomeranian in particular rocked that obstacle course.

Of course, the ventilation in the arena was kind of poor, and there was some serious dog grooming product in the air. It was like a fog of puppy perm solution.

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I meant to link to this when I first saw it, because it’s hilarious. Better late than never, I guess. Dr. Scott at Polite Dissent answers frequently asked questions about the dos and don’ts of the Superhero Registration Act. Don’t skip the comments.

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John Jakala not only provides a handy guide to graphic novel content in Entertainment Weekly, he spots earth’s mightiest homage, courtesy of Tokyopop. (I find both sites virtually impossible to navigate, so extra points to John for stamina.)

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If I had known today was Joann Sfar’s birthday, I would have tried to get my Klezmer review done. I love the book, by the way.

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In this week’s Flipped, I basically stand out of the way while the delightful Robin Brenner talks about manga in libraries, graphic novels for young adults, collection controversies, and a bunch of other subjects.

In a lot of juvenile fiction, the moral is the same: “Be yourself.” Don’t compromise your beliefs or values for some artificial notion of success or popularity. The moral sounds good on paper and on film, and it’s good advice in general.

Of course, these fictions are often constructed in such a way that there really isn’t any other sensible choice. Being yourself may not be the easiest path, but it’s clearly the most rewarding one. You may not score the flashy outcomes, but the really important ones –true friends, romance, self-respect, the Mathalon trophy – are within your grasp.

Reality is much messier, obviously. No matter what your age, “be yourself” isn’t always intuitively useful advice. And there are always instances where others are all too happy to make assumptions on precisely who the real you is based on the flimsiest (or laziest) of pretexts.

There’s an undeniable thread of “Be yourself” running through Gene Yang’s American Born Chinese (First Second), but he frames it with so much wit and frankness that it never seems simplistic or cliché. It’s a bracingly funny look at racism (both blatant and internalized).

He breaks the book into three stories. In the first, the Monkey King thinks his stature and accomplishments rank him as an equal among the supernatural pantheon. (The pantheon disagrees.) In the second, Jin struggles with the burdens and assumptions of being “the Chinese kid” in an overwhelmingly white school. The third is a grotesque sitcom where bland young Danny’s every step towards popularity is undone by the annual visit of Cousin Chin-Kee, a horrific amalgamation of Chinese stereotypes.

Each of the concurrent stories has its own style, from revisionist fable to coming-of-age slice of life to nightmare with canned laughter. The styles support each other, as do the stories. They accumulate into a larger view of the ways cultural and individual influences intersect and conflict. Yang’s artistic style is appealingly simple and clear throughout.

The formal intersection of the three stories isn’t entirely effective, and the ending seems a bit rushed. It’s hard to see how it could have been otherwise, because Yang isn’t telling the kind of story that can really be concluded neatly, if at all.

There’s tough, challenging material here, and Yang doesn’t diminish it by delivering it with a general lightness of tone. If anything, the comic warmth of the book makes the sharper moments more effective. Should you really have laughed at that? Would you in a different context?

(This review was based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher. Yang has written a series of posts about American Born Chinese at First Second’s blog.)

Lyle at Crocodile Caucus has two great posts up. (Well, he always has a bunch of great posts up, but these two in particular caught my eye.)

He takes a look at the current state of Shojo Beat and its roster of titles and ponders future directions for the anthology:

"Now, however, I’m wondering which title will get rotated out of the magazine next and how I’ll react. For the moment, it looks likely we’ll see titles rotated in and out of Shojo Beat every three months and a series I’m enjoying will get the boot."

Suspenseful, no?

Lyle also takes a very constructive look at the possibilities of a social network as a marketing resource:

"Looking at it as a marketing geek, I’m mostly thinking of how one can make the product a social experience, intertwining the product and the bonds of friendship. Considering how manga fandom (which is largely made up of people who buy manga) is so social, that should be easier to accomplish than with other products."

Lots of interesting thoughts there.

As someone who works in higher education marketing, one of the questions that is currently baffling me (and just about all of my colleagues) is how to effectively harness the power of an on-line social network (blogs, MySpace, what have you) for marketing communication. I don't know if it's really possible, as the appeal of the social network is that it's wide open and driven by users, and that's often at odds with the messages a college or university wants to send. Imposing those messages on the social network might very likely kill its appeal for users, which would seem to defeat the purpose entirely.

But it will definitely be interesting to see how Tokyopop's efforts in that area evolve.

There are times when a terrific idea for a graphic novel doesn’t result in a terrific comic. I think Journey into Mohawk Country (First Second Books) is one of those instances, though the book has a lot going for it.

George O’Connor has illustrated a journal written by Harmen Meyndertsz Van den Bogaert, a Dutch trader setting off from Fort Orange (now Albany, N.Y.) into Iroquois territory. Van den Bogaert and his two companions are on something of a goodwill mission, hoping to expand fur trade with the Iroquois and gather information on French expansion into the region.

I love the concept behind the book – translating a primary historical source into a contemporary visual format. Obviously it’s not the only current project to take this approach, and it certainly isn’t the one with the highest profile. But it is an intriguing addition to the roster of ways graphic novel creators are re-conceiving non-fiction content.

I’m a big fan of books in this category. I love the energy and goofy wit of the Action Philosophers books (Evil Twin). The morbid precision of Rick Geary’s Treasury of Victorian Murder series is always good, shivery company. Ande Parks and Chris Samnee were audacious with Capote in Kansas, their graphic novelization of the creation of a non-fiction novel. And Jim Ottaviani assembled a who’s who of creators for Dignifying Science to tell the stories of groundbreaking women scientists.

But with Journey into Mohawk Country, my interest in the concept outweighs my interest in the content. Van de Bogaert did not seem to be writing for posterity, providing instead a somewhat dry recounting of the events of his travels. Pieces like this – letters, legers, maps, journals – contribute to the tapestry of history, but the interest for me is their context, or what they say about a point in time.

