Catrching up on the manga news of the week, a new publisher made their intentions known, Aurora, a subsidiary of Japanese publisher Ohzora which specializes in josei — women’s manga. Josei manga is the long-lost “missing link” between “Harlequin romance comics” and “Sex in the CIty comics” for women. Understandably, the genre has had little success in the US, despite entries by such important manga-ka as Erica Sakurazawa’and Moyocco Anno. MangaCast has much information on the launch in this link and some commentary:

Why? Well, honestly who has been successful with josei. Whether you call it ladies or shoujo or Passion Fruit or whatever this has not hit its audience in the US. Yen Press is going to give it a shot (we will talk about that later) but what makes Aurora unique is that their parent company Ohzora is basically a josei manga publisher. Way more than 50% of what they pump out is for the ladies. At the same time, as their BL line has already shown, this Japanese publisher will be licensing books from other publishers. That is going to make things very very interesting (especially when considering the number of artists who have worked for Ohzora over the years… doing Harlequin and all those anthologies collections). Still the other “unannounced” titles are all josei as well.

The first release from Aurora will be Vol 1 of the four-colume Walkin’ Butetrfly (above) due this summer:

“Walkin’ Butterfly” is the story of the metamorphosis of Michiko, set in the world of Japanese high fashion. As a tall girl, Michiko has never fit in… literally. She has always felt different and she can’t accept herself. Her height is matched only by her complex about it. While delivering pizzas at a fashion show she is mistaken for a model and thrust on stage. Mihara, the show’s designer, confronts her and tells her that she can’t walk down the catwalk because she doesn’t know her true self. From that moment on, Michiko is determined to find her place in the world as a model, and as a young woman. Can she find the inner strength to undergo a spectacular transformation? Is Michiko up to the challenge? Just try her. “Walkin’ Butterfly” is as chic as a Tokyo catwalk.

Non-nerd grown women remain underserved by manga. We’ll see how this goes. In the meantime, here the official press release:

Book publisher Aurora Publishing, Inc. commences operations and establishes its North American headquarters in Torrance, California. Aurora Publishing, Inc. is dedicated to publishing manga of the highest artistic quality with the highest entertainment value for females of all ages. Aurora is focused on publishing translated Japanese manga titles for the North American market, as well as developing American manga for the worldwide market. Aurora Publishing, Inc. is a fully-owned subsidiary of Ohzora Publishing Co., the number one publishing house in Japan in terms of female manga franchises and number of manga publications for women. Headquartered in Tokyo, Ohzora is a manga house widely known as a pioneer of comics for young women including: Lady’s comics, shojo manga, romance novel adaptations, and game-related anthology manga. In total, Ohzora’s publications are read by over 15.8 million people each year.

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GirlAmatic is celebrating their fourth anniversary with some good natured fooling around:

With our tongues in our cheeks and our eyes on the stars, GirlAMatic is proud to announce its fourth anniversary! This year’s April foolish extravaganza will be as BIFF! BAM! SOCK-O! as any dyed-in-the-wool (or rather, spandex) comics fan could possibly wish for! March 31st through April 6th, GirlAMatic will see a DeCidedly Marvelous makeover, as all our characters gear up for a bit of genre-bending mischief.

Do join us

!

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Shiver me timbers! A high school student in North Buncombe, NC has been suspended for a day for dressing like a pirate and coming to school wearing an eyebpatch and brandishing an inflatable cutlass:

The sophomore spent Wednesday at home after an administrator took issue with his accessories.

Buncombe County Schools says the eye patch was disruptive to classroom instruction. The student’s refusal to take it off after four warnings led to discipline, the district said.

“I feel like my First Amendment was violated,” Killian, 16, said. “Freedom of religion and freedom of expression. That’s what I tried to do, and I got shot down.”

Freedom of religion?

Yes, Killian says, his “pirate regalia” is part of his faith — the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Killian claims to be part of the Pastafarian religion, which requires him to dress like a pirate. We’re impressed. Where do we study our catechism?

It’s the kind of thing that only happens a few times in every generation…the release of a new issue of OPTIC NERVE, and EVERYONE, and we mean EVERYONE will be celebrating at Rocketship (after they go to the Punk Indie Showcase of course). You know you will be there!

