Well, this was an awesome thing to wake up to this morning. The first chapter of Tough gets a review in Brian Cronin’s “Comics Should Be Good” column at Comic Book Resources.

I’ll admit, when I first saw the link on Twitter, my heart skipped a beat and no small amount of terror filled my heart. What would a mainstream comics reviewer think of my first efforts? And when I was actually reading the review, it was certainly strange to read about myself referred to only by my last name (as I am wont to do with other creators in my own reviews.)

But what did he think?

Well, check it out for yourself!

(And Brian will be reviewing LGBT comics for all of March, so be sure to check out his other Month of LGBT reviews. )

Oh, and stay tuned! I’ll have something new and exciting (and non-Tough-related) to share with you in a couple weeks! (And here’s a hint, it’s not just a pin-up.. It’s in full-color and there are words and characters and a plot and….)

A reader on our Facebook Page asked

Hey Alex, I’m curious, when you look for artists, do you go strictly by their portfolio or do you pay for sample panels?

I thought my answer might be useful for others so I’m posting it up here. Here’s what I wrote back:

Well, actually, I’ve done both. When I’ve cast a wide net while looking for an artist — like on DigitalWebbing or GutterZombie — and thus I’m considering complete strangers, I will definitely want them to draw (or color) a sample page of our work. And my rule is — if I ask you to do work for me, you get paid. I pay a full page rate for a full sample page of sequential art. (There have been a couple of very enthusiastic artists who have done a free page for me, but that’s the exception and not my preference.)

Paying for a sample page does a lot of nice things:

• It shows you are for real (there are a lot of crackpots out there looking for artists)
• It shows you pay very quickly (or should!) which will distinguish you from 95% of everyone else out there
• It gives a greater incentive for the artist to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (or even a Work-For-Hire contract, so there is no confusion about ownership of the characters and you can use the samples in a blog post or whatever)
• It gives you access to much better talent (few experienced artists are willing to draw a sample page for free)
• Working on a sample page for pay gives you the option to ask for revisions, which allows you to get a real feeling for what it’s like to work with an artist
• Making art is hard and time-consuming — it’s IMHO just the right thing to do and shows you are a client who gets it

So, yes, as you can see, I’m a believer in paying for samples (even though truthfully, it can get pricey – that’s why I spent a lot of time narrowing down the pool to 5 or 6 real contenders when I was conducting the search to find Vitto for Tough, for instance.)

The only time I haven’t asked for a sample page has been when

1) The portfolio art was jaw-droppingly stunning with good examples of sequential art.

AND

2) They were recommended to me by an artist I really trust

which is what happened with the current penciler of Tough: Chapter 3. Yaoi 911 Ace Extraordinaire Winona Nelson recommended him strongly, I looked over his portfolio, we talked workflow a bit by email and it seemed like a very good fit. And so far, that has definitely proven to be the case.

Alex

Hey! We’re sending out download links to our yaoi comics — for free! Just fill out the form on the Free Comics page and the links will be sent right to you!

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• Want more advice about getting paid for making comics? Take a look at How To Avoid Getting Screwed As A New Freelance Artist and How To Succeed As A Freelance Artist!
• Wondering why the heck I’m making a yaoi book? Check out Why This Gay Man Is Creating Yaoi!
• Want to read about other creators’ yaoi? Take a look at our in-depth Yaoi Reviews!
• Interested in creating your own manga? Start with How to Write a Full Comic Book Script and How to Find the Perfect Yaoi Artist for your Graphic Novel!

EDIT: Amazon responds to my email! See below.

In his Livejournal post today, Mark R. Probst revealed this shocking news:

On Amazon.com two days ago, mysteriously, the sales rankings disappeared from two newly-released high profile gay romance books: “Transgressions” by Erastes and “False Colors” by Alex Beecroft. Everybody was perplexed. Was it a glitch of some sort? The very next day HUNDREDS of gay and lesbian books simultaneously lost their sales rankings, including my book “The Filly.”

Now “sales rankings disappearing” might not mean a lot to the average reader. What matters is the result — that hundreds of LGBT books were now no longer showing up in Amazon.com searches!

After writing Amazon customer service, Probst got this response:

In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude “adult” material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.

Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.

Best regards,

Ashlyn D
Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage

Yes, you read that right: Amazon is now classifying LGBT books as “adult material” and excluding them from searches. Remember Manly, the book I reviewed last fall? Back in September, when I reviewed it I was able to find that book on Amazon by typing in the name of the book and the author’s name in the Amazon.com search box. Now when I type in that information, this is what I get:

Ah but, you say, Manly actually is an explicitly sexual comic — that’s not so strange to label as “adult”, no?

Well, it’s not just the sexy books that are being hidden from search. Here’s Pete Cashmore from Mashable:

In the comments of that post, and elsewhere on LiveJournal, readers have been searching Amazon to find bias in the books removed from the rankings. The examples found do appear to hold water: for instance, the aforementioned post claims that the raciest section in The Well of Loneliness, one of the novels no longer ranked, is the phrase “And that night they were not divided.” Another, False Colours is a historical novel about a gay relationship with a single, non-explicit sex scene, explains the same source. The classic novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover has also been removed from rankings.

(Cashmore somewhat misleadingly uses words like “accused” and “alleged” in his post, I assume in an attempt to appear balanced – the reality is that these results are easy to confirm for yourself and have been confirmed by others online. More on the broad brush Amazon is painting with at Queers United.)

As it turns out, Young Adult books with gay characters, prominent romance novels and many other titles have been made inaccessible via Amazon’s main search function. It would be one thing to give customers the option to have their Amazon searches be “child safe” – certainly giving readers the option to be shielded from explicit sexual material seems reasonable. But to paint with so wide a brush (including what seems to be ALL GLBT fiction as “adult”) and to take the choice out of the customer’s hands. Well, that’s just wrong.

Here is the email I sent to Amazon customer support:

Hello,

I’ve been a very frequent Amazon customer for many years and am an Amazon Prime customer as well. I am horrified by the hamhanded new policy you have of excluding LGBT books from search and sales ranking. I use Amazon search to find nearly everything I buy on Amazon and to have that limited is insane. In a regular bookstore, if I was looking for a book, I could just ask the shopkeeper and she would bring it to me – but if you are limiting your search based on LGBT content, you are effectively hiding those books from me and keeping me from buying them.

Even using the author’s name in a search box with the name of the title gets me no results!

Instead of this: http://ow.ly/2GkG This is what my Amazon search for “Manly Dale Lazarov” returns: http://twitpic.com/388qk

And you’re even excluding gay classics with no sex at all! http://ow.ly/2Ggj

This is awful! What were you guys thinking?!

