The manga revolution will be blogged.
Stu Levy thinks that the "manga revolution" has been won so, in a odd victory lap, he's shutting down the North American publishing arm of Tokyopop, his company that inspired and lead so much of that revolution. Before Tokyopop, we had translated manga. Maybe you could point to Viz, Marvel and First Comics back in the 1980s and 1990s for first bringing manga to the states but they did everything that they could to make those books look like Western comics, flipping artwork, trimming stories down to 34 pages a month and trying to get them sold on the shelves at comic shops next to Superman and Spider-Man. Tokyopop was one of the first though that tried to replicate the Japanese reading experience with the takubon (or as we like to call it, the digest format,) asking its audience to read from right to left, and bringing a deep and varied catalog of titles over from Japan. They got their books into Borders, Barnes and Noble and Musicland. They had selection, distribution and fans.
As a comics fan, I credit Tokyopop with increasing my awareness of manga in the 2000s even if I don't have a lot of their books on my shelves. It was hard not to notice when their section in Diamond's Previews catalog became almost as big as DC's. It was hard not to notice when a lot of comic shops suddenly had a large selection of manga.
Maybe the revolution was won a long time ago and Stu Levy got bored during the time of peace.
If the seemingly rapid growth of manga wasn't hard to notice, the resulting market contraction and correction was equally evident. When so many publishers took a hit when Musicland closed and returned tons of unsold product, maybe we should have then realized that the ground on which the manga revolution was built was unsteady. ADV Manga looked to be a serious contender until they folded following Musicland's quick and sudden death.
I don't know if I've ever believed in the myth of the "manga generation." We were sold the idea that children were the future and that those kids reading manga now were going to read manga and maybe even comics forever. There were so many stories about kids plopped down in the aisles of bookstores, crowding the floors as they pored over the latest volumes of their favorite stories. Personally, I'd like to know where these kids were? Living in the Chicago area during this revolution, I can't think of a time when I saw these supposed bands of hooligans taking over the floors of Borders and Barnes & Nobles. The audience was obviously there for manga and Tokyopop at some point but I believe we were oversold the size and power of that audience. We were told we were on the precipice of something big and when it failed to materialize, we carried on with life looking at the rows and rows of manga at Borders that was always stocked buy what, other than the few category drivers, ever sold out of those aisles?
For me personally, the revolution can be pinpointed to between 2006 and 2009. And the revolution on my personal bookshelves was fought by Viz, Drawn & Quarterly, fantagraphics, Vertical and Yen Press. I think the only Tokyopop that remIned in my collection is Planetes, a wonderful series that's infamous for how poorly it sold. With my local Borders now gone, I wonder how NYC new manga I'll discover? It was nice to go to thestire, flip through books and find something that looks interesting. I'll still have series and creators that I'll follow but my huge concern is that I and those comic book fans who glommed onto manga during the last 10 years will lose out on seeing things due to the combination of Tokyopop and Borders. Manga will once again become like European comics in the American audience, a niche where we see only a small smattering of everything that's available.
Tokyopop wasn't a huge part of my own reading experience but the loss of them in the North American publishing world creates a huge vacuum in manga both for readers and the remaining sellers. You've got to take this news and wonder a bit about Viz but they're a company with deep roots an they've already demonstrated that they can adapt to changing markets. There are plenty of other and smaller manga publishers but they are more like publishing boutiques, much more narrowly focused on the type of books they publish that Tokyopop ever was.
Just a couple of years ago, I was excited about an explosion of manga that I thought was happening, or at least as it was happening from my viewpoint. There was so much good stuff being published and it all looked so different than most of what Tokyopop was publishing. Personally, the loss of Tokyopop hits me the same way that the loss of Borders does; it’s the loss of an avenue for books and my ability to find them. Those avenues still exist and it’s just up to me to be on the lookout for them.
As a comics fan, I credit Tokyopop with increasing my awareness of manga in the 2000s even if I don't have a lot of their books on my shelves. It was hard not to notice when their section in Diamond's Previews catalog became almost as big as DC's. It was hard not to notice when a lot of comic shops suddenly had a large selection of manga.
Maybe the revolution was won a long time ago and Stu Levy got bored during the time of peace.
If the seemingly rapid growth of manga wasn't hard to notice, the resulting market contraction and correction was equally evident. When so many publishers took a hit when Musicland closed and returned tons of unsold product, maybe we should have then realized that the ground on which the manga revolution was built was unsteady. ADV Manga looked to be a serious contender until they folded following Musicland's quick and sudden death.
I don't know if I've ever believed in the myth of the "manga generation." We were sold the idea that children were the future and that those kids reading manga now were going to read manga and maybe even comics forever. There were so many stories about kids plopped down in the aisles of bookstores, crowding the floors as they pored over the latest volumes of their favorite stories. Personally, I'd like to know where these kids were? Living in the Chicago area during this revolution, I can't think of a time when I saw these supposed bands of hooligans taking over the floors of Borders and Barnes & Nobles. The audience was obviously there for manga and Tokyopop at some point but I believe we were oversold the size and power of that audience. We were told we were on the precipice of something big and when it failed to materialize, we carried on with life looking at the rows and rows of manga at Borders that was always stocked buy what, other than the few category drivers, ever sold out of those aisles?
For me personally, the revolution can be pinpointed to between 2006 and 2009. And the revolution on my personal bookshelves was fought by Viz, Drawn & Quarterly, fantagraphics, Vertical and Yen Press. I think the only Tokyopop that remIned in my collection is Planetes, a wonderful series that's infamous for how poorly it sold. With my local Borders now gone, I wonder how NYC new manga I'll discover? It was nice to go to thestire, flip through books and find something that looks interesting. I'll still have series and creators that I'll follow but my huge concern is that I and those comic book fans who glommed onto manga during the last 10 years will lose out on seeing things due to the combination of Tokyopop and Borders. Manga will once again become like European comics in the American audience, a niche where we see only a small smattering of everything that's available.
Tokyopop wasn't a huge part of my own reading experience but the loss of them in the North American publishing world creates a huge vacuum in manga both for readers and the remaining sellers. You've got to take this news and wonder a bit about Viz but they're a company with deep roots an they've already demonstrated that they can adapt to changing markets. There are plenty of other and smaller manga publishers but they are more like publishing boutiques, much more narrowly focused on the type of books they publish that Tokyopop ever was.
Just a couple of years ago, I was excited about an explosion of manga that I thought was happening, or at least as it was happening from my viewpoint. There was so much good stuff being published and it all looked so different than most of what Tokyopop was publishing. Personally, the loss of Tokyopop hits me the same way that the loss of Borders does; it’s the loss of an avenue for books and my ability to find them. Those avenues still exist and it’s just up to me to be on the lookout for them.