Oh my there is a lot going on this week! Tomorrow at Jim Hanley’s there’s the GINDHOUSE signing, and later that very same day the Punk Indy Creator Showcase:

SATURDAY, MARCH 31 6:00 to 8:00 PM

Punk Indy Creator Showcase

# J.D. GLASS (Punk Like Me)
# K. THOR JENSEN (Red Eye, Black Eye)
# MISS LASKO-GROSS (Escape from “Special”)
# JACOB CHABOT (Mighty Skullboy Army)

At Jim Hanley’s Universe
4 West 33rd St
New York, NY 10001
(off 5th Ave. - opposite the Empire State Building) [map]

See: http://www.jhuniverse.com/

The Emerald City Con kicks off this weekend in Seattle, and by all accounts, the show is growing into a very pleasant, comics centric weekend. The Seattle Times has a brief preview with attendance expected to be around 8000.

Guests include Adam Hughes, Mark Bagley, Brian Michael Bendis, Michael Golden, Mike Oeming, Gene Ha, Chris Sprouse, Frank Cho, Phil Hester and Darick Robertson. Publishers include Fantagraphics, Image Comics, Top Cow, Oni Press, Rorschach Ent., Gagne Int., Illusive Arts Ent., Boom! Studios and Arcanca Studio.

The comics kings of Seattle, Fantagraphics, are also getting into the mix with an AFTERPARTY!

Just wanted to invite any of you who are coming up to the Emerald City Con in Seattle this weekend to come to our Saturday night after- party at our bookstore/gallery in beautiful Georgetown. Both Fantagraphics and the Emerald City organizers will have postcards available at the con, complete with driving directions and bus information from getting there from the con (the store is quite close).

We’re providing beer/soda and some light snacks and a nice place to hang out. There’s a beautiful Jim Woodring show up on the gallery wall to check out. There’s also an excellent bar next door to us called the 9LB Hammer that has great taps and a lot of room to accommodate folks. There’s also a couple of great dinner options on the block. Emerald City’s never had any kind of real party scene and we’d like to rectify that. Come one, come all, and help us make it happen! It’s a beautiful neighborhood and we’ll treat you right.

PS: An earlier version of this post stated that Fantagraphics wasn’t exhibiting, but they are in fact setting up.

A deadline-pressured Dirk takes up his entire post today with the title “Drama Queen Bickering” to respond to my comments yesterday. While my comments are assigned such classic TCJ buzzwords as “gobbledegook”, a “screed”, “bloviations” etc etc, to be honest, I couldn’t even figure out what Dirk was arguing, although we did find signs of his credo in this two graph sequence:

Aside from throwing a snarky riposte back at Heidi, I pretty much ignored this at the time, mainly because it made no sense. I had no BookScan numbers, so there wasn’t any “available evidence” to ignore: The folks at Nielsen charge big, big money for access to BookScan numbers, and so I have no choice but to work from charts that did not, in fact, corroborate Dark Horse’s unsourced claim. Moreover, Heidi seems to be under the impression that I believe it impossible for any Western graphic novel anywhere to outsell the topselling manga volume of the moment, a claim that I’ve never made, since it’s an unbelievably stupid notion.

Before we go any further, let’s take a moment and talk about that last bit. I believe that Western comics are generally ill-equipped to make the same appeal to the larger buying public as can Japanese comics. For evidence of this, I invite you to head out to your local Borders or Barnes & Noble, and count the number of shelves devoted to each variety of comics. It’ll likely fall anywhere between a 1/8 and 1/20 ratio between the two; as math goes, it’s a pretty simple figure to calculate. I offered my best guesses as to why this was so in an essay I wrote a year and a half ago.

To reiterate:

I believe that Western comics are generally ill-equipped to make the same appeal to the larger buying public as can Japanese comics.

That’s a stand we’re not all that opposed to, to be honest. We found “She’s Got Her Own Thing Now” to be a strong reality-based argument. When you look at the sales charts manga’s dominance is obvious over…oh let’s call them Occidental Comics. It’s lines like this that make us suspicious, however:

My argument on manga vs. Western graphic novels isn’t simply “manga rules, Spider-Man drools.” I believe that there are concrete, identifiable reasons why the former suceeds where the latter fails; that it’s entirely possible for Western comics to beat manga volumes at their own game, but that in order to do so, Western publishers and marketers are going to have to first learn said reasons in order to duplicate such successes in the domestic market — and that comics treated as product and produced by replaceable work-for-hire drones are always going to be at a disadvantage when compared to works produced by single creators or a single set of creators.

