Romanian Manga

Cory Doctorow has a story in Forbes about how manga has invaded Romania, and how it has morphed into two distinct cultures: those who insist on absolute fidelity to the source, and those who are appropriating and remixing it into something resembling the old American underground scene.

(BTW, those adaptations of Doctorow's short stories that IDW is publishing? Rather good, I think.)

Tara Tallan and Galaxion

Sequential Tart's Donielle Ficca interviews cartoonist Tara Tallan, whose sci-fi comic Galaxion is on its third iteration, now as a Webcomic on Girlamatic.

The best thing [about working on a web comic] is having no costs other than my art supplies – and instant world-wide distribution, for them that wants it. Self-publishing in the 90's was more or less a zero-sum game for me. I didn't lose money, but I can't say I made a lot of money either. On the web, I can still tell my story and still reach lots of readers (though there will always be those that for one reason or anther simply don't want to read comics on their computer), but without the money issues! Also, by the time I'm ready to collect all this stuff into a graphic novel, I'll have done half the work by already having established a fan base. Not all web readers will buy, of course, but it's a decent head start over trying to sell something sight unseen.

I was a fan back in the day, and was disappointed when the regular comic version disappeared. I'm looking forward to when Tallan gets enough of the new version completed to release a paper-based collection. (I just don't like to follow long-form works online.)

(This is the sort of 'other avenue' that I was referring to previously.)

(link via Dirk)

Colleen Coover (Again)

Writing for The Oregonian, Steve Duin reminds us that there are other women working in comics besides than Gail Simone; in this case YACB fave Colleen Coover. It's a rather nice profile of her career so far.

In regards to our previous post about women creators at the big four, I am reminded that, while Coover has been doing semi-frequent back-ups for X-Men: First Class, they are rarely if ever mentioned in the solicits. On the one hand that makes it always a nice surprise when her work shows up; on the other, maybe it would behoove Marvel to mention her participation as a selling point?

Virtual tour of Periscope Studio... In German!

A short photo tour of Periscope Studio, by a visiting German cartoonist: Fotos aus dem Studio

Women Creators at Marvel & DC (and Image & Dark Horse)

David Welsh's recent post about tips for media writers when writing about female comic creators got me to thinking: just how many women are writing or drawing comics at the major pop comics publishers?

Let's go counting through the April solicits!

(Note: I'm not counting manga or OGNs.)

Marvel:

Writers: 2: Robin Furth on Dark Tower & Lords of Avalon; Jessica Ruffner on Anita Blake.

Artists: 1: Adriana Melo on Ms. Marvel.


DC:

Writers: 2: Amy Wolfram on Teen Titans Year One; Gail Simone on Wonder Woman & Welcome to Tranquility

Artists: 2: Nicola Scott on Birds of Prey; Sandra Hope on World of Warcraft


Image:

Writers: none

Artists: 1: Laura Allred on Madman Atomic Comics


Dark Horse:

Writers: none

Artists: 1: Jan Duursema on Star Wars: Legacy



So as far as creator gender representation in mainstream comics goes, things are no better than they were ten, twenty or thirty years ago--the days of Louise Simonson, Jo Duffy, Ann Nocenti, June Brigman, Marie Severin, Ramona Fradon, etc.

One might think that, with more titles being pushed out these days, there would be opportunities for more creators, and that some of those slots would be filled by women creators.

It's hard to address the why of the gender imbalance without speaking in supposition and generalities. I think that there are a combination of factors at work, some of which boil down to a lack of desire on the part of female creators to work on corporate super-hero comics when there are plenty of other avenues available for their creative expression.

(1/28: Edited, 'cause I totally spaced and left off Jan Duursema.)

National Pie Tragedy

As most of you know, January 23rd – today, unless my medication needs adjusting – is National Pie Day. Since I include a piece of pie in almost all of my cartoons and have done so for years, one would naturally assume that I would be a fundamental part of this great celebration. But I have been snubbed.

All across the land people are rejoicing, families are gathering and giving thanks, congregations are praying, school children are singing about pie. But not one word is being uttered about Bizarro, which celebrates pie not just on a single day in January, but all year long. I wasn't asked to ride in a parade atop a pie made of geraniums, I wasn't interviewed by USA Today, I wasn't a guest on Larry King Live. I wasn't even called by some corny morning DJ to talk live on the air about what this day means to me. Instead, my wife and I will celebrate quietly in our tiny Brooklyn apartment with our two cats and a half-dozen (vegan) pies.

I blame capitalism. Greedy retailers have taken all the meaning out of National Pie Day and turned it into a money-grubbing orgy of merchandise and services. What once was a meaningful celebration of a time-honored staple in every person's life, has become another way to line our pockets with soul-draining cash and fill our homes with useless baubles and electronic gizmos to distract us from the real meaning of pie.

Let us not forget on this special day, that pie is not about cash and gifts and merchandise. It's about flaky crust. It's about juicy fruits and syrupy goodness, shared with family and friends. It's about the bounty of Mother Nature's Bosom, flowing forth with fruits and vegetables and grains, captured at their paramount in a round, portable disk of life-giving flavor.

Without pie, we would be nothing more than a nation of cartilage-gnawing barbarians.

http://www.piecouncil.org/national.htm

Diamond 2007 Chart Position and Sales

Near the end of his discussion on the ICv2 Diamond Sales Estimates for December, Tom Spurgeon remarks:

There also seems to be growth at the bottom of the comic sales chart, a slight shift of 20 or so place for equivalent sales, which is a phenomenon I don't know that I've seen convincing analysis on, but I would imagine has to be encouraging.

Ask and ye shall receive, Tom!

I looked at ICv2's Sales Estimates charts for all of 2007, grabbing the sales figures for positions 1, 10, 50, 100, 150, 200, 250, and 300. (I also did the graphic novel charts for positions 1, 10, 50, and 100.) Here's what we get:



(The Y-axis on the chart is on a logarithmic scale.)

The only thing that jumps out at me is that for comics, for every position but 50 & 1, the Jan 2007 numbers are darn close to the Dec 2007 numbers.

Frankly, I was expecting to see more connections. I thought that high numbers at the top would mean low numbers at the bottom, as the big selling titles would eat away at the mid and lower ranks. This is slightly true, as we can see that the highest numbers for 150, 200, 250 and 300 come in October, when positions 1 & 10 are at the lowest.

But every time I thought a pattern was emerging, along came a data set for the month which quashed the pattern.

(In case you're wondering, the big numbers at position 1 in the beginning of the year are from Civil War #s 6-7, then Captain America #25.)

As far as the graphic novel position data goes, it seems to be completely divorced from anything.

Does anyone else see anything different in the data?

(There is also no doubt a better analysis to be made, such as adding all top 10 slots and comparing to the total of the bottom 50 or something like that. This is just what I came up with for a quick look...)