O’Connor resists the urge to contextualize Van de Bogaert’s experiences, which is both admirable and problematic. He’s respecting his source material, contributing only slight embroideries to Van de Bogaert’s account in the form of little grace notes of feeling. But that respect also leaves the narrative shapeless. It’s odd to be levying criticisms at a writer who never intended for his words to be purposed in this particular way, but that’s the conundrum of the book.

I like O’Connor’s illustrations, which are generally lively and expressive. They’re not so exaggerated or stylized that they contradict the source material, nor are they so static that they seem like illustrations accompanying a text. They create a solid sense of place, and O’Connor doesn’t entirely resist the urge to indulge in some visual flights of fancy. (I did find myself distracted by one bit character design, though it could just be me. I think the illustrated Van de Bogaert bears an uncanny resemblance to Zonker Harris.)


Colors by Hilary Sycamore serve the book well. She captures the wintry palette of the countryside and the fireside glow of the Mohawk communities. It runs towards the monochromatic at times, but that might reflect the reluctance to embroider on the reality being portrayed. As with all First Second books, Journey into Mohawk Country is beautifully designed.

In the final analysis, I’m of two minds about the book. The narrative doesn’t really engage me, but I want to see more books in this vein based on more gripping source material. As an individual graphic novel, I think Journey into Mohawk Country has tremendous potential value as an educational tool. Not only does it provide a specific and personal window into a period of history, it’s an exciting example of imaginative ways to communicate history.

(This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.)

While looking through the Flipped archives, I’m starting to worry that I’m leaning too heavily on my personal pet titles. Actually, Dave Carter’s wonderful Undiscovered Gems contest planted that seed, which was then watered by Jarred of MangaCast who pointed out not one but two cooking mangas that had completely escaped my notice.

As a result, I’m hoping to expand my horizons a bit, with your help. Is there a manga title you’re really enjoying now that doesn’t seem to have a seat at the cool kids’ table? That never seems to get reviewed or name-checked in the general discourse? (I’d like to stick with things that are currently and widely in print. As much as I love finding obscure manga, it can be frustrating to see someone talk about a book and have to search high and low for it.)

I can’t guarantee I’ll love it as much as you do, but I promise to give it a shot. Just post the book in the comments section or send me an e-mail at DavidPWelsh at yahoo dot com, and I’ll do my best to work it into the rotation.

MangaBlog’s Brigid pulls out all of the CMX highlights from the ICv2 interview with Paul Levitz. I agree with her that neglecting to recognize the contributions of director of manga Asako Suzuki (and CMX honcho Jim Chadwick) was a mistake, because they’ve both done a lot to turn the ship. First and foremost, we know who they are and what they do. Second, they seem to be repositioning CMX from being DC’s manga arm to a publisher with a reputation and a philosophy independent of its parent company. And I think that’s a good thing.

I also agree with remarks from Ed (MangaCast) Chavez in the comments section, particularly this one:

“They will have a tough of mad otaku to overcome. And I feel that announcements made in 2005 (the obscure shojo faze, which is something I feel every manga publisher that wants to be considered serious goes through) made it hard to take seriously for a while. But with some fun quirky releases (Omukae desu., Yubisaki Infinity) and some titles that really push the envelope … they are not sticking to the conservative play book anymore.”

It’s an interesting view of CMX’s rehabilitation process in that it portrays their efforts as almost remedial – doing now what they probably should have done from the start. I’ve really been taken with a lot of CMX’s recent and upcoming releases, and it seems smart to try and rebuild a reputation based on title quality and a willingness to step a little bit out of conventional categories.

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I also really enjoyed Kai-Ming Cha’s interview with Makoto (Yellow) Tateno in the latest Publishers Weekly Comics Week (formatting/copy editing problems aside). I passed on Yellow, but now I’m thinking I’ll have to go back and give it a look.

“Actually, I had been reading a lot of boys' love and seeing a lot of seme and uke things going on. I like the pairing of Starsky and Hutch--the officer type of story. I wanted to write something like that, something different.”

There are also interesting bits on how she juggles concurrent work in yaoi and shôjo, and what seems like good advice for would-be manga-ka:

“Draw a lot. My advice is that even if you're not that good, even if you're copying the artwork of others, just keep going. Eventually you'll find your own style.”

I seem to remember that notion – even just copying work you admire builds up your muscles as an illustrator -- coming up a lot in the interviews in Manga: Masters of the Art.

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This announcement from Cold Cut is interesting to me mostly because news about non-Diamond distribution outlets usually focuses on bankruptcy rumors. I keep meaning to ask the owner of the local shop if he uses anyone but Diamond. I’m pretty sure he does, but maybe I’ll print this out before I go shopping today.

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Also at The Engine, Tom Spurgeon asked for feedback on his Comics Reporter site. He indicates in this post that he’s looking to expand his manga coverage, which is exciting.

Comics blogging used to seem so simple – read comics, write about them, and, with any luck, interesting discussion will ensue. But recent experience has taught me that there are whole layers of impregnable doctrine that render me utterly unqualified to comment on comics not specifically targeted towards my demographic. Well, at least I shouldn’t talk about them through any kind of personal lens that reflects my life or tastes or experience, because then I’m being a cultural imperialist.

So maybe I’ll just confine myself to talking about those comics that are targeted at the late-thirty-something gay man.

Does anyone else hear crickets chirping?

Anyway, with this more enlightened guiding principle in mind, let’s take a look at what this week’s comics hold for me.

I think I could probably get away with Action Philosophers: The People’s Choice (Evil Twin). It’s not specifically targeted to my demographic, but there’s nothing to indicate that I’m excluded either, so we’re off to a promising start.

After reading Lyle’s thoughts on the preview, I’d been kind of interested in Beauty Pop (Viz – Shojo Beat), but I’m neither girl nor tween. In spite of Brigid’s reassurance that her daughters don’t rise up in a rage every time I write anything about Ultra Maniac, I just don’t think I should take the risk.

I’ve really been enjoying Death Note (Viz - Shonen Jump Advanced), but the barrier is right there in the brand. While the “advanced” creates a bit of leeway, It’s been decades since I could be categorized as “shonen” without the accompaniment of derisive laughter.

