Rocket Bomber - snark

…charts to follow soon.

15 May 2009, ~11am: edited; see comments

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

So far as I know, this is the first and only use of the word ‘gyre’ in this bastard mongrel tongue we all share and all share in mangling. Granted, English is fluid, and adaptable, and so flexible it makes ex-gymnasts on Romanian porn sites look stiff and staight-laced. We can verb nouns and take gerunds way past their indicated uses and expiration dates, and coin neologisms about as fast as we can type. In the internet age, even misspellings and typos have become words: we’re pwning teh language faster than a million chimpanzee OED scholars on a million netbooks can keep pace.

(Or perhaps they’re capuchin monkeys. The capuchins are certainly better suited to the smaller keyboards; I don’t know, I’m not up on current OED practices.)

For my latest trick, I’m going to introduce an intentional mispronunciation of a foreign language term as the New Proper English word Ja-pon-is-me. 4 syllables, and not the actual French word (which in use ignores the final e: Ja-pon-ism.)

Because Japonisme is prettier. And now it’s my word, and not Burty’s. And now it’s an adjective, because that’s the way I want to use it.

##

All that is incidental and beside the point. Word on the street is The One True Smith is writing Batman (again), and let me differentiate myself from other fanboys to look past ‘Smith!’ ‘Batman!’ to ask the question that should be obvious:

Kev. Dude. What’s up with that title?

Since it’s a Jabberwocky, and hence Carroll reference I’m guessing we’re looking at a Mad Hatter comic (and my good lord Odin knows we need a good Mad Hatter comic as the best take on the character is still Timm/Dini’s BtAS Jervis Tetch, and at that it was merely a gloss on the 60’s TV Bats theme-villain-of-the-week.)

…but with the Jabberwocky reference we may be looking at something new brought to the bativerse and with Kev Smith’s usual take on comics (reverential to the point of, well, fandom but with the humor and cinematic sensibilities that we know he is capable of from such excellent films as [snicker] Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back — yes, I kid, but the dude can write)

The Widening Gyre. A 12-issue Batman miniseries by Kevin Smith.

from wikipedia (the Jabberwocky article linked above):
Gyre – To go round and round like a gyroscope. (However, Carroll also wrote in Mischmasch that it meant to scratch like a dog.) The g is pronounced like the /g/ in gold, not like gem.

No word yet on how the slithy [combination of slimy and lithe] toves [a combination of a badger, a lizard, and a corkscrew] will factor in the new comic, or of the relative importance of sundials.

as noted in the comments, the Widening Gyre is a pull from Yeats, not Carroll

In the comments, Katherine Farmar asks:

What, you don’t like “mangaïsme”? I mentioned it in the roundtable you link there — Paul Gravett coined it by analogy to “Japonisme”. I think it’s better, partly because it’s specifically manga that “global manga” artists are responding to, not Japanese visual culture as a whole. On the other hand, it’s harder to spell, what with the umlaut and everything. Hey, we can just call it “mangaisme” unless there are French people reading…

##

The French already have a term for it, Nouvelle Manga — and the -isme chunk isn’t French, but rather the same -ism that French and English both borrowed from Ancient Greek. Might just as well call it mangaism (for the style; mangaist comics, to be a shade more precise, for the works themselves) without the extra ‘e’

—but of course that extra e is all-important because it ties the new word back to the established art term. My thought (and no offense to Gravett, who certainly knows more on the subject than I do) is why bother to coin a new art term when Japonisme seems to fit the bill just fine, thanks.

As to the second point, in my opinion manga cannot be removed from Japanese visual culture as a whole.

If we want to talk about 40 and 30 and 20 year old comics and how manga has developed over time as an art and as an expression, as a narrative form, or even as an ongoing public conversation between and among the various creators and their readers — OK, sure, we can talk about manga as a self contained unit. And even though it is possible to isolate the form from the content it’s like talking about decades of American comics without mentioning Superheroes or how the movie and TV adaptations are key for minting new fans of the properties in each generation.

In fact, it might be impossible to discuss the emergence of American comics without also discussing the parallel development of movie serials during the same time period (30s-50s) — many of the tropes and forms have their origin in the serial (or in dime novels and pulps, from which both comics and serials derive) and so comic books are as much a part of ‘American visual culture’ as manga is of its Japanese counterpart.

And OEL or mangaisme or whatever we want to call it is just the most recent expression of a larger, two-way conversation that started when Matthew Perry rolled up into Uraga Harbor looking for some sushi.