I buy nearly everything from Amazon and now I’m going to have to rethink whether I want to be your customer at all. It’d be one thing if you instituted a safe search provision that gave people the option for a “child safe” search – but just to make these changes for everyone with a sweep of your mouse… This is hateful!

Please, rethink this policy. I want to stay your customer but if you continue to discriminate against LGBT work, then I won’t be able to do so.

Sincerely,

Alex Woolfson

If you would like to express your thoughts to Amazon about their actions, their Executive Customer Service email address is ecr@amazon.com and their U.S. Customer Support number is 1-800-201-7575. This won’t change unless people speak up. If it matter to you at all, you should take the 5 minutes to let them know your thoughts!

(Amazon Customer Support reps apparently also encourage you to log in your Amazon account and use their internal email to complain as the best way to get their attention. I agree as is shows you are an Amazon customer and I did this as well. To send them an email, go to their home page http://www.amazon.com/ click Help (upper right), click Contact Us (yellow button, middle right), enter your username and password, click Email and choose “Other Questions & Comments” as the Issue in the dropdown menu. Then let them know exactly what you think of this change.)

For more on this, I recommend reading this excellent article at Dear Author and this smart business focused article from the net.effect blog of foreignpolicy.com on the growing reaction on the Internet and how Amazon must respond. And now, the always excellent Simon Jones of Icaraus Publishing discusses the bigger picture of having companies like Amazon.com be the monopoly gatekeepers of digital content.)

Please, don’t just sit there shaking your head. Let Amazon know how this choice will effect their business now!

EDIT 1 (Monday morning): Amazon is now claiming it’s all just “a glitch”. The Dear Author blog responds with some very compelling evidence that it was clearly targeted against LGBT, making a “glitch” seem unlikely. (And in that same link offers a good explanation why A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality was spared the axe and thus became the #1 search result for the word “homosexuality” in Amazon.) Also, writer-superstar Neil Gaiman, of Sandman and Coraline fame, weighs in.

EDIT 2 (4/13 5:00 P.M.): Amazon just responded to my email from yesterday, stating there was an “embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error”. Well, more of a mea culpa than a “glitch” at least…

Here’s the text of their email:

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Amazon.com.

This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.

It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles – in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon’s main product search.

Many books have now been fixed and we’re in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.

Thanks for contacting us. We hope to see you again soon.

Sincerely,

Customer Service Department
Amazon.com

EDIT 3: And now here’s a plausible account of what happened — about what I figured, user error lead to painting with too broad a brush. That said, I still think search filters for “adult material” should be in the hands on the individual customers. And the response of the Internet community still speaks volumes to how far we’ve come in the last decade.

EDIT 4 (4/14/09 12:30PM): And now that the dust settles, editor Cheryl Morgan offers this excellent re-cap and commentary on the whole thing. (Although while I do think that if “WH Smith or Waterstone’s decided to put gay literature on more obscure shelves” it wouldn’t have been as big a deal, a more analogous example to items not appearing in the main search would be if shopkeepers acted like the gay books you were looking for weren’t on the shelves at all — and I do think that would have gotten noticed! ) And a link from that article gives the blow-by-blow of what was happening inside of Amazon as the problem got noticed.

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• Want to read some of my other articles on the business of LGBT books? Click on over to our publishing section!
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In 2005, an English-language survey was conducted online by communications professor and literary author Dru Pagliassotti which asked the question: who is really reading yaoi in the West? Now Dr. Pagliassotti has collected her findings in an academic paper for Particip@tions – the Journal of Audience & Reception Studies entitled “Reading Boys’ Love in the West” which is currently available online.

Strong Enough For An Academic, But Made By A Fan

The findings in this study are fascinating, but have no doubt, the intended audience for this work is other academics. Take a look at this sentence from the introduction:

Romance as a literary genre has been so often criticized and defended that it virtually forms an academic sub-discipline of its own, revolving around the question of whether female readers’ enjoyment of romances is an empowering oppositional act of textual appropriation or a disempowering acceptance of the dominant, heterosexual, patriarchal model of love, courtship, and marriage.

“An empowering oppositional act of textual appropriation”? Hoo doggie — People magazine, this ain’t. I would imagine that many non-academic readers would hit that paragraph and stop right there. But let me suggest that you keep on reading her paper because after Dr. Pagliassotti has established the academic street cred of talking about yaoi fans, the rest of her style is surprisingly straight-forward and accessible. It is clear both from her knowledge of BL history and her passion for this subject that she is a fellow fan. And the results of her survey offer a number of items of interest — both for fans and publishers alike.

But How Much Can We Trust This Study?

But before we get into detailing what those results are, let’s take a moment to look at how exactly Dr. Pagliassotti arrived at her findings regarding yaoi fandom. Whenever a study has provocative findings I, for one, like to know a bit about its methodology and the limits of those methods. (It’s been my experience that the mainstream media breathlessly reports every new scientific discovery with gleeful abandon — “Chocolate is good for you!”; “Night lights damage kids’ eyesight!” — while rarely taking the time to examine at how rigorous or unbiased those studies actually were. And IMHO, this is doing a tremendous disservice to their readership.)

Now, as a layperson yaoi blogger, I have neither the resources nor the expertise to give “Reading Boys’ Love in the West”‘s methodology a truly professional-level critique — but some things do stand out on their own.

The first thing for us to look at is the sample size of the survey — were enough people surveyed for Dr. Pagliassotti to have obtained statistically accurate results? Well, the English-language survey was conducted online in 2005 and had 478 respondents. If memory serves from my undergraduate statistics class, while 478 respondents might seem like a low number to a lay person, statistically speaking any number above 400 tends to provide very accurate results — in fact, conducted properly, the results can be over 90% accurate.

But the rub is, this “accuracy” is only valid if the sample is actually taken from a truly random distribution of the population you are trying to study — if every member of a population has an equally likely chance of being selected. (For example, I can claim I have interesting findings about what straight men really think about monogamy, but if I only survey men at swingers’ clubs, then I’m not actually getting accurate data about all straight men, just those who frequent swingers’ clubs, right?) And it’s here that we must exercise some caution in accepting Dr. Pagliassotti’s numbers at face value.

Most troubling in terms of methodology is that this survey (which was conducted online) appears to have been self-selected — meaning it used a survey process that allowed anyone who was interested to respond. This is problematic for a number of reasons, primarily because of the issue of representation. It is argued in a number of places online — and I think rightly — that self-selected surveys will only get you information about those who already hold strong opinions on the subject you are studying and have strong motivation to share them — which might not represent the population you are studying very well or, in the case of “ballot stuffing”-type maneuvers, at all. (And there are those who would argue such surveys are “worthless” just for this reason.)

And there are additional compounding factors in terms of representation for this survey, including as Dr. Pagliassotti notes, limitations that were imposed on her by her institution’s ethics committee:

These surveys’ results might be skewed, however, because the English-language survey was only open to those who reported their age as over 18, due to institutional review board restrictions.