I think I can get away with Phoenix (Viz – Editor’s Choice), but I’m still catching up on that one, so the current volume will have to wait.

If only First Second, Fanfare/Ponent Mon or Oni had some books coming out this week. Sure, :01 and Oni publish some books for young readers, and I’d have to steer clear of those, but F/PM would be safe as houses for me. (And with all the money I’m saving, I wouldn’t even be bothered by their higher price point!)

Drawn & Quarterly thoughtfully provided that Mr. Jean book, and there’s a companion piece out there. I’ll need to be careful not to try and appropriate the lead character’s heterosexuality for my own purposes, though. And I should probably steer clear of Moomin, which just breaks my heart. I could always improve my French and track down some of the autobiographical comics by Fabrice Neaud.

Alternately, I could read whatever I please, but do so in secret, like a male Japanese teen sneaking looks at his sister’s copy of Bessatsu Margaret when nobody else is around.

Or I could just follow Brigid’s advice to “Read what you like, write what you want, no need to apologize. Life is too short.”

I didn’t think they’d pull it off, but the city has managed to close at least one lane of every major traffic artery, just in time for the fall semester to start. Impressive! Motorists now have the choice of either sitting in traffic for a minimum of ten minutes or driving at least ten miles out of their way, depending on which they find less irritating.

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Weeds is kind of entertaining, mostly for Mary Louise Parker. Her weird, arrhythmic delivery works well with this material, and that isn’t always the case. Kevin Nealon’s acting style seems all wrong for it, though. And when did Elizabeth Perkins turn into Cathy Moriarty?

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There’s no recipe in the Betty Crocker cookbook that doesn’t benefit from doubling or tripling the amount of seasoning they suggest you add. Honestly, when did a quarter of a teaspoon of nutmeg ever do anyone any good?

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The second volume of Shout Out Loud (Blu) is even better than the first. I love the variety of character interactions and relationships, and I think the fandom elements add a nice backdrop. Satosumi Takaguchi does a nice job handling a comparatively large cast.

Wait… I’m already a volume behind?

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For a fairly straightforward (though excellent) shôjo title, the set-up for Penguin Revolution (CMX) is tough to summarize succinctly. Watch me fail miserably in this week’s Flipped!

A reader e-mailed me with a question:

Anyway. I wondered if you could help me by publishing a request for information through, say, PreCur?

Happily!

The problem is this: I'm a relatively recent convert to classic American comic strips, including Hal Foster's PRINCE VALIANT. Fantagraphics republished them all some years back in beautiful outsize editions, but earlier volumes of same are getting rather hard to find. Fantagraphics online shop, however, does have quite a few still in stock, so I began feverishly entering credit-card and other details on the appropriate forms... then noticed, to my dismay, that there's nothing to show whether this part of their site is secured or not. I *assume* it is, but am not really happy about just going ahead on that assumption.

(I probably wouldn't be either.)

So I wondered: have you, or any of your alert readers, bought anything from Fantagraphics online? Has it been a good experience? Any information *most* gratefully received.

I've only ordered directly from Fantagraphics once (the 2005 special edition of The Comics Journal). The book arrived prompty, and I never had any problems with billing. That was a while ago, so I can't remember if there was some indication of the site's security status.

Anyone else have any experiences or information to share?

I picked up dog food yesterday, and I noticed that the brand I get has changed their “Senior 7+” to “Mature Adult,” moving the “Senior 7+” tag to a spot that’s discretely lower on the packaging.

Were dogs finding the “Senior” designation insulting? Is this something dogs worry about? Has my older dog been looking at the bag and feeling dispirited and resentful because it suggests she’s past her prime?

Chris Butcher takes another multifaceted look at yaoi, which is just marvelous in general. I’m particularly fond of the bottom line, which Chris appropriately uses to look at the bottom line:

“The queers are coming. First one to cater their gay porn to the gay community goes home with the money. :)”

I’m going to have to keep my eye on The Hating Blog. Anyone who launches their manga content with a glowing, well-written review of Love Roma is someone worth watching.

John Jakala… I don’t even know where to start, but he used my blather from yesterday as a launch pad for something completely brilliant: the Comic Publisher Personality Quiz.

In her review of You, Me and Dupree at The New York Times, Manohla Dargis notes the peculiar cinematic fondness for thirty-ish men who refuse to grow up. Film (and comics) can be “a virtual playpen for legions of slobbering big babies for whom Peter Pan isn’t a syndrome but a way of life,” as Dargis puts it.

One of the things that makes Philippe Dupuy and Charles Berberian’s Get a Life (Drawn & Quarterly) such a pleasure is that it isn’t about growing up so much as getting older. Mr. Jean, their endearingly average, slightly dyspeptic protagonist, is hovering around thirty, and he isn’t entirely happy about it.

But he isn’t obsessed with it or terrified by the prospect. He’s got a reasonable amount of success at work. His personal life isn’t a wasteland; he’s got friends and romantic companionship. If life isn’t perfect and a major milestone of years is looming, things could certainly be worse. In other words, Mr. Jean is in an age-appropriate place, and that’s refreshing.

Dupuy and Berberian, who divide their duties as creators equally, strike a wonderfully balanced tone in their stories. They’re witty without ever becoming arch and warm without being cloying. As Mr. Jean moves through the highs and lows of everyday life, he encounters friends, family, and neighbors who all provide distinct comforts and frustrations. Chance encounters trigger memories that can be both painful and nostalgic. Each story is a snapshot of a life that feels very real.

The illustrations are very much of a piece with the stories. Character designs are funny and charming but not too exaggerated. Mr. Jean’s body language works particularly well, attuned to all of his many moods. He can be slumped with defeat or exhaustion, rigid with frustration, and even (rarely) comfortably at ease with the way his life is going.

It’s a tremendously comforting comic. The stories are funny, moving glimpses of the everyday. If I were to quibble with anything, it would be the title. I’d say that Mr. Jean already has a life, and an appealingly grown-up one. But it can be hard to see that while you’re busy living it.