If you parse this, Dirk still seems to be saying that Spider-man “fails,” which would be a surprise to many people — Spider-man trades do respectably in bookstores, and very well in comics shops and they don’t sell at NARUTO levels, but neither does Love Pistols.

I’m all for a return in Occidental comics to accessible, populist work that is driven by a single creator’s vision. Obviously, Miller and Varley’s 300 is just such a work (which Dirk seems to acknowledge). My argument isn’t with that, it’s with Dirk’s knee-jerk reaction to anything which seems to imply success for Occidental comics vs. the manga-naut. His initial snark at Dark Horse and his defense — “I’m only a poor old Blogger! I don’t see Bookscan!” — is silly for someone who is assumed to have some authority for their comments. While I’m chided for being “well-connected,” I can assure you that when you are “well-connected” you can take a peek at Bookscan numbers when you need them.

As a blogger, I know we’re all on deadline and will be held accountable for our words only to the extent that we can explain ourselves better the next day. I’m guilty of plenty of knee-jerk snark myself. I’m actually far more in agreement with Dirk than he suspects — I believe manga can show us the way to accessibility. However, putting down Occidental comics success stories which actually back up your point is just defeating your own purpose. Or as Dirk puts it:

Likewise, if you’re going to get riled up when someone has the temerity to throw your cheap shots right back at you, you shouldn’t let it piss you off to the point where you lose track of the argument you’d been trying to make.

Amen to that brother! That’s what we say and we stand by it!

PS: this is not an anti-COMICS JOURNAL rant on my part, by the way. As some people know, writing for TCJ was my first professional work, and I have a lot of respect to this day for TCJ and everything Fantagraphics publishes. I can’t actually read TCJ these days because the tiny type is too small for me to read, but if I could I’m sure i would enjoy it a great deal.

Since we’re revisiting 80s comics history today, this interview with Dean Mullaney from Blake Bell’s weblog is well worth quoting. For those who came in late, Mullaney was the publisher of Eclipse Comics, a very influential and — for a time — successful independent comics publishing company that gave the world many memorable characters from Sabre to Zot. In the interview, Mullaney explains why Eclipse closed up shop in the early 90s:

The irony of all this is that, in this day and age when graphic novels are regularly reviewed in the mainstream press, the reason Eclipse went under was due to my single-minded desire to establish graphic novels in mainstream bookstores. Eclipse had signed a mutually-exclusive contract with HarperCollins to produce graphic novels. The plan was to first introduce titles by authors already known to booksellers — J.R.R. Tolkien, Clive Barker, Dean Koontz, Anne McCaffrey… we even had an original by Doris Lessing in the planning stages.

Unfortunately, HarperCollins didn’t, in my opinion, really understand what graphic novels were all about. And there were internal conflicts at HC, to which I was never privy, that left Eclipse holding the bag. They had given us an advance to start production, but that money ran out, and we had a full schedule in production. We never received a single royalty statement, let alone check, from HC’s sales to bookstores. The cash flow deficit eventually forced us to close up shop.

We were too far ahead of the curve. Now, of course, all the major bookstore chains have graphic novel sections.

ICv2 had this little bit yesterday reporting that Kevin Eastman had had some success with an eBay auction:

Kevin Eastman has sold the original art for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 on eBay for a winning bid of $250,099. The auction, which ended on March 25th, provides some idea of the potency of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a cultural phenomenon. The latest TMNT film topped the weekend box office derby last weekend, earning over $25 million (see “Turtles Win the Race”).

If you’re wondering why Eastman finally decided to sell off the artwork, it may partially be because Eastman’s involvement with his creation is quite distant these days: he sold off his half of the rights to TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES a few years ago…to Peter Laird, his co-creator. We’ll refrain from commenting on Eastman’s business sense over the years, but he’s no Ike Perlmutter, that’s for sure.