Taking the ‘long view’ on historical development of the form and an inclusive nature that embraces all forms of both art and culture, rather than adopting a strict Linnaean system where everything gets it’s own name and pocket and there is no blending between species, I’d just as soon call it *all* either comics or art, or use adjectives (i.e. Japonisme) to describe the comic rather than come up with a slew of new nouns for a bunch of ephemeral, arbitrary categories. Heck, we can call ‘em Manga Comics, which is either wrong or redundant or both, but even my Grandma would likely know what that meant.

And now,

From 11 Dec 2006

SO, what is manga?

“Manga” is just another world for comics, folks. Hate to burst your bubble, but that’s all it is. It’s a Japanese word, I’ll give you that, but there is no extra weight that can really be applied past the country of origin.There is a sentiment among some American fans of Japanese comics to invest “manga” with almost mythical status, that manga is somehow more pure of an art form, an expression that has deeper historic roots and a greater creative gravitas.

As to history, well, modern-style manga dates to 1945 and Dr. Osamu Tezuka. (Bats and Supe are from the 30s. I’m just sayin’.) And if you think of manga as being something noble and pure… well, maybe you aren’t reading the same books I am.

A lot of this elitism derives from the need for each new generation to stake out something of its own, something new. They put a label on it, like (to pull in a musical analogy) Rock, or Punk, or Metal, or Grunge, or Trip-hop, or whatever it is the emo kids are listening to nowadays. The point isn’t so often the music itself, but the label that differentiates ‘ours’ from ‘yours’.

Let me cite my favourite Duke Ellington quote: “If it sounds good and feels good, then it is good.” Music is music, Comics are comics, and if you like it then it doesn’t matter what we call it.

From 18 Dec 2006

As counterpoint, and more relevant to the current discussion, I’d like to pull in Batman – The Animated Series from Bruce Timm & Paul Dini. These episodes are not only better by far than at least two-thirds of the Batman films, they also managed to be better for a half-hour each week for over four years.

This is par for the course in Japan (I say in a gross generalization): anime adaptations of manga will be more like Timm/Dini-style Bats than just about anything else. I’m not saying it’s all golden. It’s just that they do things right a hell of a lot more often than Hollywood can manage.

And the joy in watching good cartoons often translates into a joy in reading the same in printed form. If nothing else, it’s nice that the two formats feed into each other. I don’t know if the film versions of Fantastic Four and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen happened to do anything for their respective print properties.

I watch anime. I read manga. It’s all part of the same obsession. From my perspective, it can occasionally be hard to separate the two. If, in future reviews, I happen to mention the anime version of a particular property, I hope you will forgive me. It’s not that I feel that print comics are somehow lacking, I’m just bringing up another important aspect of the same expression, another part of the overall visual culture.

From 5 February 2007

A lot of us talk about “manga” as being this singular thing, especially in the context of manga vs. comics. Well, make that Japanese manga vs. American superhero comics, because that’s what quite a few of us really mean when we talk about the supposed conflict.

That’s what I mean, anyway. Other commentators can clarify their own statements.
It’d be more precise to argue the point as books vs. magazines, because manga isn’t a single faceless mass of seething anti-comics out to destroy the industry. “Manga” isn’t even a genre, it’s just one type of graphic novel. (A type and format of graphic novel I happen to like, but no different in basic concept from most comics.)

Deeper storytelling and characterization are a function of length, typically, so a trade paperback is going to read more like other novels than a floppy will. There just isn’t time or space for more in only 20 pages. As Bob has pointed out in I ♥ Comics: Maintaining Control there are a number (dozens?) of publishers putting out graphic novels that feature the work of American artists –- and these are excellent; the best of these are perhaps the very top examples of both art & storytelling in the comic form. Anything good that I might say about manga — longer, deeper, more fully realized, the result of a single creative vision as opposed to heroics-by-committee — can be applied equally and equally well to most “indy” graphic novels, if not more so.

from 5 March 07

Part of the appeal of comics (and manga is just another word for comics) is that it is a new artform— though yes, comics do draw inspiration from the past, and in fact we’ve been scrawling things down on every available surface ever since some prehistoric Frenchman just had to brag to everyone about how badass a mammoth hunter he was, so there’s a lot of past to draw on.