As well as the potential bias that might have been created by the choice to conduct the study online:

These results may also have been affected by the fact that the surveys were online; internet access is correlated with higher income and educational levels.

So, in terms of methodology, there seems to good reason for us to question how well this sample of 478 respondents truly represents BL fans who read yaoi in English, let alone general fandom in the “West”.

Now, that said, I have a great deal of sympathy for Dr. Pagliassotti’s choice to use a self-selected Internet survey here — after all, how would you go about getting a truly random sampling of English-language BL fans? Even just randomly grabbing Yaoi Con attendees would limit you to those who were both motivated enough and financially solvent enough to attend a national yaoi conference. Getting a truly random sample would be a very tough nut to crack. And the restrictions imposed on her by the ethics committee and the distribution method could be accounted for if we assume we are just reading results relating to adult BL readers with Internet access (perhaps someone just like you, Gentle Reader…)

But these shortcomings in the sample selection cannot be ignored, and thus we must unfortunately view the findings with not just a little skepticism in terms of understanding the yaoi fan community at large. We can use these findings as a springboard for discussion, but I would hesitate to rely on them. As the nature of yaoi fandom is a fascinating area to explore, it is this author’s hope that such discussion would generate enough interest in this topic for further study with a truly random sample of fans — perhaps conducted by Dr. Pagliassotti herself on a future date.

And happily, in addition to the survey results, Dr. Pagliassotti includes a lot of wonderful context in her paper — about the history of yaoi fandom, how yaoi is perceived by native gay Japanese readers as well as the relationship between fans and publishers here in the West that don’t seem to be subject to the same criticisms around methodology as the survey — and all of which make the paper well worth reading.

All’s Fair in Love and Fantasy?

But first, let’s talk a bit about what the survey “revealed.” In her paper, Dr. Pagliassotti takes head-on the assumption that yaoi “is not intended to realistically portray or support homosexuality in society and that its readers, at least in Asian countries, understand it that way.” This view forms the basis of an argument we’ve often heard when discussions about inaccurate (and even offensive) portrayals of gay men pop up on the Internet — you know the kind, something along the lines of “Hey boys — yaoi is all fantasy and it’s not meant for you, so STFU!” This is an assumption that is definitely worth challenging.

After discussing the studies and opinion pieces that support this claim, Dr. Pagliassotti states:

What the previously cited studies did not address, however, were Japanese gay and lesbian readers of boy’s love.  Assumptions that Japanese BL readers were only, or primarily, heterosexual women have been challenged by Lunsing (2006), who also argued that that BL manga do not merely “exist in a world of fantasy”: I found that many of my gay informants were not only familiar with BLB [boy loves boy] manga but read them voraciously from the moment they came on the market in the mid-1970s.

In terms of Western readers, in her survey Dr. Pagliassotti found that 11% of BL readers were male and an astonishing 53% identified their sexual orientation as something other than heterosexual. In addition, 45% claimed they perceived yaoi characters as “somewhat realistic” or “very realistic” (instead of pure fantasy as is claimed by the rebutters). And, most provocatively, Dr. Pagliassotti argues (again based on the results of her survey), that BL readers in the West are overwhelmingly in favor of gay rights and gay marriage:

The final question in the English-language survey asked whether respondents thought same-sex marriage should be legal in the United States. At the time, the only state issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples was Massachusetts, which began doing so in 2004. As a result, the issue of same-sex marriage in the U.S. was on the public agenda when the survey was put online. An overwhelming majority, 96% (n=389), of the respondents said “yes” to the question of legalizing same-sex marriage.

Now those are some juicy results — which unfortunately we cannot 100% trust. Do yaoi fans support gay right? Based on the responses I’ve received on this blog, some certainly do. Are all yaoi readers heterosexual women? Again, based on the responses I’ve received, I’d say certainly not. But that 96% are gay rights supporters? And only 47% identify as heterosexual? Well, maybe… but based on a self-selected survey, we can’t be confident of this. Which is a shame, because I’d really love to know what the real percentages are.

What we can be confident of based on these results, though, is that any exclusionary definition of yaoi fans that claim that “all yaoi fans are X” is flawed. The survey results at the very least support the assertion that yes indeed yaoi fans come in all different sexual orientations, more than a few look to yaoi for realistic character portrayals and at least some are strongly pro-gay as well. And, well, maybe we already knew that, but it’s nice to see some results in black and white — even if we can’t trust the exact percentages.

And there are other interesting tidbits in the paper, particularly for publishers of yaoi. Such as:

Why Fans Choose A Particular Book

Dr. Pagliassotti states:

Respondents reported a number of considerations that affected their decision to buy, borrow, or download a particular issue of BL manga. The most common reasons — the categories were nonexclusive — in the English-language survey were familiarity with the author (78%), appreciation of the inside art (73%), and reading an interesting online description of the issue (67%). Other reasons cited by over half of respondents included liking the cover (56%) and a friend’s recommendation (53%). 

How Free Comics Encourage The Purchase Of For-Pay Comics

There was apparently a free-form open comment section of the survey which elicited a number of interesting responses, including how downloading scanlations encourages purchase of the physical book:

In the open comment section of the survey, a few English-language respondents denigrated scanlations; for example, “Boycott scanlations. Re-publishing an artist’s work without permission isn’t ‘fannish.’”  However, more argued that scanlations help readers decide what to purchase: “I would more likely buy a manga I’ve partially or totally read online then a manga I’ve never had access to,” and “Scans are important for deciding on potential online purchases; the costs of import shipping equal zero urge to take risks on the unknown.”

I, of course, found this particularly interesting and certainly hope there’s truth to it. (Or at least enough truth to support my ability to continue to make yaoi comics!)

Western Fans Relationship With Western Publishers

But most interesting was Dr. Pagliassotti’s discussion of Western yaoi fans’ interactions with Western yaoi publishers. This section doesn’t rely on the potentially questionable survey data at all, instead using quotes from representatives of DMP, BLU and DramaQueen to support its assertions.

In discussing the differences between the power of the yaoi fandom vs. other fandoms, Dr. Pagliassotti writes:

In 1992, Jenkins noted that “fans lack direct access to the means of commercial cultural production and have only the most limited resources with which to influence entertainment industry’s decisions” (p. 26).  Jenkins has also described numerous cases of adversarial relations between fandoms and copyright owners. However, perhaps because BL is a relatively new publishing genre in the United States and its reader base is still comparatively small, readers have been able to communicate with and influence the handful of publishers currently licensing and translating boys’ love manga. This communication is carried out online and face-to-face, and publishers are interested in what readers have to say.