The Seattle Weekly looks at the long running Harlan Ellison/Gary Groth fued in an article we couldn’t have titled any better ourselves: News: From Hell’s Heart, I Litigate at Thee!. The article looks at the strengths and weakness of both sides, and reveals what we all new: it’s an adolescent pissing contest on both sides that makes everyone lose.

By choosing to fight Ellison’s lawsuit, rather than settle or alter the content of a not-yet-published book that’s at the center of the case, Groth is embracing a huge risk, he acknowledges. Fantagraphics already lost the first legal round last month, when a federal court declined to toss out the complaint. Now Groth is seemingly committed to a courtroom marathon that could stretch on for years. Isn’t he taking a chance that might destroy his own company? “An adverse judgment could, sure,” he says. “But any publisher with any courage takes that chance every day. Whether it’s The New York Times or The Nation…any journalistic enterprises that seek to exercise their rights do take that chance, and I think they’re obligated to take that chance.”

All of which sounds perfectly noble and admirable—until you look further into the story, and realize that this suit is but phase three of a 27-year grudge match that seems to be at least as much petty and personal as it is principled.

Okay, we knew EVERYTHING was coming back in the current comics boom, but Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters? Created by Don Chin, and published by Eclips as a take off on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which was a take off on Daredevil and Ronin, ARBBH was the most successful of the literally DOZENS of books which created the great Black and White Indie Glut of ‘87. This was a strange period in comics history, one which we should return to in a future posting, but in the meantime, here’s the PR from Dynamite — is this the start of a NEW black and white indie comic boom?

DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT announced today that they had reached an agreement with creator Don Chin to begin publishing a new comic book series and collections (and collectibles) featuring the Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters. The news release follows up the blockbuster weekend that the animated CGI outing of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles dominated the weekend box-office!

The Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters, written and created by Don Chin was originally illustrated by Parsonavich and later by Sam Kieth, as well as initially published by Eclipse Comics. The series chronicled the adventures of four Hamsters named Chuck, Bruce, Jackie and Clint, who were sent into space by the United Nations in an attempt to obliterate a huge blob of radioactive space jell-o that threatened to engulf the earth, wiping out all life as we know it. The Hamsters sacrificed their lives by self-destructing their rocket ship in the heart of the gelatinous mass, which sent them hurtling back to earth to the Himalayas covered with the strange glowing goo. There they were found by a wandering Buddhist Monk who sees their arrival as an answer to ancient prophecy–so they are trained in the ways of the martial arts to one day rid the world of corruption.

Chin dreamed up the furry foursome in a biology class at Humboldt State University in the 1980’s as a parody of the increasingly popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics, but they soon took on a life of their own, selling over a half-million comics and becoming a part of pop culture. Humboldt State University in Arcata, California is also the alma mater of Stephen Hillenburg, creator of “Spongebob Squarepants.”

Dynamite stated: “The Hamsters are fun, they’re cuddly, and now they’re “dynamite”. We’ve been working with Don for a good long while to make this happen and today I’m pleased to announce that the Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters have found a new home at Dynamite. This is a series which has the potential to not only be a lot of fun, but to be a great jumping on point for kids as well as regular comic fans! We’re thrilled at the creative possibilities of this series and have big things in store for these characters in a new comic book series.”

Creator Don Chin stated: “I’m very excited to be entering into this relationship with Dynamite Entertainment, as they have a proven reputation for great art and stories and have shown a keen eye for turning licensed properties into hot comic book titles such as Army of Darkness, Battlestar Galactica and Red Sonja. I have long wanted to re-introduce the “Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters” to a new generation of fans who might be looking for a very funny, action-packed series and to the original fans who have kept asking me when they were going to return out of hibernation. With so many 1980’s retro-titles being sought after for comics and movies (Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, etc.), it seemed like a natural fit to bring the Black Belt Hamsters back”

The Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters series ran for nine issues from 1986 through 1989 and featured a number of spin-offs, including: Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters in 3-D; Clint: Hamster Triumphant; and Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters Massacre the Japanese Invasion.

More details on Dynamite’s Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters - including details on the creative team - will be available in the near future.

Dynamite plans to have incredible support for this release with house ads, Diamond Previews Ads, online ads through news websites, as well as prints ads in Comic Shop News!