But the comic book and it’s Japanese cousin are recent innovations (the dates I’m picking are 1933 and 1947, respectively, you can go to wikipedia or the reference of your choice and decide on your own) and while they’ve drawn from many artistic and literary sources, I’d say they’re related most closely to the other new visual media of the 20th century, the twin visual arts of cinema and television.

One twist to the debate that should also be considered is that comics are a consumer product, mass produced and marketed just like pea soup and laundry detergent. If you don’t think this has had a large influence on comics as art, then you need to go find a few internet forums where folks are (even as you read this) vehemently arguing the relative merits of fan service.

and from 6 April 2008 (just as shade before I launched RocketBomber, and though I have the old comicsnob post I’ve not ported it over yet; even without the link here’s the quote):

Like art, I know “manga” when I see it. (Or I’m willing to concede something is manga-ish enough to warrant a place on the chart.) Manga can be hard to describe though. Do you include Manhwa? Or Manhua? Or Komiks? (if you can find them). How about OEL or ‘Global’ manga? Books about manga? Books on how to draw manga? Where does Scott Pilgrim fall on your continuum, or Babymouse, or Cine-manga, or Japanese in Mangaland, or Light Novels, or heavy novels for that matter if they happen to be aimed at a teen market and translated from the Japanese?

Oooo… that last one is a good topic: why the prose output of Tokyopop & Seven Seas (& Viz, they’ve done a few) but not the works of Haruki Murakami, Natsuo Kirino, or Eiji Yoshikawa? Or even the Tale of Genji? ‘Aimed at teens’ is the keyword there, and I should come back to this issue, but not this week.

While I have my post de-railed, another aside:
OEL is fine and all, but why not ELM, then? “English Language Manga.” Too simple, perhaps.

• English Manga would be even better, but that might be construed as exclusively the manga output of that specific UK constituent country so we have to have the word ‘language’ in there.
• Amerimanga just sucks. Don’t go there.
• Most descriptive: ELCiMS. English Language Comics in Manga Style. (Pronounced ‘el-SEEMS’ in a vaguely foreign accent. Obviously. …what? no?)
• I’ve been leaning toward GOLEM. Not that the acronym is better–Global (original language: english) Manga–it’s just cooler. Golems.
• One could also take exception to the ‘O’ in OEL; how about GNOMiE: Global, nominally original, Manga in English. After all, what’s really original about 98% of all manga — foreign or domestic?
• “Eigo Manga” might be an apt term, except of course someone else thought of that, registered the domain name and started a limited liability company (what do you need for that, a pulse, some paperwork and a paralegal?) (for the domain name all you need is a credit card)
• Hell, how about コミック — if we’re going to use the English transliteration of 漫画(まんが) to describe manga sold in the US, why not use the katakana for “comics” (pronounced komikku, I think) to describe American comics trying to be manga? Or is this too freakin’ geeky?

I like geeky. I can cut and paste コミック all day, too, I don’t even need to remember the kana for it. Of course, if your browser isn’t set up for Japanese characters then all you’re seeing is □□□□ or a string of question marks and other angry characters, but hey- if you can’t set up Firefox for the proper unicode stuff then I feel no pity. (and even less if you’re still using IE) I guess it comes down to GOLEMs vs GNOMiEs vs ELCiMS. Or, manga. Even better is just comics. For the whole world-wide lot of it: Russian original script in the Filipino Komik style done by a work-for-hire Indonesian freelance company for a Franco-Belgian bande dessinée publisher (printed in Quebec) intended for the….

What kind of market would buy that? Well, I might, if only for novelty’s sake. Translate it into Latin or Attic Greek just for kicks and get that Comic out to me, thanks.

…and we’ll revisit this issue again in about 10 months. Thanks, internets, this tied up 5 hours this afternoon and, once again, you don’t get the charts. I’ll see what I can do before tomorrow morning.

You want a new term for English-language “manga”?

How about an established, 130-year-old art term that has been used for decades to describe, specifically, art by western artists directly inspired by Japanese works.

Japonisme Comics. (should I go register that as a trademark or company name, like, right now or what.)

That work for ya? Or is the fact that it was originally a French term poison it for you?

(the last time this came up I recycled a couple of acronyms from a comicsnob post for a response to Gia @ Anime Vice — GnoMiE, anyone?)

…why the charts are posting late [this week]:

1. Shugo Chara on Crunchyroll. 81 Episodes and counting. (also on Cruchyroll: Ristorante Paradiso and Shangri-La, though those haven’t become major timesucks. yet.)