Back when I basically stopped reading superhero comics from Marvel and DC, they were characterized by senselessly shocking death and depression for previously amiable c-list characters, significant revision of a-list characters to serve implausible plots, intermittent lateness of big event comics that threw the schedule (and narrative) off-kilter, editors furiously backfilling on-line, and the handful of interesting, sort-of stand-alone titles living under the constant shadow of cancellation.

The less things change, the more things stay the same.

Why do I take the time to observe this? I’m not really sure. I feel like I’m running the risk of sounding like those people who insist that they don’t watch TV or eat refined sugar. (The TV prohibition isn’t always annoying, provided it’s qualified with “because if I started watching TV, I know I’d never turn it off.”) I don’t really want to suggest that frustrated Marvel and DC fans can find a promised land of good comics in manga or from independent publishers, because the pleasures aren’t necessarily transferable.

But darn it, I make so few healthy life choices that I feel the need to celebrate them when they do occur. (“Healthy” should obviously be considered a relative term under these circumstances.)

When I compare Marvel and DC with manga publishers, one of the big distinctions that strikes me is the lack of an evident corporate personality. Obviously those personalities exist, but they don’t impose themselves on the product.

Clearly I find Tokyopop irritating from a corporate perspective, and the whole Manga Revolution/Lifestyle/Line of Casual Wear thing is completely beyond me (probably because I’m old), but it doesn’t stop me from enjoying Tokyopop’s books. Because nothing DJ Milky says in an interview has any influence on whether Fruits Basket breaks my heart or Sgt. Frog makes me laugh or Kindaichi Case Files feeds my intermittent need for grisly homicide.

In the other direction, I’m always delighted to read what the folks at Go! Comi have to say, like Audry Taylor’s dispatches from Comiket. And it’s always nice to hear from David Wise and Jake Forbes, lovely fellows both. But even if they were all scabrous misanthropes, it wouldn’t make any difference, because Go! Comi’s books are routinely excellent.

I mean, look at that interview with Dan DiDio on 52 # whichever where Booster Gold gets slabbed. (Spoiler text now obscured.) The issue sounds kind of icky just in terms of story, but it sounds so much worse when DiDio explains the rationale behind it. But hey, it came out on time! (And so much for those rumors about the DC spandexverse becoming a more cheerful place after Infinite Crisis, huh?)

So what’s my point? I don’t really think I have one aside from general smugness. There probably isn’t anything DC or Marvel could do to win me back at this point, and there’s no reason they should try. Their business and editorial decisions seem to work for them, and there are plenty of other comics publishers out there whose product and priorities work for me. Maybe I just felt a little nostalgic spleen and had to vent it.

I haven’t made it very far into the latest volume of Monster (Viz – Signature), but I’m already kind of loving it. Saintly Tenma’s former fiancé is swanning around in lingerie, snarling at underlings in a way that would make Donna Mills and Joan Collins weep with pride if they weren’t wearing two pounds of make-up on each eye.

“You watch too many soaps,” she sneers at a man she’s playing. So does Naoki Urasawa, if we’re going to be entirely honest about it. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing by any means, because Monster is good, trashy fun.

I had a little flash of defensiveness when Dave Intermittent described Ian McEwan’s novels as “well-written trash,” but the more I think about it, the more I realize he’s right. Listening to McEwan’s Saturday during recent long drives was the nail in the coffin.

It’s taken me a while to realize that McEwan’s pet theme – punishing well-to-do intellectuals for being too self-absorbed – is one that I find really irritating. The construction of his novels is almost always flawless (though Saturday isn’t), and the characters are unusually sympathetic for this genre. (I hated the characters in The Corrections so much that I abandoned the book about a third of the way in.)

But he is capable of writing really entertaining, artful trash, so I’m sure I’ll read more of his books. I’ll just space them out.

(And speaking of entertaining trash, I really thought Jeffrey should have won the latest challenge on Project Runway. I can’t stand him, but that dress was amazing.)

One of the more unsavory aspects of my job is annual attendance at the state fair to schmooze and (hopefully) recruit students. It’s kind of a long haul, to be honest, sitting in a tent for however many days and trying not to laugh at the mullets, which are on display in shocking number and variety. (I find the she-mullet, or demi-poodle, to be the most disturbing. Your mileage may vary.) You also have to keep yourself from leaping up in outrage when some parent says something along the lines of “You ain’t never goin’ to no college anyways.”

So I always reward myself with a trip to one of the better restaurants in the area and eat lots and drink wine and generally relax with a book, because they know how to deal with single patrons and not make them feel like they’ve got some kind of communicable virus that might infect the other happy diners with despair. The book is key, because it indicates seriousness of purpose, that you don’t feel like being rushed, and that you’re capable of entertaining yourself without a companion.

This year I forgot the book. Never again.

There was another single diner seated near me, and he couldn’t have been nicer, but he obviously had heard the despair virus rumor, so he kept trying to engage me in conversation. And, to be honest, the whole trip down here has been about cheerfully engaging strangers in conversation, which is not my best event under any circumstances, so I wasn’t in a rush to contaminate my reward dinner with more of the same.

But what am I supposed to do? Be some icy bastard with this guy who’s really friendly and has the best of intentions? It’s not like I’m on-line, for pity’s sake.

So chat I did, but he had this weird timing, in that he’d ask a question right when I was biting into something, and he’d be really loud and jovial, and it would startle me, so I bit my tongue about four times. I bit my tongue really, really hard, and it definitely affected the flavor or my dinner choices.

Never forget the book.

I’m really enjoying Kevin Melrose and Stacie Ponder’s delightful web-comic, Fenton and Fenton, Boy Detectives, over at Blog@Newsarama. It’s like a tipsy Encyclopedia Brown story with lots of cute gags. I also really love Ponder’s stick-figure character designs and great facial expressions. And I think “Creepies!” will become the new “Jinkies!”

