§ Retailer Brian Hibbs updates several ongoing matters in his new column, including New 52 sales:

And, given that “Action” #1’s first week sales, compared to “Action” (v1) #904, were something like 650%, I’m absolutely enthusiastic here — books that had “old DCU” equivalents are, for the most part, multiples of what they were previously.

Naturally, books that are workmanlike, or poorly received/reviewed, are selling what they were (or, in one case, at least, already worse), but that was always going to be the case. But the books that actually have a distinct POV or a passion that can be communicated? On those I’m seeing considerably shallower drops between #2 & #3 — several with only 3-5% drops (which can translate into a single copy on some).

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§ A whole genre of Japanese comics no one has heard of:

In the late 1940s and ’50s, there was a mixed genre of picture narrative in Japanese youth magazines that, as far as I know, does not have its own name. It usually appeared under the rubric of “emonogatari” (pronounced “eh-mono-gatari”), the equal parts image and text “picture stories” that had been popular since Yamakawa Sōji’s work for Shōnen Club during the war, and particularly after his hit Shōnen King (Shōnen Ōja) in 1947. Like that title, many early emonogatari were conceived as print versions of kamishibai, in which rectangular image and expository text were coupled like the picture cards and oral narration of that theatrical art form.


Are there “emonogatari” fanboys and zines and nostalgia conventions?

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§ Everyone has been linking to this great interview with Annie Koyama of Koyama Press, which reveals her inspiring backstory.

I wanted to leave advertising and had planned to take a year off to travel but fell ill and wasn’t able to travel or work for a long time. Later I was terminally diagnosed with brain aneurysms but opted for a risky surgery that was successful. I still have another aneurysm but choose to mostly ignore it.

During my non-working years, I built up a nest egg by playing the stock market. After I survived the surgery I wanted to do something other than film so I started funding projects with local emerging artists and that led quite accidentally to the making of the first book.

I did a few more projects that involved zines and little comics and enjoyed that, so I devoted all my time and resources to starting a company that publishes and helps emerging artists.


She also notes some books debuting at BCGF in a couple of weeks:

Next up is Maurice Vellekoop’s “The World of Gloria Badcock”, Matthew Forsythe’s “Comics Class” and Jeremy Kai’s photography book of his underground explorations. All will debut in the U.S. at the Brooklyn Comics & Graphics Festival.

§ Here’s an interview with On the Media’s Brooke Gladstone on her “understanding media” GN:

Nrama: What do you feel is the real great advantage of the medium of comics – what are some things you can do there that you can’t do anywhere else?

Gladstone: Well, first of all, it forces an economy upon you. When you do it, it makes you boil down. You can’t temporize, you can’t thumb-suck for a few chapters, you can’t shilly-shally. You have to know what it is you want to say, and you have to say it precisely. It forced a preciseness onto my writing, a part of which has definitely transferred back to comics from the radio. Many people have said that my writing is so much more direct, and so much more evocative, because there’s so much more precision in it now from the writing of this book.


§ iFanboy’s Conor Kilpatrick totally speculates on what Marvel books may be below the Mendoza line for cancellation:

• Thunderbolts – 23,712
• X-Factor – 23,569
• Avengers Academy – 23,412
• S.H.I.E.L.D., Vol. 2 – 21,060
• Daken: Dark Wolverine – 19,472
• Generation Hope – 18,424
• Deadpool MAX – 15,865
I’m not saying any of these specific books will be canceled, or that any more Marvel books will be canceled at all. But if any more books are canceled in the days ahead, the above are probably the most likely candidates. It’s important to keep in mind that there are all kinds of reasons to cancel a comic book series, but sales is usually the primary reason.


§ Not long ago critic Nadim Damluji delivered a pretty convincing smackdown on the Orientalist tropes in Craig Thompson’sHABIBI. Now he’s back with an interview with Thompson who proves refreshingly blunt in addressing any and all criticisms, even if some of his responses are a bit glib:

CT: I wanted to sexualize Dodola, because I wanted the reader to experience her through the lustful gaze of all men, and primarily the gaze of Zam. Hopefully the lust of Zam is transmitted in those drawings, and maybe at times the reader identifies with it or other times feels disgusted by it or ashamed by it, which mirrors the experience Zam was having. Throughout the book even the Orientalism is a commentary on exoticization. Which isn’t just about any specific culture or ethnicity, but a stereotype of what men do in general or what a lot of people do in romantic relationships. I’m examining American guilt and I’m examining male guilt. In male guilt there is so much of this energy of objectification and idolatry and eroticization. When I think of those French paintings I don’t see the “White Man’s Burden” of the French needing to save the beautiful Arabic women from their oppressors, I see the opposite: French men swarming in a perverted sort of way and trying to make fantasy reproductions of what those ladies look like under their hijab. I don’t think it paints the colonists in a positive manner, it makes them seem like these creepy little voyeurs.