2. Aria. The Anime Where Nothing Happens ™. And Yet…

it’s not even like the main characters (all female, btw) are wearing miniskirts all the time (or ever… more’s the pity) or that there are love polygons (none — I mean, none) or that aliens are invading so our brave heroines have to pilot giant robots to repel repeated daily assaults.

Nothing. Happens. And gods help me I love it. I now own 39 (of 52) episodes on DVD (and refuse to admit to downloading fansubs of every episode 9 months ago) and whenever work—or the blog—gets to be too much, I just load up some Akari, Aika, Alice, and Ai — and whatever it was I was stressing over doesn’t seem so important anymore.

Love the soundtracks, too. Someone needs to import these so I can, um, actually pay for the MP3s I’ve been listening to for a year or so.

3. Work. [40+hours a week, still]
You folks want to pay me for the charts? Hm? Well, until then I have to make rent & beer outa somewhere.

4. Data Entry Sucks. Hate it. Beer makes it barely tolerable, but only just. (and the heavy consumption of beer isn’t exactly helping the process…) I’d get someone in India to do it for me but that would cost me like, twice what I pay for rent each month.

Data entry is the hidden engine behind the charts: the cost of admission, the core, the real work involved (can’t just browse to some site with the data — there is no other source, I’m the source) — yeah, yeah: I apply some fancy maths to it, too, before I serve it up to the general public, but the math is just frosting on the cake; the ‘cake’ is mind-numbing, boring [gods is it boring] data entry.

You’ll forgive me if I don’t always finish the data entry on time.

5. Lack of feedback.

Oh, I know someone out there is reading it. And I do get a modest smattering of linkbacks. And precious few comments (up to five a year — woah, let me sit down… it’s like I’m drowning in riches…) but week in, week out there is only me, the sites, the data, and the grind.

No outside feedback. No attaboys, no compliments, no complaints, no objections, no corrections, no death threats… I don’t even get spammed. Just three links a week & the dozen regulars, and…

Well. If it weren’t for Free Porn from Simon I might have no reason to keep up the blog at all. (I figure I ‘owe’ Simon at least $200 bucks at this point — not that that’s the only reason, but anything that keeps me going can only be a good thing for him, me, and the rest of us)

Honestly, if I were the regular sort of attention whore (and I don’t deny I’m an attention whore — I have a blog, after all) this echoing silence might be enough to put me off my game for good.

So.

Well.

OK, so I have to know. I have a burning curiosity deep in my soul and the release schedules and the sad, pitiable information on sales from quote-regular-sites-unquote just doesn’t do it for me. That’s why I compile the charts.

…But I don’t have to know right now. So long as the data is saved and I can get around to it soon… or, eventually… there is no compelling reason to waste the rest of my day off doing data entry for a nameless, faceless internet that doesn’t even bother to acknowledge my efforts.

[insert The Bird here]

It’s 2 am, I have a few beers left and precious few hours before I have to go back to work (the work that pays the bills) and I don’t really feel like typing title-volume-rank into the spreadsheet anymore tonight.

Charts soon. just not now. Maybe Tuesday.
[and if you’d like to change any of these circumstances in an effort to induce me to post on a regular schedule, I can only say: Tempt Me.]

One for the wishlist: Geoff Johns and J. G. Jones for a relaunch of J’onn J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter. yeah, yeah, part of that is the smirking, poetic imp in my soul that just wants to the see the J’onzz – Johns – Jones byline, and who loves the alliteration of it. Still and all, and gimmicks aside: this would rock.

[especially if it looks like this:]

Following the depiction of the character in the animated JLU on Cartoon Network (particularly the pilot), I’d say the time is right for a new look at My Favorite Martian.

Well… maybe we’re 7 or 8 years too late. But it’s not like the fanbase is getting older and dying off or anything, no need to rush.

OK, OK, so it’s all about the byline: Tell me you wouldn’t buy J’onn J’onzz by Johns and Jones. I’d love to see the advertising for it.

[image credit: custom action figure by Sillof, part of the Gaslight Justice League — and breaking news! as noted on his homepage, some of Sillof’s stuff will finally be coming up for sale. Sweet!]

Found:

I’m kidding. I think.

isbn 9780316358408 for those who must find out.

More: www.rocketbomber.com/category/found/

I had the idea on Wednesday — I finished up the last set on Friday (and yes I know it’s not really finished as I only posted the core charts without any of the secondary reports)

I said (but did not promise) that I’d have a new chart for you on Monday, “if it kills me”

It Killed Me.