Since I was a big fan of mystery series as a kid (and still am now), I’m predisposed to like anything that makes an affectionate hash of them. My favorites of this type are by Mabel Maney, who did tone-perfect takes on teen detectives like Cherry Ames, Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys, with the slight variation that everyone in the stories is gay.

The Case of the Not-So-Nice Nurse, The Case of the Good-For-Nothing Girlfriend, and A Ghost in the Closet are all cheerful, revisionist fun. They stick very closely to the structure and style of the originals (as I remember them), taking their subtext to its glorious conclusion.

I should dig them out and re-read them during this week’s travel for work, but I got a big stack of books at the library yesterday. (I’d hoped to have an Amazon order on hand, but I’m too cheap to pass on the super-saver shipping, so they’ll be waiting for me when I get back.)

One of the library choices is a Terry Pratchett (Going Postal), and I hadn’t really noticed that he’s published mostly with HarperCollins. Dorian mentioned that there had been some comics adaptations of Pratchett’s work before, but the HC/Tokyopop deal seems like a perfect opportunity for a new round. (I’ve stuck entirely with his Discworld books, but I should really give his young adult and children’s books a look.)

Pratchett’s books would probably be tough to translate, as they’ve got more jokes per page than most comic novels have per chapter. But even if only a fraction of the comedy made the cut, they’d still be pretty delightful.

And on the subject of library books, does anyone else have a cat who’s obsessed with them? One of mine is, and while she finds pretty much any reading material worthy of examination (including a totally perplexing hatred of bookmarks), nothing draws her attention as much as books from the library. Maybe it’s because they smell like other people?

There's movement among noted Bleach fans, and I've updated the sidebar to reflect it.

Greg McElhatton has started a new site, Read About Comics, which imports a ton of his reviews from iComics. I like the new site's layout a lot.

John Jakala, creator of the late, great Grotesque Anatomy (still one of the best blog names ever) and contributor at The Low Road, has started another blog, Sporadic Sequential. I believe the appropriate sentiment for this situation is, "Yay!"

I don't see any indication that Robin Brenner is a Bleach fan, but there are a lot of graphic novels out there, and Brenner does a great job covering the ones that are good reads for teens and kids at the No Flying, No Tights family of sites.

Like David Taylor, I keep hoping for a different manga title to surge to dominance. It’s not that I have anything against Naruto, but it’s not the only game in town. Looking at MangaCast’s latest report of sales rankings in Japan, maybe there’s hope that Bleach can at least join Naruto in the hit parade? (Both David and John Jakala are big Bleach fans, so it’s well past time for me to give the book a look.)

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Speaking of the hit parade, Brigid finds a Time Magazine interview with Natsuki Takaya, creator of the wonderful Fruits Basket. This article is much more to my liking than Time’s previous foray into manga coverage, but it has a much more specific focus this time around. (Also, I’m a big Fruits Basket junkie.)

“TIME: Fruits Basket has quite a following in the U.S. What do you think are the reasons for its popularity?
“NT: That definitely flatters and pleases me. Thank you very much. As for a reason, I can't clearly distinguish one, but if people read it and think ‘I like this’ then that alone is enough to bring me joy.”

Yay! I’ve brought Natsuki Takaya joy! It seems only fair, though.

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The undiscovered gems keep coming at Yet Another Comics Blog. Send in yours, and win comics!

Since I’m in a manga frame of mind today, I would offer Chikyu Misaki and Off*Beat as two delightful but under-the-radar titles.

Of all the happy, smiley childhood illusions that have fallen away over time, I find myself disproportionately distressed by this look into the almost scientific underbelly of Sesame Street in The New York Times. (Free registration required.) I guess I never really thought about how things work at the Children’s Television Workshop, but I never imagined that there were focus groups lurking behind every trash can.

It’s undeniably weird to think of a program as benevolent and inclusive as Sesame Street as struggling with one of the same issues that seems to confound superhero comics publishers – developing a popular marquee character who also happens to be female:

“But it’s not just a high-minded interest in gender equality that drove the search for a strong female character. The success of ‘Dora the Explorer,’ a show built around a strong female lead, has not gone unnoticed by its competitors at ‘Sesame Street.’ ‘ “Sesame Street” is living in an increasingly competitive market,’ Ms. Nealon said. ‘We used to be the only game in town, and now we’re having more conversations about where are all the points of appeal of our cast. We’re trying to be as absolutely broad-based as we can be.’”

Illuminating and strangely depressing reading.

Recommendations are starting to come in via Dave Carter’s 100 Comics Giveaway Contest at Yet Another Comics Blog. I might have to enter just so I can suggest books like the terrific Lackluster World, self-published by Eric Adams, or Nothing Better by Tyler Page. (I hope there’s a print collection of NB soon, as it's really grown on me over time.)

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Comic Foundry’s Tim Leong not only subjects himself to an issue of Wizard, he does so on camera, which sounds kind of like a Fear Factor stunt. I wouldn’t have thought it possible for Wizard to push the boundaries of bad taste any further, but turning some poor guy’s death into a weak lead for an article on Mighty Avengers makes me think I’ve underestimated the magazine’s editorial ambition.

Seriously, I’ve written some tacky stuff in my time, not even factoring in the first drafts that never see the light of web, but this… I mean, someone wrote it, then someone edited it, then someone at Marvel probably signed off on it, then someone else edited it for layout, and nobody thought it was a bad idea to make fun of a dead person who just happened to have the misfortune of passing away near one of the creators?

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I’m a bit slow to note it, but I’ve really enjoyed Rivkah’s tutorial pieces on paneling, pacing and layout. What I like about them is that they seem like part of a tool box instead of a style sheet, if that makes any sense.

One thing that I’ve noticed as this season of Project Runway progresses is that the designers who have the strongest set of basic design skills – they can sew, they can sketch, they understand color theory and pattern-making, etc. – are best able to articulate a personal aesthetic vision. Even if they’re breaking rules, their cognizance of those rules and the understanding of them as fundamentals lend authority and polish to their work.

