Soap Box Derby.

But first…some things noticed around the nets …

Yaoi House will publish the ‘In the Headmasters Chamber’ manga, illustrated by artist Van Duran. According to the artist at her y! page, she seems hopeful because Kira has announced that she’s going back to writing yaoi—I wonder if she’s seen the dramafest that ensued since that journal entry by Kira.

Also—the Boytoons mystery is solved! Some time ago, my RSS feed stopped updating Boytoons Magazine. I couldn’t figure out why until I went to blogger and saw the ‘this might be objectionable content’ nag screen. [If it’s on my feed, then I know its content; I shouldn’t have to decide each time they make a post, if I want to read it because it might offend me.] :/ I took it off my RSS feed because it no longer updated [likely because of this static page by blogger.] Well, BTM is back, and not at Blogger. Also, I know from the traffic that Boytoons sends my way, that a large majority of their readers come from countries that actively filter out ‘objectionable’ sites. Something like ‘boytoons’ doesn’t set off content filters the way a static blogger screen might. The sheer number of traffic that boystoons mag has from countries like China, Iran, Pakistan, India, and Syria, is amazing–I know they get this traffic, because they send it here via linkblogging, and my stats-counters picks it up. ((^_^)) I noticed a sharp decline in that sent-over traffic in the last few months, I assumed because they were no longer updating…but this was not the case. Those static screens might help Blogger steer clear of responsibility, but I suspect they also catch the eye of governmental content-filters, and that’s never cool. :/

I’ve been getting seriously good recs for this Pawprints series from Ann Cain. Admittedly, I wasn’t a huge fan of titles like Man’s Best Friend by Kazusa Takashima, or Master! by Laura Yokoshima, but I will check out both Pawprints novels [the second is called Pawprints 2: Second Nature] by Ann Cainashima, Both eBooks are available through publisher Loose Id.

Also…I picked up my HC edition of The Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul. It’s a thing of beauty, and I must admit that Ra’s, in his younger days, was a hottie. The artists rendering of ‘young Ra’s’ rivaled Yasuhiro Nightow’s Balladbird Lee. That’s saying something. 0_0. Of course, there’s plenty of spendex manflesh to go around in this one–it features Nightwing, Robin, and of course– Damian Wayne. Despite being a teen, he’s rather hot–particularly in the hands of certain illustrators, which makes for some conflicting fan-isms. Some illustrators in this book depicted Damian as the boy he is - it was like watching a child in an adventure story, while other illustrators pumped up the teen with typical over-idealized ‘health’ given to various young males in the DCU…and makes him quite attractive. If you like em REEL YUNG, you’ll like Damian Wayne as illustrated by Freddie Williams, Don Kramer, or Tony Daniel. If you want the kid to be a kid, stick with David Lopez [who BTW, is responsible for that gorgeous young-man Ra's!], Jason Pearson, or David Baldeon.

NOW, ONTO THE SOAP BOX…

I saw this post at author Erastes LiveJournal, which led me to this post at Ms. Giggles. I’m well aware of the animosity Ms. Somerville has for Torquere Press. Whenever there’s Torq drama, Ms. Somerville [the curator of erotic review site, Uniquely Pleasurable] is somewhere in the dogpile expressing her opinions. Does she have a right to? Absolutely–she’s a reader and reviewer. Yet…I’m sorry; I just can’t drum up any sympathy towards her latest anger at feeling rebuked by an author or this publisher Torquere, on behalf of her review site.

I know from personal experience with Ms. Somerville that she tends to stay angry, long after water has gone under the bridge deep enough to launch sailed ships. I suspect from our past encounters that I might be one of those ‘shitheads’ she’s referring to, that will never be reviewed by Uniquely Pleasurable. ((^_^)) No problem for me really, I write manga and so, it never bothered me. However, I did notice my elephant in the room when I released Gadarene, and some well meaning authors suggested I send Uniquely Pleasurable a copy. I co-wrote this with CB Potts, who just happens to be a Torq author–and while I did get some private grief from some peers who aren’t happy with that publishers net-antics, they still managed to read the work and judge the work based on the work–and not based on their thought of me or CB. I felt, based on my past dealings with Ms. Somerville, that Uniquely Pleasurable wasn’t the place to send my title. Perhaps it’s personal–but it’s a self-published work, and so yes—it’s a personal decision. (^_^) Do I think the site is good? Sure, I read reviews and updates there sometimes…I just don’t think it’s good for me–as a creator, to even make an overture toward getting my work reviewed there.

That leads to my second issue with all this: people wondering what the creator’s problem is with being so personal about reviews and where they come from or why they’re linked to.

The notion of ‘why do authors give a damn about passing on reviews‘—I can tell you firsthand, having dealt with a publisher who dropped the ball in collecting reviews as a means of marketing: finding and linking to reviews is a necessary part of promoting your work. Reviews help sales; it’s that simple. If you have a publisher that isn’t going to actively solicit them, you solicit them yourself. If you have a publisher that isn’t going to look for and link to reviews, then you do this yourself. Self-publishers are very aware that every review is important, and these days, many large publishers of erotica [especially in my medium] do not go out of their way to garnish review copies to the right blogs and review sites. Some do, others don’t–many pubs are only one or two people wearing the hat of publisher/editor/title-promoter, and unfortunately an author realizes quick that with small pubs–you’re going to have to promote your own title to the best of your ability. In that respect, I do tend to avoid linking to sites that I find toxic for me, as a creator. I’ve an active dislike of one comic’s blogger [he treats my genre like shit and he made a asinine comment about one of my titles that was way out of line--considering he never read it], and if he suddenly one day gave me a good review or a respectful mention in his blog, I wouldn’t link to it. Mainly because, my dislike of him affects me as a creative person. Authors wearing more than one hat are also going to have shortcomings–it’s the nature of the beast. ((^_^))

Residual anger is best not dwelled upon, and I would think as a writer, Ms. Somerville would appreciate what its like to have ill-will with someone, and then wish to avoid any and all things associated with that person. I suspect in the case of this author and Torquere, it’s matter of them simply not liking her based on past experiences with her, and not wanting to associate with Uniquely Pleasurable—despite the fact that there’s other reviewers, and other people involved with the site—Ms. Somerville is still a very big part of it. There’s obvious animosity, on both sides, but I guess as someone who’s a creator, I have ask…Why do you want recognition from a group you don’t like? :/ Is it because this is just another way to point out yet another nasty aspect of their publishing company? If so, then how hurt are you really? My hope is, as she makes the transition to published author, she considers dropping this jihad against pubs and authors who’ve pissed her off when she’s worn the hat of reviewer. It does make for less drama. Trust me, I learned this lesson myself–the hard way. (^_^)

*Time out: What’s up with some of the gender-specific name calling in with in the Ms. Giggles thread? Ladies, unless someone calls me the c-word, or a female dog, I ain’t calling no male out as a body part that’s derogatory and gender-specific. Men have feelings to, and being called various synonyms for a penis–isn’t very nice.

BTW - yes, most dudes online who who tick me off are still didoes and douchettes…thanks for asking JJ. ((^_____^)) [/mea culpa]

~ by gynocrat on May 17, 2008.