Still catching up on sleep and Desktop Tower Defense around here. In the News section, it looks like we’ll be attending next month’s Saló International del Cómic de Barcelona in, as if you couldn’t figure it out, Barcelona, Spain. We are extremely excited not only to be going to one of the world’s most beautiful cities, but finally getting to experience a true European comics salon. Guests include Gipi, Jacques Tardi, Christophe Blain, Enki Bilal, Joe Sacco, Amanda Conner, Jimmy Palmiotti, Howard Chaykin and more. We’ll be bringing you full Beat-style coverage of all the excitement and Gaudi for sure.

Meanwhile, we know one story and one story only has been gripping the nation this week: Sanjaya Malakar and his fauxhawk on American Idol. Now we know that coalitions and hunger strikes have formed to stop Malakar and his burblings, but as far as the hair goes, remember, the singing 17-year-old is just the right age to be a manga fan, andmaybe he is more in touch with the youth of the nation and their love of gravity defying manga hairstyles than grown-ups know. Points to ponder.

By Paul O’Brien

After months of hype and a midnight launch, DARK TOWER is finally in the stores, and on the charts.

But it’s far from being a one-book month. February saw the final issue of CIVIL WAR, complete with a few more crossover issues - though even by the end of the month, there were a couple of stragglers still to come. And as one event finishes, two more begin. The Spider-Man books entered “Back in Black”, and the wider Marvel Universe began shipping “Initiative” titles. The Initiative isn’t a crossover so much as a branding exercise for books with lasting effects from the Superhuman Registration Act. But it’s helping to keep up the interest as the Marvel Universe moves past CIVIL WAR.

All this contributes to Marvel giving DC a complete thumping in market share - 42% to 33% in dollars, 47% to 35% in units. Not even remotely close.

It can’t hurt to repeat the caveats that attach to these figures. These are estimated sales based on Diamond’s published chart for North American direct market stores. They don’t include sales to retailers outside the direct market, and they don’t include sales to the UK (which can be substantial, for some books). Equally, we don’t know how many copies were sold on to customers and how many just piled up on the shelves - although obviously, if you’ve got a clear upwards or downwards trend, that gives you a pretty good clue.

Thanks as always to Milton Griepp and ICV2 for permission to use their figures for these calculations.

1.  CIVIL WAR
05/06  #1 of 7 - 360,172
06/06  #2 of 7 - 339,527  ( -5.7%)
07/06  #3 of 7 - 335,655  ( -1.1%)
08/06  —
09/06  #4 of 7 - 288,609  (-13.2%)
10/06  —
11/06  #5 of 7 - 281,323  ( -2.5%)
12/06  —
01/07  #6 of 7 - 259,264  ( -7.8%)
02/07  #7 of 7 - 265,935  ( +2.6%)
                  6 mnth  ( -7.9%)

The juggernaut miniseries finally concludes, although if the previous issues are anything to go by, re-orders will continue to crop up for a couple of months yet. In February, issue #4 sold another 1,530 copies, and issue #5 managed 1,805. As usual, those are added into the totals above. There’s a variant cover on this issue, too.

By any reasonable standard, this series has been an enormous hit. Most books would kill to launch with 266K in sales. CIVIL WAR ends with it. It’s in a different league.

This is as good a place as any to mention CIVIL WAR: CASUALTIES OF WAR, a reprint of the three “Casualties of War” one-shots that were added to the schedule at the last minute. It appears on the chart at number 155 with orders of 9,988 - impressive for a high-priced reprint book. There’s also CIVIL WAR: BLACK PANTHER - WAR CRIMES, reprinting BLACK PANTHER #21-23, which charts at number 157 on the strength of 9,614 orders.

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MacGuffin looks at the products that are brining civilians into comics shops at an all time record pace: Buffy Season 8, Stephen King’s The Gunslinger, and Captain America #25:

Over the long term, I suspect that the most important of these will be Dark Horse’s new Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. The wide-spread appeal of this comic is pretty amazing, so much so that, despite the fairly common knowledge that Buffy was a popular show and made for some truly devoted fans, retailers and Dark Horse pretty badly misjudged demand. Over at the Engine, Warren Ellis asked how this was possible and a series of individuals proceeded to toss their theories against the wall. One of the great things about Buffy is not only the number of new customers it’s bringing in but the type of customer it’s bringing in. Joss Whedon is so tied to fan’s concept of Buffy (which makes sense since he wrote the movie and created the show) that it’s easy to point out Fray, Serenity, Astonishing X-Men and Runaways. More on why we love Joss Whedon.