I think something of the same thing is going on with Rivkah’s pieces. She’s not really telling anyone how to draw so much as indicating how someone’s choices can lead the eye and to be aware of whether or not they’re heading in the desired direction.

There's a fascinating piece over at Bill Flanagan's blog at the Translation Dojo on the rise of the $10, unflipped manga digest:

"From and editorial standpoint, it was a difficult change. Producing pamphlet manga meant that each graphic novel was coming out once every 6 months. A switch to quarterly graphic novels meant that production was doubled."

Maybe they did teach us how to love. But seriously, go read it. It's great.

And over at comics.212.net, Chris Butcher brings his inimitable perspective to the yaoi discourse.

One of the side points in all of the recent talk about yaoi was the timidity of the bulk of titles currently in translation. Where’s all the really sexy stuff?

At the recent Otakon, Digital Manga Publishing, often cited as one of the leading purveyors of the starry-eyed and tepid, gave hope to fans itching for something a little more hardcore. Kai-Ming Cha shared some new details on DMP’s 801 Media imprint in this week’s Publishers Weekly Comics Week (in the paragraph next to a picture of the coolest cosplayers I’ve ever seen):

“801 Media titles will be available only at online retailers, independent bookstores and comics shops. ‘You won't find [801 Media books] in Borders or Barnes & Noble,’ said Rachel Livingston of DMP's PR department. Livingston explained that while 801 Media is working with distributors, the books will not have a wide level of distribution because of their explicit content. She added that fans will be able to special order the books through Walden or retail chain stores. ‘We're letting retailers know we're not giving them inappropriate material while giving readers what they want and supporting online retailers,’ Livingston said.”

That’s a very interesting approach, and it neatly and preemptively skirts some potential problems. It doesn’t sound like anyone’s going to accidentally stumble across an 801 book. And DMP has done surprisingly well in the Direct Market, just judging by sources like the top 50 manga lists from Comic Book Resources. Every time DMP has new Juné books for readers, you can bet they’ll show up in the top 50 or even crack the top 100 graphic novels roster.

I’m also fascinated (and just a little horrified) by DMP’s other initiative:

“DMP also announced a bishonen (boys' love) tour organized through Pop Japan, a travel agency owned by DMP that does tours to Japan for American otaku. The junket includes a shopping trip to Tokyo's Otome Road for boys' love merchandise and paraphernalia, and will feature a female take on maid cafes, which cater to men--there will be afternoon tea at a ‘butler cafe,’ where attractive young men dressed in traditional butler uniforms wait on the patrons.”

Now that, Tokyopop, is a publisher embracing the manga lifestyle, or at least a niche of it. Will DMP end up marketing a “Fangirls Gone Wild” video produced during the tour?

Dave Carter strikes again with another cool contest at Yet Another Comics Blog. It’s multi-level generosity:

“Simply email [Dave] your recommendation of a comic that you think is worthwhile, but that you don't think that very many people have read. What [Dave would] like to do through this contest is give you all the opportunity to share an undiscovered gem with the rest of the comics Intraweb. Thoughout the next week until the end of the contest on the 15th [he]'ll be posting [t]here on YACB the picks that you send [him].”

Click here for more details.

It’s a bit of a slow week in terms of comic shop arrivals, which is fine. I’ve got a huge list of fantasy titles to track down at the library, and I’m ready for some prose.

The ComicList shows the fifth volume of Girl Genius (Airship) coming out this week in both hard- and soft-cover formats. It came to the local comic shop last week, and I loved it a lot. I’m constantly amazed at the Foglios’ ability to pack their stories with new, distinct, and engaging characters in chapter after chapter. That means my favorite cast members might not get as much focus as I’d like, but it also means new favorites are always on the horizon. The Foglios also have a terrific knack for folding exposition into the story in creative ways that are handy for new readers but still entertaining for long-time fans. It’s just great stuff – funny, vivid, action-packed, and delightful.

CMX rolls out the first volume of Meca Tanaka’s Omukae Desu, a book I liked a lot. Afterlife bureaucracy, part-time teen employees, and bunny suits combine for something funny and weird. (Oh, and speaking of CMX titles I liked in preview form, prepare to become sick to death of me talking about Sakura Tsukuba’s Penguin Revolution. In spite of my disappointment that it featured no actual penguins, it’s a very funny piece of shôjo romantic comedy with some great characters.)

Graphix is rolling out the first of its Goosebumps graphic novels in comic shops, which means they’ve probably been in bookstores for a while now. These tween horror books were well after my time as a young-adult reader (though that didn’t keep me from exploring the shamefully tawdry world of Sweet Valley High as a twenty-something), but it’s interesting to see Graphix further establish itself with adaptations of kids’ classics. (No information is readily available on the Graphix web site. Here’s a preview piece from Publishers Weekly.)

On the self-promotion front, Brian Cronin was kind enough to ask me to do a guest entry at Comics Should Be Good. I immediately abused his hospitality by pimping a bunch of pet manga titles, figuring that I could bore a relatively new audience.

I did roughly the same thing in this week’s Flipped, with a healthy sprinkling of pet Oni books as well.

I’ve been wondering when one of the general interest weekly magazines is going to take a look at manga, so thanks to Blog@Newsarama for pointing out this piece in Time. As Brigid notes, it focuses rather heavily on one segment of the audience.

It’s also very centered on Tokyopop, another success for the publisher’s publicity machine. Reporter Coco Masters focuses almost exclusively on the fomenters of the Manga Revolution, with some assistance from Calvin Reid of Publishers Weekly Comics Week:

“‘Tokyopop created what is known as the authentic Japanese manga,’ says Reid. Tokyopop insisted the books read from back to front so as not to compromise the original artwork and spelled Japanese sound effects phonetically. It changed the books' dimensions to mass-market paperback size (about 200 pages) but stuck to a $10 price--about an hour's worth of babysitting.”

Tokyopop also taught us how to love, contrary to claims of record producers putting together power ballad collections.

