We’ve received a few whispers of late that since Kurt Hassler left his position as graphic novel buyer at Borders, his replacement is not quite as manga crazy as Hassler was, and a few publishers are feeling the pinch.

Developing.

1 COMMENT

  1. Is this the new guy who was on the ICV2 panel?
    Is Borders cutting back on all GNs? Did they have a glut and arereturning to saner levels? How do the Borders orders (sorry) compare to Barnes & Noble?

  2. If this is true–that manga publishers are feeling the pinch at Borders–might it not necessarily be due to this new buyer’s individual opinion but rather a response to the *huge* amounts of manga being published nowadays?

    That is, if this phenomenon is true, might it be as likely accurate to cast it as a “market correction” or a business reality than to present it as the idiosyncracy of an individual person, be he personally “manga crazy” or not?

  3. I can’t see any new buyer cutting the amount of Naruto and Bleach copies in stock, but last time I was home in Michigan I got a copy of Ponent Mon’s Walking Man at Borders. Things like that could easily become more rare.

    Does anyone know how the OEL books actually sell? I’d assume (perhaps wrongly) that a cut in manga stocking would include those titles as well as anything from a publisher that isn’t Tokyopop, Viz, Del Rey, etc.

  4. well that sucks – not- there is so many bookstores around here that publish manga, besides, there is always the internet. people need to buy the book, not just read it