There are some lovely watercolors up at hanaroda.net, the website of artist Hyeondo Park. Park is working on some top secret graphic novel projects right now and you’re sure to see much more of his name around.

We mentioned this the other day, now we hear that Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Rosario Dawson and Freddie Rodriguez will all be signing at Jim Hanley’s Universe this Saturday from 12-1. Tickets for the signing will be given out, so get there early.

Hey if anyone wants to join in a campaign to nominate Jason or Billy Hazelnuts, we’re all in!

April 4th is the deadline for Harvey Award nomination voting. We urge you to go vote. There have been many examples of a small sampling of voters making a bi difference in the noms over the years, and the more people who want to go vote, the better. Here’s all relevant info:

As the deadline approaches, there is still time for comic book artists, writers, and creators to submit their nominees. Here are a few of the most commonly asked Questions and Answers about the Harvey Awards.

Who can vote for the Harvey Awards?
Any published comic book or graphic novel creator may vote for the Harveys. The Harveys are the only industry award both nominated and chosen by comic book creators.

Where can I get a ballot?
Electronic ballots can be downloaded from www.harveyawards.org. Paper ballots may be requested at baltimorecomiccon@yahoo.com

What is the deadline?
Midnight, April 4th, 2007.

Where do I send the ballot?
You can email the ballot to PJCJMC3@sbcglobal.net or send your paper ballot by mail to Harvey Ballots, 605 West Arapaho Road, Richardson TX 75080.

What works are eligible?
There are 21 award categories. Voters may choose up to 5 nominees in each category. Anything published and released during 2006 is eligible.

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The Hugo and John W. Campbell Award finalists, 2007 are also up. You can see the complete list in the link, but we wanted to note the art category:

Professional Artist
Bob Eggleton
Donato Giancola
Stephan Martiniere
John Jude Palencar
John Picacio

The Eagle Awards for the best in British comics are up. You’ll need to go there to vote, but we’ll record the nominees here:

---

1: Award for Favourite Comics Writer
ALAN MOORE (Lost Girls)
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN (Y: The Last Man, Runaways, Ex Machina, Pride of Baghdad)
ED BRUBAKER (Criminal, Uncanny X-Men, Daredevil, Captain America)
GRANT MORRISON (All-Star Superman, Batman)
WARREN ELLIS (Fell, Desolation Jones, Nextwave, newuniversal)

2: Award for Favourite Comics Writer/Artist
ALAN DAVIS (Fantastic Four: The End)
BEN TEMPLESMITH (Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse; IDW)
DARWYN COOKE (The Spirit, Solo)
MICHAEL AVON OEMING (The Cross Bronx; Image)
MIKE MIGNOLA (Dark Horse Book of Monsters)

3: Award for Favourite Comics Artist: Pencils
ALEX MALEEV (New Avengers, New Avengers: Illuminati)
BRYAN HITCH (The Ultimates 2)
FRANK CHO (Liberty Meadows)
FRANK QUITELY (All-Star Superman)
JOHN CASSADAY (Astonishing X-Men, Planetary)

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Dirk responds to my needling yesterday by admitting that for one brief shining moment, 300 sold more copies than Naruto.

That said, I have to wonder at Heidi MacDonald’s just-linked post, where she attempts to beat me over the head with the fact that 300 landed at #18 on Publishers Weekly’s hardcover bestsellers list. And you can use this to measure against the sales of a paperback… how, exactly?

(Don’t get me wrong: It’s rare to see Heavily Networked Heidi taking a bold stance on anything, even if it’s only on the extent to which I suck. It’s a nice start, and I’d hate to discourage such behavior. Who knows? Perhaps one day, she’ll voice an opinion that might make one of her friends, industry colleagues or possible gossip sources frown a bit! One can only guess at the sort of interesting things she’d write after that happy day has dawned…)

I would be more impressed with Dirk’s salvo if he didn’t have 300’s ranking on the PW list wrong — it was #12 NOT #18 — and this week it’s #11.