Quoting DMP representative Rachel Livingston, she continues:

The relatively high level of interaction BL readers enjoy with BL publishers has led to occasions in which readers have directly influenced publishers’ production decisions. For example, reader demand led to DMP’s entry into the BL novel market, according to Livingston:
“Only the Ring Finger Knows was one of the first yaoi manga that DMP published. We got a couple of requests from the fans to also publish the accompanying novel series. We honestly weren’t sure if there was a market in the US for translated light novels. So we posted a petition online and asked fans interested in the novels to sign it. The response we got was overwhelming so we are currently releasing the series.”

This correlates well with my own discussions and interactions with other BL publishers, with almost everyone I talked to suggesting that fan interest and requests were a big influence in their title selections. (Dr. Pagliassotti actually offers several quotes from industry insiders that speak to this. Interestingly, President and Owner of DramaQueen Tran Nguyen, listed here as a “public relations representative”, offers the only dissent from this line, stating ““we usually have our in-house staff help select the titles.”)

Really, there are a number of other quotes of interest in this section, including how Western publishers respond to scanlations — of their own work as well — and the compromises publishers must make in terms of age-ratings to appease the larger bookstore chains (which I’ve also discussed elsewhere.) It’s tempting to list those quotes here as well, but I already feel like I’m pushing the boundaries of fair-use commentary, so I encourage you to read the paper yourself — these topics are discussed under the sections “Translations & Scanlations” and “Interacting with Publishers” near the end of the paper. They are written about in an accessible and engaging manner and, as I’ve said, suffer from none of the concerns I have about the methodology of the survey.

So What Do You Think?

So, Dr. Pagliassotti’s paper paints a provocative picture of Western yaoi fandom, suggesting that the majority of yaoi fans are pro-gay and don’t identify as heterosexual; that a sizable number don’t see yaoi characters as pure fantasy objects; that fans choose books primarily based on who created it and what the inside art looks like and that BL fans have extraordinary influence over the way BL publishers do business. Her findings directly challenge entrenched assumptions that are made about BL fandom and their relationship to real-life gay people. As a gay man and yaoi creator, I would love to be able to rely on the results as they certainly fall in line with my belief in and desire for an inclusive BL community where all are welcome. And it is with some disappointment that based on how the study was set-up, I feel that I cannot.

But — what do you say? Do these results represent you as a yaoi fan? Do they represent your impression of the yaoi fan community? Please let me know what you think in the comments!

(We won’t be able to make any scientific claims about yaoi fandom in general based on comments in a blog, but I’d sure love to hear what you think. ;-D)

If you’re looking for further information on this topic, Dr. Pagliassotti invites questions about her study at her blog.

EDIT (12/28/08): In private correspondence, Dr. Pagliassotti responded to my concerns saying this (quoted with permission):

Due to the survey’s online nature and respondents’ self-selection, *and* the
fact that my survey didn’t include anyone who reported their age as under 18
(note my cautious phrasing!), the results can be considered indicative, but
their biases need to be acknowledged. The data are almost certainly slanted
to an internet-savvy population, with all the correlations about social
class, etc., implied by that. I’m enheartened, however, by the fact that the
demographics and overall responses didn’t differ wildly from the Italian
survey — except for age. Given that, I believe it’s a reasonably valid
snapshot of (online) non-Asian BL readership a few years ago. Of course, its
imperfections and blind spots open the field to many questions that could be
resolved with different surveys or alternate methodologies. It’s only a
first stab at describing BL fandom outside of Japan on a large scale; I hope
others will be motivated by it to conduct their own work on BL and its
readers.

Thank you, Dr. Pagliassotti, for taking the time out of your busy schedule to respond — and for undertaking this survey in the first place.

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Learn More!

• Hey, guess what — Yaoi 911 is in the bibliography of this paper! Curious which of my blog posts the academic community took notice of? Click on over to Why This Gay Man Is Creating Yaoi!
• The answer seems at this point somewhat obvious, but it is a debate that still comes up from time-to-time. Join me as I ask the question Should Yaoi Be Just For Women?
• There’s some good information for yaoi publishers in Dr. Pagliassotti’s paper. Want some more? Check out our conversation with Simon Jones of Icarus Publishing where he shares secrets about How to Survive as a Small Yaoi Publisher!
• And hey, interested in creating your own manga? Start with How to Write a Full Comic Book Script and How to Find the Perfect Yaoi Artist for your Graphic Novel! The world needs more great yaoi!

Here’s a bit of personal sharing: I’m actually a huge fan of Svetlana Chmakova’s Dramacon series. I find her writing smart, her characters compelling and her visual humor literally laugh-out-loud (something that’s rare for me). I also find her success and experience as a freelance North American manga-ka inspiring, so when I discovered a link to A Guide to Being a Freelance Artist on her Web site, I took notice. I’m glad I did — it’s stunningly excellent.

Written by Nickelodeon Magazine associate editor and webcomic creator Dave Roman, this article is one of the most thorough and helpful guides to making it as a freelance illustrator I’ve ever seen. Point by point, Roman covers portfolios, client expectations, Web sites, getting published, good work practices, the relevance of an art school degree, and building your career while keeping your sanity.

Here are some of my favorite excerpts:

Why You

For any one assignment there are thousands of artists that could potentially be hired. Why should an editor or art director hire you? You need to figure out what makes your art unique. Because when there are a thousand artists who would all like the same gig, often just being good isn’t enough. You have to have a distinctive voice. It’s not about whether you can draw a bowl of fruit, it’s about how bad-ass, or realistic, or cute you can draw that fruit and convince people that no one has ever drawn it that way before. This sometimes gets confused with “the hot style,” but really it comes down to making art that lots of people find appealing and want to see more of. Figure out what your strengths are and what adjectives people use to describe the way you draw. Is it elegant, surreal, old-fashioned, cute, edgy, hip, classy, pretty, dynamic, dramatic, soft, hard, or all of the above? You may not want to categorize yourself, but to a certain extent you will need to if you want to focus yourself and find the places that will actually hire you.

Whether Your Portfolio Should Include Disclaimers

When you send or show a portfolio to an editor or potential client, be sure to include only your BEST WORK. Ideally, that work should look “finished” or print-ready. Including a few samples of art that you’ve actually had printed somewhere (like a zine, comic, local magazine, etc.) is always a good idea. It helps editors visualize what your art will look like in THEIR magazine if they can see how it turned out in someone else’s. Always have a level of confidence in what you do. If you have to apologize for anything in your portfolio, you shouldn’t have included it.

