What Other Folks Are Talking About

* this is probably the most interesting stand-alone feature article out there today, a report by Henry Jenkins on a three-day conference in Berlin about the relationship of comics to the city.

* continuing his flurry of recent article-writing, Alan David Doane pushes comic book stores up against the ropes and begins throwing knees and elbows. I disagree with about 80 percent of what he writes, to be honest. Beyond specific disagreements, my general point of departure would be that while I do think there's value in being a full service store, I tend not to conflate how a store approaches their basic business strategy -- what to sell, what to emphasize -- with how successful they are in providing basic services like not being filthy or terrifying.

I do wish that comic shops would recognize their place as a gateway to the entire form, and realize, for example, that they might have people walking in who want a comic that's not something they generally carry but that it still benefits them to find a way to offer this person a reasonable way to get this material. My local bookstore does that. My local music store does that. But that's more because I see value in it more than I have a list of what a store can and should do. I would also point towards problems in distribution as an equally pernicious barrier in making this happen on a regular basis. If my cousin Jane were to walk into a comics shop looking for Persepolis, would that store owner be able to order her one in a prompt and professional manner, or would he be better serving Jane to suggest Amazon? The way orders work, I'm not sure.

I live in a small town, and the nearest comic shop (two hours away!) has gaming tables and shares space with a paintball business. I wish it were Quimby's West, but I'm okay with the fact that it's not.

* there are three manga stories driving chat. The first two are slightly ominous-sounding local police investigations in Kyoto and Osaka, the third is this article that asserts UK booksellers may not be as aggressively racking manga across categories as US booksellers have been. I don't really recall aggressive cross-category shelving in the US bookstores I've visited, and it seems I'm stepping over kids in one section only, but I'm not exactly Bookstore Betty.

* Mike Manley notes during his on-the-ground look at China that there seems to be a lack of a consistent in-country industry to support the form, and questions how much of what he's seeing is bootlegged. I guess the article is kind of a downer, although I'm certain that someone out there just did that Reginald Van Dough thing of money signs taking the place of eyeballs over the idea that China is an unploughed field for comics. That's one big-ass potential market.

* as much as I care, which isn't much, I'm with Parker. I'm afraid I have no opinion on this at all.
 
posted 2:06 am PST | Permalink
 

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