I of all people know how many mistakes and typos you can make while late night blogging, but unless Dirk is one of those Monty Python types who automatically adds 6 to every number he says, his fighting technique this time out is pretty weak, and such sloppy reporting brings back my questions over his agenda. And this:

And you can use this to measure against the sales of a paperback… how, exactly?

was my EXACT point. While Bookscan is the most accurate gauge we have access to, it is not infallible. In fact, when it spits out results Dirk didn’t like, he was saying just the opposite

The dubious: Over at The Engine, Hibbs goes on to make claims that his presented figures simply cannot support. “Conclusion: for the most part, ‘art comix’ sell just as bad in the general bookstore market, as they do in the DM.” Don’t you believe it. Never mind that the portion of the bookstore market most likely to back non-genre works — independent bookstores — is the one most underrepresented by BookScan’s numbers. Likewise never mind the absence of Canada’s largest bookstore chain, Chapters (a significant market for Drawn & Quarterly, I’m led to believe), let alone the library market sum in toto. The real signifier that this claim is unsupportable comes from the simple fact that the bottom item on the list in question sold 4784 copies.

Never mind that independent bookstores are known in the actual publishing community as a weak source of sales for GNs. The facts go against Dirk’s Bold Stance, so they must be wrong!

The New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists were, until the advent of Bookscan, considered the bible of book sales. Both use different methods to arrive at their goals, and both are assumed to be a mix of magical juju and actual sales reporting. Are they as accurate? Not really. But they do represent publishing industry thinking, and any graphic novel landing on either of them is something to be noted and analyzed.

Both have different charts for hardcover and paperback sales. Now why is this? I suppose it’s because mass market paperbacks are generally racked separately. When trade paperbacks came along, they got their own sales charts. I’m sure much of the reason is so more publishers could have more bestsellers, but it’s also to differentiate them by price point, retail outlets and so on.

All of which is to say that Dark Horse was perfectly justified LAST WEEK in crowing over the fact that they had a bestselller. And Viz and Dark Horse should both go out there and talk about their bestselling books to book buyers and bookstore owners, librarians and even readers. I’m all for a critical reading of press releases (and we do it here on a regular basis) but you’d better get your facts straight or else it’s an agenda.

As for the last part of Dirk’s riposte, we’re always smiling on the outside and crying on the inside here at SBM. I *wish* all I got was frowns.

Now you can shove your rent check into an R2-D2 post office box and use your Darth Maul stamp to get it there! The US Post Office is releasing a series of 15 stamps to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Star Wars. The stamps will kick off the new 41¢ stamp price.

Actually, the USPS and Star Wars are teaming for all sorts of things, including the unfortunately-named USPS - Jedi Shipping and Mailing Master:

That certainly makes two-day mail very exciting!

Okay, THE HILLS HAVE EYES: THE BEGINNING is signed off on and off to Harper Collins, and we’re a bit knackered. We’ll be posting more when we wake up from our snooze, but in the meantime, here’s two great tastes that go together.

More “This is Sparta!” madness here (link NSFW, probably).

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS cover art. Click for larger.

Molly Crabapple hosts a night of burlesque and book signing more popularly known as DR. SKETCHY’S ANTI-ART SCHOOL! Indulge in the intelligent pleasures of cabaret life drawing with fetish goddess Zoetica Ebb. It matters not if you smudge charcoal, daub fingerpaint, ink flesh or transform sidewalks with three-dimensional chalk drawings – all are welcome at this celebration of fine lines.

Molly will be signing and illustratively amending copies of her new tome, DR. SKETCHY’S RAINY DAY COLOURING BOOK. This prestigious volume contains a wild permutation of swell and swollen ideas to tickle your fancy or at least teach you how to identify other’s fancies and tickle those as well. The book and the event compliment one another so as to transport you directly into the mind’s eye of La Crabapple and her traveling sidekicks. If you can hold a pencil, she can improve your evening.

DR. SKETCHY’S ANTI-ART SCHOOL
AT MELTDOWN COMICS
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28 7 TO 10 PM
7522 Sunset Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90046