Also, Thompson — rather shockingly — falls back on the “It’s just comics, folks” line:

I do feel reverent and respectful to elements of Islamic faith, but through the whole book there is a sense of play and self-awareness around the fact it’s still just a comic book.


Still, props to both Damluji and Thompson for engaging with actual criticism.

§ Only the other day we were lauding the great art talent on Marvel’s DAREDEVIL; now here’s an interview with the writer, Mark Waid, conducted by Tucker Stone.

From my point of view, this seems like the first time in 15 years that somebody has given me the keys to the car and said “do what you wanna do”, and I have, and it’s succeeded. Generally, I do what I think is best to reinvent a franchise and write for the non-hardcore audience, and the nerd rage is off the charts. I wrote a Legion of Super-Heroes book that you didn’t have to have a degree in Legion-ology to read and understand…and? Mistake! Superman Birthright, a Superman take that’s not like John Byrne’s? Cue the rage. My short-lived return to Flash, breaking with what’s been done before? Bear trap. So I’m pleasantly surprised to report that for the first time in a long long time that…I’m zigging when I should be zagging and people are keeping up with me rather than just being mad.


§ This one is just Inside Baseball for San Diego Kremlinologists, but the struggling SD Union Tribune newspaper has just been purchased by Doug Manchester, the Trump-esque owner of the Manchester Grand Hyatt. This is significant in a few ways. The locally controversial Manchester is a Prop 8 supporter whose hotel was boycotted by gay rights supporters for a few years. He’s also not a big fan of Comic-Con, reportedly, so it might be interesting to see if the paper — which has been very supportive of the show in recent years — changes its coverage at all. It also is part of the whole Byzantine politics of the San Diego waterfront:

In San Diego, Manchester is known as a developer of waterfront hotel properties that have complex financial underpinnings and controversial design features.

Last week, for example, the California Coastal Commission rejected Manchester’s proposal to build hotels along the San Diego waterfront as part of a plan by the Navy to develop its property.

Among other criticisms was the concern that the hotel project would block waterfront views and turn it into a private asset rather than a public one. The same criticism was heard from the commission when Manchester proposed a hotel in Oceanside, a project later scuttled.

1 COMMENT

  1. Not sure how important it will really be, but there’s little doubt that the Manchester-owned San Diego paper will likely not be very pro-Comic Con. Not just because of the waterfront development issue, but because he has already said the paper will be strongly sports focused (the new publisher is from sports radio) and will be pushing hard for a new downtown Chargers stadium, that is going head to head with a convention center expansion. All rather Byzantine, but will be worth watching in the coming months.

  2. I *love* Waid’s DD but I also tried reading his return to the Flash and those comics *sucked*. It’s ok…not every try can be a homerun, but it wasn’t because those stories broke with tradition, they just weren’t very good. The art was nice, though.

    But yeah, DD kicks ass. Now I just have to suffer Stone’s pretentiousness to read the interview. (We get it, Stone, you like indie books. Oooooh. Seriously, you make Frank Santoro seem humble…and at least he makes comics!)

  3. From the sounds of two of these items (DC sales and Waid’s ideas): Sadly, it seems like Waid’s approach to the Legion (the “threeboot”) was a few years ahead of its time. I really wonder what the reception would be if he were writing that same book today. The New 52 has produced plenty of great comics amid the dross, but the two muddled Legion titles are serious stinkers.

  4. so you can’t be glib in an interview now? Jesus. You people.

    And I don’t think he was using the “it’s just a comic” to excuse anything. No clear thinking person can read what he said and come away with that. He’s saying that there is a sense of fun to a comic book and his particular comic is “aware” of that. That awareness blends in to the theme of the book, again, to any clear thinking person that isn’t looking to yell foul or “controversy” where there isn’t any.