Ow.

Oh, Wow, this is a big chunk to chew off and process.

The Ghost of Matt (who was killed) will try to post RocketBomber’s first Comics 500 on Monday, but not only does he have to go in for a 7am manager’s meeting, he’s the Lucky manager this week who has to turn around and come back to close the store. I know all of our customers and customer-like-objects (I’m looking at you, Manga Cows) appreciate that the Bookstore is open 14 hours a day, but I wonder if you’ve ever thought of what that means to the fine folks who work there.

Strike that. I know the thought has never crossed your mind. Especially when you just leave your books and magazines on whatever available surface on the way out the door…

Hell, this deserves it’s very own rant but I’m on a roll and this will only take an extra minute:

You walk into my store. You ask Questions. You are looking for someone who is not only knowledgeable about the Product but who is conversant with at least two computer systems, who can game a search with minimal information (because you never have but the barest scraps of information), who is studied in history, philosophy, literature, classics, and current events; who can spell mis-pronounced titles in English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Latin, or even Japanese; who watches TV and listens to radio compulsively and knows off the top of his or her head exactly the book you saw/heard on whatever programme five weeks ago even though now the only cogent detail you can come up with is the colour of the cover (which you have misremembered so even that detail is wrong)

…and you want it all at 10:55, five minutes before we close.

Or, alternately: You want it all, but you also expect this same person (intelligent, well-spoken and well-read, with multiple degrees and an outgoing personality) to also bus your table, clean up your messes and spilled coffee, to throw out your used tissues, and to thank you for the opportunity. After thirty minutes with a knowledgeable bookseller you ask for a print-out so you can go order it online.

And after all this, you ask me if we have a photocopier

[libraries are what they are, and for a reason, and you shouldn’t treat a bookstore like a library even if so many many details seem the same. I. Want. To. Slap. You…]

You want to know why your bookstore is going out of business? Look in the mirror.

It’s Your Fault.

##

A late posting of the charts is my fault, but I’ve been dealing with customers [sic] [op cit.] all week and we’ve had to cut payroll with the decrease in sales this year and I’m running full-out just to keep up.

You people are draining me.

—double down, try again: I hope beyond hope that I can get something up tomorrow noonish.

Editorial Note: I was in the middle of writing my commentary on this week’s manga charts when I was sidetracked by a pack of rogue neurons who got together and downloaded this diatribe right into the middle of my train-of-thought on manga marketing. As has happened in the past, one of my good rants is often better than the article that prompts it, so even though I’m still working on the ur-commentary I’ll pull this chunk out of context and post it first. And while this is largely aimed at Tokyopop, I think there might be some splash damage for other comics publishers who are trying to push themselves as New Media Companies.

We now join our rant, already in progress…

##

—I need to interrupt that thought: there is no replacement for the right person who possesses the right expertise working in an appropriate position. Your first, best, second best, and in the end the only asset that positively impacts your bottom line, are your employees.

Say you own a diamond mine: you likely think that your greatest asset is the mine.

Sure it is.

…Have fun digging.

It’s cheaper to keep ‘em on the payroll. You want to pay consultant rates for stuff an expert just knows? Some of these folks genuinely love their work; heck, they’ve either been doing it for years or spend 40 hours a week outside of the job reading comics and reading about comics (or both) and likely have the equivalent of a clippings file (or a batch of web bookmarks) that enables them to answer your stupid questions in scant minutes when they don’t know something off the top of their head.

People charge money for this kind of thing; I know because I want that information, too, and no one is willing to part with it for less than 2 bills. It’s as true for publishing (or ‘media’) as for any business: It’s far easier and more cost-effective to keep expertise in house no matter what you’re doing. The ‘savings’ accrued from using freelancers instead of salaried staff is an illusionary dollar, in my opinion. You want people working for you and with you, not just working.

When you start laying off employees… Well, there is this biology term that I’ve misappropriated and tend overuse in this application: autolysis. Death of the organism from the inside out.

And I’ve ranted about this before but I’ll dig this horse up and beat it again.

Say you want to transition from comics to ‘media’ (whatever that is) just because Marvel got lucky with a couple of their lottery tickets and suddenly you’re thinking, “oh, that’s where the money is”. I don’t know if you were paying attention but Marvel made arrangements to borrow up to half a billion dollars to cover that bet, and if fickle movie audiences or egoist directors or the all-important casting director or mercurial actors had made any of a hundred different decisions badly (or at least, not in the way that they did) then we’d be blogging about which creditors now own which parts of the Marvel catalog, who’s interested in buying and at what discount.

