the stuffs inside my head that must get out
archives
Fri, 27 Feb 2004
Conan contest
An old customer just came in to sign up for our subscription service
because he was so excited about the new Conan series from
Dark Horse comics. It's lucky he did, since it's been flying off the
shelves here and is already going into a second printing. He brought
in a beautiful piece of original Gil Kane Conan pin-up art he recently
purchased on Ebay, and is trying to find out what issue of Conan it
originally appeared in. If you know, email me the answer or just call it in. The winner will receive
my eternal gratitude and a $20.00 Hijinx gift certificate! Here it is:
Good luck!
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Thu, 26 Feb 2004
A.P.E. droppings
This year's Alternative Press Expo was a blast! I met tons and tons of
great people and picked up loads of comics and minis to bring back to
both Hijinx locations. Come in and check out our selection of the best
the Expo had to offer.
Here's a great gem picked up:
A long out of print signed mini from indy artist Jim Blanchard.
I also got a chance to speak to lots of up and coming artists, including Derek Kirk Kim who did the excellent Same Difference which about to be reprinted by Top Shelf. You can check out more of his work at his website Small Stories. I'm the ugly one.
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Sat, 21 Feb 2004
at least somebody is reading this stuff...
Weblogger Sean Fumo comments here on my Manga:
Fad or Future piece. I posted a response in the comments section of
the link, but basically I think he more or less missed the jist of
what I was trying to say.
Manga is literally just another word for comics. As San Jose's best comic book store, I'd be remiss not to have a healthy Manga selection, just as I have healthy Fiction/Literature and Comic Strip sections. The key word there is healthy. If I carried every single book in publication, I'd have to close up shop. Some day I will, but I need to see steady growth in categories, not huge boom and bust cycles.
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Sun, 08 Feb 2004
Julius Schwartz R.I.P.
I just read about the death of one of the most beloved comic book
editors of all time, Julius "Julie" Schwartz. I don't know enough
about Silver Age history to do him justice, so you should read what
Mark Evanier has to say about it.
As for me, I've always had a soft spot for all the DC comics with gorillas on the cover, ever since I heard that came from an edict by Schwartz that monkeys sell comics. It's a sadder world without him.
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Thu, 05 Feb 2004
more crappy college comics
because nobody demanded it...
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Wed, 04 Feb 2004
Manga: fad or the future?
A lot of folks have been talking about the Manga explosion of the past
year. According to this article on ICV2 Manga saw a 75-100% growth, and they call it
"the fastest growing area of pop culture". What's most interesting to
me is that these figures only account for sell-in, not sell-through.
That means sales to retail outlets have increased. That's not a surprise since the number of titles offered has exploded. When I see
Tokyopop release up to 40 new Manga gns in a single month, I can see the coming glut and
inevitable retraction on the part of retail outlets. There are simply
too many titles being released too quickly, at least for me to keep up
with.
That being said, certain titles, particularly the Shonen Jump titles from Viz and selected TPop titles have seen pretty good sales at Hijinx. Other titles have been simply sitting on the shelves collecting dust. While I'm all for growth in any area of the comics industry, I see some parallels between the current Manga boom and the black and white boom and bust of the eighties. While some titles are truly worthy and popular, it's really hard to seperate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. It seems a lot of publishers seem to think that if it's small and translated from the Japanese, it's a guaranteed winner. That simply isn't the case, and I would suspect we'll see some contraction of the market in the coming year.
I'll continue stocking a wide variety of Manga, but I simply can't afford to carry every single title, or I'll go belly up! That's why I rely on my customers to keep me up to date on which titles are crucial to stock, and which are forgettable. Luckily I have such a diverse customer base that I've been getting reliable tips from my regular Manga customers and have had the right titles to satisfy demand from customers off the street.
As to the title of this post, Fad or Future, I think the answer is a little of both. There is certainly a faddish nature to the stuff, but like many fads, I think it will continue to have legs long after this initial window of popularity is over. After all, I still sell a fair amount of Pokemon cards, despite the fact that Pokemon is considered "dead".
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Tue, 03 Feb 2004
crappy college comics
I recently unearthed some of the comics I drew while attending
San Francisco State University. They're pretty bad, but I thought
I might dust them off and post some here from time to time. Please
be gentle...
Hilarious stuff, huh? No? Well maybe you'll like this next comment on antidisestablishmentarianism, now digitally remastered!
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