Sucking It Up

If they ask you to change something, you have to do it–even if you don’t agree with the change. That’s why they are PAYING you. Complain to your friends and family all you want. But do whatever it takes to finish the job first. I’ve had to fire artists in the middle of big multi-page assignments because they had too many issues, constantly questioned the notes, or were just stubborn about having to pick up a pencil again. As an artist myself, I am usually sympathetic and try to make my freelancers’ lives easier whenever possible. But if I’m juggling too many stressful deadlines I can lose patience like anyone else, opting to continue with someone more flexible and easy to work with. I have freelancers who have redrawn entire characters or panels over several times because of wishy-washy editors or outside requests from legal departments of corporate heads–and they actually do so enthusiastically, and say things like “these changes have made the comic so much better now.” I’m sure the artist secretly hates my guts and wished that they got everything perfect the first time, but the fact that she/he UNDERSTANDS THAT THIS IS A JOB and is willing to do what we ask with a smile on their face (or email) makes me want to pay them lots and lots of money and recommend said artist to every person in the world. Mark Crilley, Scott Roberts, Jeff Albrecht, Stu Chaifetz, and Wes Dzioba, are examples of such artists. I hire them any change I get!

And there’s a lot more great insight where those came from. Insight that rings true to me both as someone who hires freelance artists for our comics here and also as someone who has worked as a freelance filmmaker himself for the past thirteen years — so even if you’re not an artist, believe me, you will find advice that it practical for any freelance career in the creative arts, but especially one in comics/manga.

Advice for building a career as a freelance artist and/or paid cartoonist

Check it out if you’re interested in doing this stuff for pay…

Hey! We’re sending out download links to our yaoi comics — for free! Just fill out the form on the Free Comic page and the links will be sent right to you!

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©iStockphoto.com/Alejandro Raymond

(2/14/10: Final sentencing update of Handley at bottom of post. Pretty grim…)

I’ve written about them before, but if there ever was a time for yaoi fans to donate some money to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, it’s now.

A Manga Fan Is Arrested In His Home For Owning Manga

From CBLDF’s October 09, 2008 press release:

Mr. Handley’s case began in May 2006 when he received an express mail package from Japan that contained seven Japanese comic books. That package was intercepted by the Postal Inspector, who applied for a search warrant after determining that the package contained cartoon images of objectionable content. Unaware that his materials were searched, Handley drove away from the post office and was followed by various law enforcement officers, who pulled him over and followed him to his home. Once there, agents from the Postal Inspector’s office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, Special Agents from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, and officers from the Glenwood Police Department seized Handley’s collection of over 1,200 manga books or publications; and hundreds of DVDs, VHS tapes, laser disks; seven computers, and other documents. Though Handley’s collection was comprised of hundreds of comics covering a wide spectrum of manga, the government is prosecuting images appearing in a small handful.

To give some context for how extraordinary this is, CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein said this:

Handley’s case is deeply troubling, because the government is prosecuting a private collector for possession of art. In the past, CBLDF has had to defend the First Amendment rights of retailers and artists, but never before have we experienced the Federal Government attempting to strip a citizen of his freedom because he owned comic books.

To Protect The Children

And what moved this postal inspector to set up this sting? Well, of course it has to do with alleged drawings of underage characters. Not photographs, mind you — or even drawings of actual minors — but drawn manga characters who only ever existed in the minds of the creators before ever seeing life on paper. Luckily, in this case, the judge dismissed the issue of alleged child pornography:

(Again from the press release)

Eric Chase and his team at the United Defense Group have been vigorously defending Handley, and scored a major First Amendment victory earlier this year when the judge found portions of the PROTECT Act unconstitutional in his ruling on a motion to dismiss. District Judge Gritzner of the Southern District of Iowa found that subsections 1466(a)(2) and (b)(2) of 18 U.S.C. 1466A unconstitutional. Those sections make it a crime to knowingly produce, distribute, receive, or possess with intent to distribute, “a visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting,” that “is, or appears to be” a minor engaged in sexual conduct. Judge Gritzner found that those sections restrict protected speech and are constitutionally infirm.

Simon Jones provides his as-always excellent analysis why the defense team succeeded in this motion:

…the presiding judge has ruled that the portion of the PROTECT Act which deals specifically with the depiction of minors cannot be applied to this case. (The Supreme Court earlier this year addressed this issue. While this section survived, the justices were also clear that it can only be applied to fictional imagery when the image is clearly based on or derived from actual identifiable minors, i.e. a tracing or digital composite imagery.) [EDITOR NOTE: I discuss this ruling a bit and quote some of the text in this comment -- look at the bottom of the comment for my discussion.]

But this manga fan can still be prosecuted for purchasing and possessing obscene material — and faces up to twenty years in prison for this alleged crime!

(Again from the CBDLF press release: )

Handley now faces charges under the surviving sections of 1466A, which will require a jury to determine whether the drawings at issue are legally obscene. The material cannot be deemed obscene unless it meets all three of the criteria of the Miller test for obscenity: “(a) whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; [EDITOR NOTE: That means it's intended to sexually arouse -- offensive violence is, of course, in itself still considered protected speech. ] (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” The jury must answer all three questions in the affirmative in order to convict.

How much danger is this manga fan in? Simon gives us the real-world context:

However, Handley is still on the hook for obscenity related offenses, and this is where the waters become murky. The defense’s best chance is to convince the jury that the manga passes the last of the three-pronged Miller test. But this is an uphill battle, as the jury is asked to decide (in the third portion of the test) whether the work has “serious artistic value,” instead of whether the work was a “serious artistic endeavor.” The spirit of the law really asks for the latter – serious artistic endeavors still routinely produce bad art that nevertheless deserve protection, unfortunately that’s not how the standard is worded. And obscenity laws have a built-in catch 22: if a jury finds the material not obscene, they are in effect saying that the material is regularly consumed in their community… at least, that’s what the prosecution would lead the jury to believe. Now, how many people who own porn would admit that to, say, a prospective employer? Their friends and relatives? In a court of law? The fear and embarrassment factor is so great, juries often completely disregard expert testimony.

So, without a lot of smart defensive lawyering, things look pretty grim for this manga fan. Now, why is this guy’s case important for you and me? Because case law sets precedent. If this guy is successfully prosecuted, it emboldens prosecutors to go after other manga fans and makes it more likely that they will get convictions. As we all know, “protecting the children” has tremendous political appeal — and manga fans both in this country and in others are often seen as easy targets for the media and the government.

What this prosecution needs is a splash of cold water.

What Can You Do

Prosecutions are very expensive — for the defendant. The government has vast financial resources they can to bring to bear to “protect the children” — fictional or not –and the typical manga fan, as you know, often doesn’t. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is contributing money, time and expertise to defend this manga fan — and I know they are just squeaking by in terms of having any money to work with. Let’s face it — when it comes to providing legal funds to protect comic book creators and retailers from censorship and prosecution, how many people do you know who have given any money at all?