Despite its routine dominance of manga sales in bookstores and high profile courtesy of anime properties, Viz makes somewhat of an “and the rest” appearance to be stern Aunt Gertrude and claim that manga only comes from Japan. I can’t tell whether that bit came from speaking directly to a Viz source or scanning through Liza Coppola’s ICv2 interview from 9 months ago, but at least it creates the appearance of multiple-source journalism.

At the end, Masters wonders, “Anyone for Manga Meets Spider-Man?” Eh, not really. Spawn, on the other hand…

Tokyopop has announced that some titles are becoming “online exclusives,” available for purchase only through the publisher’s web site.

Tokyopop’s publishing partner, HarperCollins, has announced that it will be putting significant preview content on its web site. (Free registration required to read the article.)

“'The younger generations are consuming information in a different way,’ said Brian Murray, group president of HarperCollins. ‘They may not necessarily be going into bookshops. They are spending time on Google, MySpace, Facebook, author Web sites, Yahoo and MSN.’”

Are the two connected? I don’t think so, though it could be synergistic instead of just coincidental. It’s nice to see a prose publisher make some efforts in this direction, as I can’t really think of one of their sites that I’d consider a destination.

“For now HarperCollins does not plan to sell books directly to customers online, but will rather use the ‘Browse Inside’ feature as a way to lure readers to its Web pages, which will also include interviews, tour schedules, reading group guides, photographs and links to author blogs.”

Sound familiar?

Looking at the HarperCollins site as it stands, there’s a lot of potential for sprucing up pages for its various imprints. Sounds like it really might cost a fortune, but once the infrastructure’s in place, it might be really useful for at-home book shoppers.

What do you do if the family you’re born into or the life people expected for you don’t fit? If you’re lucky, you find a place like Castle Waiting. Lucky comics fans can enjoy Linda Medley’s comic of the same name in a beautifully produced new collection from Fantagraphics.

Castle Waiting makes the wonderful argument that new beginnings and second chances are waiting for anyone. It begins with a slightly skewed retelling of the Sleeping Beauty legend. Charming as Medley’s revisions are, they’re really just a way to clear out the conventional fairy-tale figures and make room in the castle for the endearing oddballs who make up Medley’s cast.

First among them is Lady Jain, a pregnant noblewoman for whom “happily ever after” turned out to be anything but. She flees an abusive marriage for the safety of Castle Waiting. Before she even reaches it, she begins to get a sense of her own resourcefulness in some misadventures along the way. When she arrives, she finds the kind of warmth and security that family and home promise but sometimes don’t deliver.

It reminds me strongly (and favorably) of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City books. Both celebrate the power of the family of choice and feature rich casts of characters. Medley pulls bits and pieces of classic fairy tales together to build a world as real and endearing as Maupin’s 28 Barbary Lane.

Instead of dwelling on the princesses and wicked queens, Medley populates her world with characters from the fairy-tale margins. The castle was founded by Sleeping Beauty’s abandoned handmaidens, now well into their dotage. It’s occupied by an eclectic group – a fastidious stork, a flirtatious horse-man, a bearded nun – who all offer Jain their own unique forms of friendship and welcome.

Medley focuses on quiet moments that reveal character rather than constructed intersections of fairy-tale tropes. Her small observations about human (or mostly human) nature are always warm and potent, whether the castle residents are celebrating the birth of Jain’s child or just sitting around coloring each others’ hair.

The long sequence starring the bearded nun is easily my favorite, as it embodies so many of Medley’s essential themes. Sister Peace may have taken the vows, but she wasn’t born in a habit, and her path from a girl with facial hair and a restless spirit to woman of substance is funny, twisty, and fascinating. She’s spent a lifetime turning disadvantages into strengths and helping others find their own place in the world, like a one-woman Castle Waiting on the march.

I love Medley’s classic-but-modern style of illustration. She has a particularly splendid way with facial expressions, which are always funny, telling, and real. And Fantagraphics has put Medley’s comics into a beautiful package, courtesy of designer Adam Grano. The book looks like a classic fairy-tale tome, hard-covered and complete with a sewn-in bookmark. It’s the perfect physical vehicle for the story.

I’m always looking for re-readability in comics – stories I can pull down from the shelf and enjoy again and again. With its great characters, charming spirit, and wonderful execution, Castle Waiting has landed squarely on my list of all-time favorites. I can’t wait to catch up with Medley’s world with the new ongoing series.

What’s that you say? I can enjoy another comic about the settlement of North America? Why, thank you! This time around, it’s George O’Connor’s Journey into Mohawk Country from First Second, profiled in the latest Publishers Weekly Comics Week. It sounds like the perfect companion reading for Scott Chantler’s excellent Northwest Passage from Oni. (I wonder if Oni is planning an omnibus edition for after the three-volume series concludes this month? That would be a very library-friendly gesture.)

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Greg McElhatton has a review of Ueda Hajime’s Q-Ko-Chan: The Earth Invader Girl (Del Rey) up at iComics.com. I picked this book up this week and found it to be visually arresting but a little hard to follow. It looks amazing, and the character design is stunning. It’s also only two volumes long, so I’ll definitely give it a closer read after I plow through some of the backlog of books that are sitting there in a pile and judging me.

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I should have learned by now not to assume that even great comic shops will have precisely what I want all the time. I had planned to do a lot of shopping at Alternative Reality during a recent trip to Las Vegas, but all of the books on my list (the first issue of the new Castle Waiting series from Linda Medley and Get a Life from Drawn and Quarterly, among others) were sold out. So I guess I have good taste and bad timing.

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The main reason behind the Vegas jaunt was to see Cirque du Soleil’s KÀ at the MGM Grand. It was amazing, but I was surprised to be bothered by some of the same issues of design versus functionality that I’ve found with some publishers’ web sites. It’s a masterpiece of technical theatre, with this phenomenal turntable that goes in every conceivable direction, but the flourishes eventually overwhelm the narrative completely. It’s too bad, because the story started extremely well. Still, if you’re a fan of “we did that because we could” showmanship, go for it. (After looking through the gift shop and laughing at the prices, we decided that Cirque is probably working on a sequel called CHÏNG.)

