From July’s Bookseller.com UK article “Retailers ‘miss out on manga’ ” by Caroline Horn:
Borders, Waterstone’s and Blackwell all point to growth in the sector over the past two years but are waiting to see how the market develops before dedicating more space to it. “If the genre continues to thrive, we will give it more space,” said Kim Mackay, fiction buyer at Borders.
o__0 So like, how long does a medium need to exist before the bookstores will give it more space. Obviously, more television programming geared toward bringing over foreign animation [mainly Japanese] is going to increase – so wouldn’t logic dictate that the licensed comics from Japan [many based on these animation properties] are going to keep acquiring new fans? What are they afraid of? What are they waiting for?
In America, all the bookstores here need is for Oprah or someone famous [not Avril fucking Lavigne!] to start giving lip service to manga titles and BOOM, we’ll have some serious shelf space dedicated to manga style comics. Seriously…when Harry Potter gets his own manga treatment, or when Oprah discovers Antique Bakery…LOOK OUT PEOPLE, Manga’s going to get its own section of at least two whole units, and shelfed by age rating like it should be.
>.> Oy.
Lunch today… was Mr. Gynocrat.
4 comments
September 7, 2007 at 2:43 pm
tollie01
You forgot to mention …. uhm, what’s her name. The wife of the late Kurt Cobain. She has a manga created by her out as well.
Please do not remind me her name….the fact that i can’t remember it gives me great pleasure.
September 7, 2007 at 3:09 pm
gynocrat
Actually, she’s listed as a co-author…that honor of authorship lies with DJ Milky [aka Stu Levy - CEO of Tokyo Pop]. It’s called Princess Ai, and it’s not really about her, but I think she did music and ‘consulting’ on it.
September 8, 2007 at 2:38 am
tollie01
I have seen some of this manga and although the art looks to be ok the story just doesn’t appeals to me (no big surprise there really).
Right now several ‘celebs’ are involved in manga. There is whatshername with Princess Ai, Avril Lavigne with …(who cares?) and i know that at one time Stu was talking with Dr.Dre about one (loved ChunHyang’s thoughts on a possible title: Prince of Bling).
This started me thinking who else we didn’t want to see in a manga. Paris Hilton (omg no), Britney Spears (eh…???), Micheal Jackson (wtf?!). Actually i can’t think of anyone that i would like to see working with manga either as character or as creator.
September 9, 2007 at 7:45 pm
gynocrat
Not really into musician oriented comics.
I’d rather see comics developed from ‘thinking’ shows instead… like Monk, or Law and Order–for some reason I don’t enjoy the staple-copy CSI or Star Trek books. 
I guess if they need a celebrity tie in, and they want to reach young people, they should stick to Drake and Josh crowd.