Well, now’s the time. Even a little bit of money will make a huge difference. Give $20. Give $40. Hell, give $5 dollars. Whatever. If you think what the government is doing here is wrong — if you think people should be able to buy and own manga — even manga that you, yourself, might not approve of — without going to jail for twenty years, then give money to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund right now.

If you give $30 on this page, you even get a snazzy print of some green creature with horns holding a torch, and gosh, how cool is that?

(And if you don’t want to give one of their predetermined amounts, you can just use the PayPal Donation Button on the right sidebar of their press release page. [Scroll down just a bit on that page and look to the right for PayPal.] I just gave them $100 that way — took me ten seconds.)

You can’t let the government get away with this. You need to take action right now. Become a card-carrying member of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Donate some money to help protect creators, retailers and fellow manga fans from unfair prosecutions.

Because the next manga fan they could go after — could very well be you.

(Thank you to MangaBlog for making me aware of this. For more information, here are other links Brigid at MangaBlog and Simon reference:

)

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I’ve been wanting to link to one of my favorite publishing blogs, Buzz, Balls & Hype, for some time now — it offers great information and links for authors and small publishers. Its creator, M.J. Rose, is a self-publishing sensation who in the late 90s parlayed some brilliant Internet marketing into literary fame and a string of book deals with mainstream publishers.

In addition to penning useful articles herself about writing and marketing in the 21st century, she’s also managed to gather an excellent stable of guest bloggers, including John Shableski of Diamond Book Distributors, writing as The Graphics Novel Guy. John is doing a great job of introducing and evangelizing the potential of the graphic novel to BB&H’s mainstream lit audience — both as an art form and also as something that is gaining greater mainstream appeal in the United States.

Age Ranges: Good For Business?

Recently, he has been writing about Age Ranges for Graphic Novels. In an article, he wrote on May 19th, he made this bold claim:

Tipping Point-Thy Name Shall Be Age-Ranges

I think I have finally nailed what the tipping point will be for the graphic novel publishing industry and it comes down to the applications of age ranges. During my recent meetings with some independent bookstore owners it dawned on me that I was hearing exactly the same questions that the public library folks were asking just a few years ago:
How do I buy this stuff?
Where do I (rack)shelve it?
Can I at least see a catalog that is set up with age ranges?
Can you tell me what is for kids and what is for adults?

All they want is a simple easy-to-follow method for selecting the books that they can trust. Just like the librarians did.

He continues, talking about why publishers might be wary about any authority, even one composed of other comics publishers, imposing age-ranges on comics — namely that when it was done before in the 50s and 60s by the Comics Code Authority, it was used as a censorship tool. (For a great account of this drama, my good friend Bill S. recommends The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America by David Hajdu — which you can now watch discussed on The Colbert Report!) Even though this Code had no legal power, most distributors refused to carry non-Code approved content, which effectively made it impossible to sell such comics.

But Mr. Shableski ultimately does not see age ranges negatively affecting sales to the those currently making the purchasing decisions

The approach really needs to be looked at from the perspective of the novice retailer, librarian and educator. They want a simple process by which they can select and buy the books. Age ranges aren’t a deterrent for these people…

and argues that if Age Ranges could give good information about who might actually enjoy the book, they would greatly boost graphic novel sales:

The proper application of age ranges would need to focus on the level of comprehension associated with the subject matter of the story.

By doing this we can actually accelerate the buying process. I know that publishers would love it if every single book published were actually read by the person who buys the books for the library or store. The fact of the matter is they dont. There are so many books coming out that this is impossible. Age ranges, reviews from trade publications, and peer or customer recommendations are what really greases the wheels of the buying process. When this happens, then we will really see how fast this rocket can fly.

While I don’t think this tells the whole story of why age ranges might be useful — and does not address the very real danger of economic censorship for more challenging work (more about this later) — you certainly can’t argue with making your book easier to buy. And giving retailers and librarians a quick read regarding who your intended audience is would certainly help with that. (He has a lot more to say on this issue and it’s worth reading the whole article.)

In his most recent article, he reports from a panel at the Book Expo in Los Angeles provocatively titled “Sex and Graphic Novels”. The big question there was whether age-ratings were now necessary for graphic novels. He notes that many graphic novel publishers already do this, with TokyoPop proudly announcing that they had a “very detailed” program currently in place. (A program which Johanna Draper Carlson of Comics Worth Reading has covered and criticized before [be sure to check out the comments of those articles on Johanna's site for more interesting debate!].)

As expected, the industry members of this panel expressed concern over how age-ranges might contribute to censorship, but Mr. Shableski again argues that such labeling makes good business sense, citing examples from the movie, music and video game industries where product sales actually increased in spite of and even because of restrictive ratings. (Teens apparently just love that forbidden fruit — go figure!). He finishes by arguing that informed parents make for happy consumers and that even restrictive age-ratings will not ultimately get in the way of (one assumes older) kids reading more mature graphic novels:

I guess it really is all about money anyway isn’t it? If the ratings system is developed by a trusted source-such as a group of librarians, then there is credibility. If the ratings are applied after the book is published, then that isn’t censorship is it? If the parent is allowed to make an informed purchase based on the information you have placed on the jacket then that’s a good thing. Parents don’t really care for surprises and are normally quite ok with PG and R rated stuff-as long as they know it’s in the book. It’s those parents who are waiting to play the ‘gotchya game’ you need to look out for. They need to see the ratings as well. If you do it for one audience then you have done it for all audiences.

This way, the librarian, the store owner and the parent all come out winners. Eventually, the kid is gonna read the book.

There is a lot of sense to what he says. Certainly one good reason for age-ratings is to make sure that parents can make informed purchases. And informed consumers and informed retailers are likely to make for a healthier market for graphic novels.

The Real Impetus Behind Age Ratings

But for comics in America, I see the stakes as being a bit higher than this and, likewise, the risks for censorship greater as well. This is what I wrote as a comment (after thanking him for the useful articles, of course ):

I had some thoughts about the age-ratings issue, esp. your take that “I guess it really is all about money anyway isn’t it?”

As someone looking to publish graphic novels, for me the age-ratings are primarily about protection, in particular legal protection, for myself, but especially for the retailer. The laws in most states have much more stringent requirements for visual art with sexual content that minors are allowed to see than they do for textual material. If there’s a picture or drawing, even if it is more suggestive than explicit, the chances of it being illegal to sell to a minor with significant criminal penalties is a serious concern.

In addition, as I’m sure you know, there’s a real double-standard for what’s acceptable to show visually in a comic vs. say a film because many communities in the U.S. are convinced that all comics are for kids. The heroic Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has defended many retailers from aggressive DAs who prosecuted them “for the sake of the children”, in at least one case despite the fact the comics were bought in an “adults only” section!