(Oh, and Iron Man? That’s a win. But the second Hulk I can only give half credit for. Marvel got Robert Downey Jr. and got lucky, and that’s the story that leads but the jury is decidedly still out on whether the Marvel Movie Gamble ends up being hailed as a genius business decision or, like Spider-man on TV, just another blip in the long Marvel history.)

There are no guaranteed profits to be found here. Sure, roll the dice — If you have money to spare. Personally, I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.

The point? The money wasn’t made by the movie. No, wait, I’ll explain:

It was earned for the company by people, folks who like and respect the concept, the character, and the audience. They made a story that would sell. That story was wrapped up in a package that just happened to look like a movie. Don’t become so enamored of the packaging that you forget the product we all sell are Stories.

And stories-in-books are cheaper to produce.

Oh, I know,
“it’s so hard to make books… I want in on that easy Hollywood money.”
Newsflash: Hollywood is even harder and costs a lot more money. It’s just that you’re not doing the work.

What do you call a hundred-million-dollar enterprise that employs hundreds of people (thousands?) over the course of year or two, with the associated planning, logistics, accounting, insurance, marketing, and a finished product distributed world-wide to thousands of outlets?

That’s a company.

Each and every movie production is a self contained company that works to make a single product.

I can’t be 100% certain but I think most folks with a ‘new media’ press release already have a company, they’re just tired of working.

Go ahead, admit it: You want someone to hand you a check and maybe an Associate Producer credit and then you want to go to cocktail parties and say, oh, so-and-so is attached to direct and start referring to big name actors by the first names or initials and then you hang around like a frickin’ groupie on set, always in the way, even the gaffers are sick of working around you and then red carpet premiers in LA, New York, London, and Tokyo where no one will even know who you are but you get to wear a tux or a gown and get the limo and get to feel like a all-imporant movie exec when in actuality you’re nothing but a self-important ass.

And if it isn’t even your property to begin with, then to belabor my metaphor: not only are you looking for free money, you’re not even buying your own lottery tickets — you are instead ripping them from the hands of the deserving creators; you know, the fine people who actually work for a living. That’s even worse: You don’t want to work, you want a multi-million-dollar handout, and you’re willing to steal for it.

##

SO, my point: 10 things to think before starting your New Media Company

1. You sell stories. I love good stories; we all do. That’s why we give you money.

This is your business. Y’all should already know this but I’m prepared to have it engraved on an axe handle and beat you over the head with it until you remember.

2. Don’t lose sight of the story because of how it’s packaged: a movie is just another way to tell a story. Selling Books is a boring business but they are still the cheapest, most cost-effective way to get stories into the marketplace. (well… there is this internet thing but it is damnably hard to get people to pay for internet content)

3. You want to ‘get into movies’. Fine. Guess what: You’re not making the movie. Once you know the right people, the movie makes itself.

4. If you’re telling great stories, the right people come to you.

5. Do you really need to set up a whole new company to sell ideas? Concentrate on the ideas and then hire an agent. (op. cit. “there is no replacement for the right person who possesses the right expertise working in an appropriate position”)

6. No, really: WTF. The best press release would have been something like “MangaRevolution, the leader in repackaging Tokyo pop culture, has selected leading Hollywood agency DeMille-Bunuel-Lumiere-Lang to represent their properties to the major domestic and international studios”

The actual Tokyopop announcement was more like: “We’re thinking of planning to maybe look into this Hollywood thing. But it’s Manga, so it’s Cool“ (…that kind of thinking is so 2004. get with the new program )

If you want a movie, hire an agent. They’re the professionals, after all. Anything else is a half-assed amateur effort.

7. If you really want a movie, hell, get out there and raise $100M and hire the right talent and run a company that makes movies. (That’s the Marvel Model, actually. They discovered licensing doesn’t pay as well, so they cowboyed-up and put their ass on the line for the real deal.)

8. You notice how I said, “hire the right talent”? You don’t know how to make a movie, obviously, since you think the industry is just a ready source of free money.

9. Related, and for the nth time: Business is about money, sure, but it’s not the widgets or the movie or the comics that earn money for your company: It’s the people.

10. Respect people. Payroll is *not* an expense, it is an investment. In the end, employees are your only asset.