But if you’re in Vegas and want to feed a Cirque jones, I’d recommend Mystère at Treasure Island. If you want to feed a Cirque jones and don’t feel like dealing with the Vegas fracas (and who could blame you?), just wait until Quidam comes to a city near you. It’s still my favorite of their productions.

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If you’re in Vegas, are a Top Chef fan, and feel like sampling some of Tom Colicchio’s cooking, I’d recommend stopping by ‘wichcraft at the MGM Grand. The sandwiches are great, and the prices are pretty reasonable for celebrity chef casino food. (I’d love to have the kind of money to be a shameless, fame-whoring foodie in Las Vegas, but who can afford it?)

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My approach to gambling in Las Vegas is to spend as little money as possible for the longest possible period of time. I never assume I’m going to win anything beyond the cost of a cup of coffee. The best spot for that kind of play was Sam’s Town, which is way off the Strip, but that only makes it more appealing to me. If we ever go back, we might just have to stay there, as it’s a lot cheaper, seems friendlier than most of the mid-range Strip options, and has undergone a serious renovation in the last few years.

Whenever I go away for a few days, I’m amazed at how much interesting conversation I’ve missed. Brigid has an interview with Tokyopop’s web community content producer at MangaBlog. David Taylor takes a look at the state of manga in the United Kingdom at Love Manga. Samurai Tusok wades into the topic of authenticity and what makes manga manga at Bento Physics.

But what really catches my eye, partly because it’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, is all the recent talk about yaoi. It’s interesting to see a consideration of the formulaic nature of the category, because it seems to suggest that a formula is essentially a negative in a creative endeavor. There was a recent flurry of complaints that a lot of shôjo titles fall into a formulaic trap, but I would suggest that the formula itself isn’t the problem. Any creator can take a fairly rigid narrative framework (say, young-man-with-a-dream shônen or ordinary-girl-discovers-magical-destiny shôjo) and invest it with enough specificity and personality to make the familiarity of its infrastructure entirely irrelevant.

So I think the question is more about how publishers are doing in selecting yaoi and shônen-ai titles to license. Are readers getting a full sense of the category, or are publishers launching their efforts in this area with what might be lowest-common-denominator books that stick to whatever tropes are most defining? Immediately recognizable aualities that make the reader say, “Yes, this is yaoi”?

I’m not really sure what the answer is. I still haven’t waded too far into the world of scanlations, so I don’t have a very clear sense of what’s lurking out there on the horizon and if what we’re getting now is yaoi 1.0 rather than a full sampling of the category. I’ve heard of a handful of titles that sound intriguing (I’ve wanted to get my hands on NYNY since I read about it in Paul Gravett’s Manga), but I’m basically ignorant of how the genre stands in contrast to the body of work that’s available in translation.

Tina Anderson has grown weary of the focus on yaoi’s appeal as opposed to its content:

“I'm tired of being approached by members from the media under the auspices of, 'let's talk about yaoi' only to have it turn into a couch session on why I as a woman, am turned on by homoerotic manga, why I think women like it and Gay men don't, and what's this appeal of lovely men in love overall. 0_o. I don't see articles about the appeal of noir Seinen manga on the fans who read it? I don't see every new license from Tokyo Pop being discussed by the media asking, Why do they read it? What makes them tick? What is it about Western Fans that makes them want to read Japanese Manga?”

I have to say that virtually every mainstream media article about manga that I’ve read has featured just that focus: why do fans like it? Teen-ages from Orlando to Des Moines to Anchorage have been cornered in bookstores and libraries and junior high schools and quizzed on this subject by reporters, whether they’ve got Fruits Basket or Naruto or any number of other books in their backpacks. It’s an entry point for reporters who don’t necessarily know a lot about the subject, and (more importantly) it’s an essential aspect of the story for readers who are possibly even less familiar with manga.

And when you’re delving into a niche within manga, I think it’s just as logical to take that approach. Sure, there’s a prurient aspect to the questions, but reporters need hooks, for better or worse. I don’t think it’s necessarily disrespectful or dismissive to try and understand a category’s appeal to its audience when you’re writing about it. Tiresome and repetitive for the people who get asked the question over and over again? Sure. Irrelevant? Not in the least.

Honestly, I’m still trying to wrap my mind around yaoi and shônen-ai, at least partly because of the licensing choices I discussed above. It’s hard for me not to be troubled by the number of books that seem to feature coercion as an essential relationship milestone. Looking at the bulk of what’s available, I can see why people who aren’t fans would wonder what the big deal is and eschew questions about character, because a lot of the books aren’t particularly rich in that respect.

But there are several titles that I really like, and a quality that they share is a willingness to expand on the formula or subvert it. Shout Out Loud (Blu) explores a whole range of human relationships – familial, generational, professional, and so on – and does it with a heftier dose of humor than I’ve seen elsewhere. Only the Ring Finger Knows (DMP) was a lovely bit of romance that impressed me because it was driven by character. The events of the story seemed specific to those characters rather than being a case of attractive archetypes being wedged into a familiar series of events.

My current favorite would have to be La Esperanca (DMP), even though it can get a little drippy at times. Chigusa Kawai’s characters don’t exist in some romantic vacuum where they’re influenced only by their feelings for each other. They have family issues, are surrounded by friends and classmates with their own perceptions and agendas, and live in the larger world of the school and the town that surrounds it. Romance is an aspect of their lives, a part of their evolving identities, rather than the only thing that matters.

Kawai also shows a very subversive sense of humor in the back-up stories. In volume two – I think – she frames a story very much along the lines of the “why do you like it” question, introducing a romantic spoiler character who seems based on a stereotypical yaoi fangirl. But since she’s invested in the characters as people instead of observing them in a fictional context, she’s forced to face them as people instead of fantasy objects. It’s a great, risky piece with a lot of layers, and it ends up being both a clear-eyed celebration of the genre and an expansion of its possibilites.

Tired.

Happy to see pets.

Hate airports.

More later.