(Here’s the link to that in case my embedded link doesn’t work:

http://www.cbldf.org/pr/001122-texas-trial.shtml)

So there is extra reason to be cautious when it comes to adult content in graphic novels.

As for censorship, the issue for me would have less to do with when the rating is applied than *who* applies it. As Kirby Dick’s excellent documentary “This Film Is Not Yet Rated” so clearly illustrated, even a self-regulating industry can be destructive when its decision-making is both arbitrary and lacks transparency. This is why as a publisher I would much rather determine the age-ranges of my own books — despite the fact that there are no clear rules. Certainly this would be a place where I would look for guidance from a distributor like Diamond, but I’d hate to have some age-ranges imposed from on high, unless I could be assured the process was both fair and completely transparent.

It’s a complicated issue for all artists, but for those who create sequential art in the U.S. that is not “all ages”, it’s one that merits serious and careful thought and absolutely cannot be ignored.

It is the very real risk of legal consequences for the publisher and the retailer that is the reason why I feel age-ratings for any type of provocative sequential art are necessary. Personally, I think such age-ratings will be, by their very nature, subjective and thus to some degree arbitrary. Personally, I think it is silly to believe that an 18 year old can suddenly handle material a 17 year old cannot (or 16/15, etc.). Personally, I think it is incredibly unfair and delusional that our society perceives mature storytelling in comics as more dangerous than mature storytelling in film or prose novels. Personally, I think that violent and mean-spirited content is far more threatening to the minds of young people than images of happy, consensual sex (yet it is the sexual material that exposes publishers and retailers to the greatest legal liability and thus offers all the more reason to err on the side of caution with a very restrictive age rating!) Personally, I think it sucks that age-ratings need to be there for any reason other than to help consumers make educated, informed decisions.

But in the United States, in the current climate, there are other reasons and they cannot be ignored. So there we are.

Who Should Watch The Publishers of “Watchmen”?

That said, though, I still feel that these ratings should remain in the hands of the individual publishers. Yes, that could make things less clear for the retailer — what if one publisher uses very different standards for a 16+ book than another? — but as I argued in my comment, even a central authority will fail to offer consistent standards, because when it comes to determining “age-appropriate” levels of sex and violence in art, how can they? Ten smart people can come up with ten different and equally valid standards and each will have different takes on how those standards should apply to an individual work. No wonder the MPAA offers no transparency! Would you want to argue to a filmmaker why ten seconds of full frontal nudity makes her film unacceptable to those under 18, but six seconds would be fine? My belief is that if such decisions remain in the publisher’s individual hands, the chances of the artist’s wishes being respected or at least heard out is that much greater.

But here’s why ultimately I’m going to lose on this one: if you look at the legal cases taken on by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, it’s not really the publisher who’s at the greatest risk, it’s the retailer. If every publisher had their own rating system, then it could be argued that it was still up to the retailer to make sure a books’s content was as “safe” for the intended audience as the publisher claimed it was. But if the retailer has a central rating authority to point to, then she has some protection in court and thus less of a need to sweat every title coming across her desk.

Because the legal stakes are so much higher for comics than for, say, the music industry (sell an adult comic to a kid and you can actually go to jail), it is in the retailers interest to have some central authority claiming responsibility and since it’s the retailers who are paying the bills, keeping them happy will matter a lot more than keeping artists happy. (And to some degree, with Diamond’s separate and not really equal “Previews Adult” publication, a system like this is already in place for the Direct Market.)

Think I’m crazy to believe that this will happen? Take a look at the history of the ESRB, the central rating authority for video games. They started out with individual publishers rating their own titles, but it wasn’t long before a centralized authority was called for. And with the precedents for universal ratings firmly established in the movie and video game industries, I doubt we’ll need much of a kick in pants from Congress to go there.

The Very Real Risk of Economic Censorship

And speaking of the ESRB, let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that we’ve moved beyond Comics Code style economic censorship stemming from the use of universal age ratings. Titles rated “Adults Only” by the ESRB will not be carried by major retailers (such as Blockbuster, Best Buy and Wal-Mart) and all three of the major video game manufacturers (Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft) explicitly prohibit the release and sale of AO-rated games for their consoles. Game companies work very hard to avoid this rating and, yes, that often means changing content to become more palatable to the ESRB. (And while the links in this paragraph are all talking about the über-violent game Manhunt 2, reading more closely, you’ll see one of the reasons this case got all that press is that it is highly unusual for a game to get an “Adults Only” rating based on violence — almost always the criteria is sexuality.)

A similar situation exists today within the world of film — films that studios allow to be released with an NC-17 rating effectively commit financial suicide. Thus, studios will also jump through serious hoops to avoid that rating — cutting and recutting their film repeatedly to somehow, someway manage to tone it down enough so that the MPAA will give it a commercially-viable “R”. And the fact that the MPAA refuses to detail exactly how much needs to be cut merely gives the illusion that they are not effectively censoring very specific content and themes — the truth is, they are.

Therefore, ratings applied “after a work is complete” do not necessarily assure fairness or freedom for artistic expression.

So, to sum up, currently age-ratings in both video games and films does in fact contribute to censorship, in particular by making visual art showing human sexuality financially untenable for its creators. This has the effect of dumbing down artistic expression in those media to that which is “child-safe” — at least in the mainstream. Particularly disturbing is the very real possibility that gay relationships are especially penalized.

Now, it may be argued “Human sexual interactions can all be implied in visual art — sometimes even with strong erotic effect — why show sex at all?”, but this misses the point — grown-ups should be able to appreciate art meant for other grown-ups. Any restrictions on artistic expression — no matter how creatively they can be worked around — diminish public discourse and cripple the best and most effective way we have to understand our fellow human beings, especially those who are different. One of art’s special gifts to the world is its ability to grant such understanding — we should be looking to enhance that power, not curtail it.

If it’s gotta be done, let’s do it right

The point I’d like to put forward is that we have an opportunity to make some better choices when it comes to our rating system. Most retailers and librarians are strongly committed to offering high-quality art and as such are strongly against censorship. When and if the time comes for some central, self-regulating authority to determine age-ratings for comics, let’s not make the same mistakes as the film and video game industries. Let’s come up with as clear and fair standards as we can, let’s keep the process 100% transparent and let’s all agree that not all comics need to be for kids by not excluding adult-only material from mainstream retail venues.

Let me break that last point down because it’s crucially important: if you’re a retailer and you believe that graphic novels can and should be for adults as well as children, then you must, must, must be willing to stock high-quality “Adults Only”-rated titles. If you’re a distributor who similarly believes in the potential for sequential art to elevate the world’s artistic discourse, then you must, must, must permit the same books to be easily marketed to mainstream retailers and not simply lump them into a catalog meant primarily for retailers of pornography. (I’m not making a value judgment re: pornography here — merely pointing out that there currently isn’t a good way for mature, clearly sexual but not pornographic graphic novels to effectively reach the retailers and consumers in the Direct Market who would most appreciate them.)

Final Thoughts

Of course, I hope that I’m being foolishly alarmist by suggesting that a central authority for age-ratings is likely. In some ways, it does feel like I’m crying out that the sky is falling. But after reviewing the history of other industries, it doesn’t seem so unlikely to me, especially when you consider the prevalent belief that “comics are for kids.” Maybe it won’t happen tomorrow, but we better be ready for it when it does.

Those of us in the industry should all be thinking very hard about the best way to implement Age-Ratings wisely. And for the sake of all of us grown-ups, we must find a way to use them that won’t lower the artistic discourse of sequential art to that of the level of children!

We’ve already been down that road — let’s do it better this time.

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• Want to see how our second comic is coming along? (Or just want to look at some pics of the cute boys fighting and making out?) Click on over to Yaoi Art: “Artifice” Pencils! (Age 18 and over, please!)

A conversation with Simon Jones of Icarus Publishing.

So, last time we talked about the difference between manga and porn, what it means to be a successful publisher of erotic comics and what challenges face those who choose to publish this material. This time we’ll talk about working with Japanese publishers and bring the focus more specifically on what English-language yaoi publishers need to do to succeed in today’s market.

Let’s get right to it!

The Internet seems to be full of stories of manga publishers behaving badly (the recent hullaballoos re: Tokyopop comes to mind, but we can certainly find bloggers expressing concern for the actions of yaoi publishers as well.) I notice that you recently went through heroic measures to replace a print run of books that were missing a page. How does acting with integrity make good business sense in the manga publishing world? Is it more or less relevant for a small press?

Thank you for the kind words, but I wouldn’t characterize that as heroic, merely doing the job competently. The biggest motivation for the reprint was not for the readers, but the artist himself. We want him to know his book is presented in the best possible way.

I would hope integrity is valued in all businesses, of all sizes. But I would expect smaller publishers to adhere more strictly to ethical behavior, because there’s simply no excuse not to do so. There’s no one else to shift the blame to for your mistakes or bad behavior.

With regard to Japanese manga licensees specifically… well, would you try to screw with a Japanese businessman? CAN you screw with a Japanese businessman?

This being a yaoi site, you’ve of course offered me a great set-up by asking me whether I could screw with a Japanese businessman. But resisting that temptation, you bring up an interesting point. It’s a truism that social etiquette and reputation are very important in Japanese business dealings. Do you think that any of this “bad behavior” is being noticed in Japan? What advice do you have for publishers working with artists and businesses in Japan?

First, I hope I didn’t give the general impression that Japanese publishers are difficult to deal with. I don’t speak Japanese, and the Japanese editor I work with does not speak English. But we still manage to get things done. When there’s a willingness on both sides to work together, anything is possible. The key is finding the right person, and making them as enthusiatic about licensing to you as you are. The guy in the licensing department is not necessarily the best person to talk to.

Know exaclty what books you want. If you don’t know how to contact the Japanese publisher directly, try finding the manga artist online, work up a rapport, then ask for their editors. Try to build strong relationships with one or two publishers instead of licensing 10 books from 10 different pubs. One can never be too polite, too transparent, or too concise. Keep things simple in general.

Oh, and pay money up front. That, uhh… usually helps things.

Recently, we’ve seen a couple of small yaoi publishers seem to stumble — I’m thinking here of DramaQueen and Iris Print. What are the specific pitfalls a small publisher of ero-manga, including yaoi books, needs to look out for?

Being underfunded. It doesn’t matter what genre of comics you wish to work in, you need to have proper capital before going forward, and work within your budget. This is simple and universal. If you have to take a big risk, that’s fine… but don’t take other people down with you. Don’t peg this month’s bills and payroll on the next check that may or may not come in from the distributor.

I’ve noticed that some publishers of gay erotic work are very concerned about competing around price. One publisher, Nicole Kimberling of Blind Eye Books, has written about pricing her first book so low that she actually loses 5 cents for every book sold on Amazon.com! How big a factor do you believe price is for ero-manga sales and what factors do you consider when pricing your books?

Given the material, we know we’re never, ever going to become mainstream, and our pricing are in line with a specialist, niche publisher. Our books are priced as low as we can go given our small print runs, while still guaranteeing royalties for artists. We do recognize that our pricepoints are far higher than what most manga readers are familiar with, so we have reissued a few older titles at a lower MSRP for more price-conscious readers. Also, our Comic AG magazines are priced very cheaply on a per page basis, as we view it almost exclusively as promotional tool.

We need to pay artists and sustain ourselves. We’re not a vanity press. Pricing ourselves out of profit range is not an option.

So you view Comic AG as almost exclusively a promotion tool — this would be promoting your trade paperbacks? So, what do you think are the best ways for a “specialist, niche publisher” to reach her audience, particularly with limited funds?

Those with limited funds should focus on acquiring more funds. Sorry, but that has to be your number 1 priority as a publisher.

There is no one best way to reach out to your audience, you just have to try every way you possibly can to target your readers. If you’re a niche publisher but don’t know who or where your audience is, then you shouldn’t be publishing. For a yaoi publisher, any failure at reaching your audience is even more inexcusable. They’re right in front of you. There are websites and clubs dedicated to covering yaoi. There are yaoi-only conventions. Mainstream press writes a “what is the yaoi” article every two weeks. It would take a special kind of incompetence not to be noticed.

Indeed, much has been made of this “yaoi boom” on the Internet and elsewhere. How strong a market do you really think there is for yaoi work? Do you feel it is growing or has it reached its peak?

This is best directed toward yaoi publishers, but my personal, uneducated opinion? Yaoi has not peaked. But the audience has become more sophisticated. Certain segments of the retail market haven’t gotten behind yaoi as hard as they could have.

When you say the audience for yaoi has become more sophisticated, what do you mean by that and how should small press yaoi publishers take that into account?

It’s become more sophisticated in that with more choices, readership has become segmented. Some follow only specific artists, others reject certain themes. Expectations need to be adjusted accordingly.

And when you say certain segments of the retail market haven’t gotten behind yaoi as much as they could have, what segments do you think could be taking better advantage of this genre? What do you think would be the best way to encourage them to do that?

Obviously, I speak of comic stores. This isn’t to say that the blame rests with the Direct Market. Unfairly or not, comic shops have the reputation of being boy’s clubs, and perhaps some publishers have not reached out to the DM properly. Nevertheless, the impetus is on retailers to attract yaoi reader by offering these books, not to wait for yaoi reader to come asking for them, cause that’s not happening. Yaoi readers want to buy stuff, they want to give you money. That’s the best kind of customer to have.

There’s no reason the DM shouldn’t be totally kicking ass on this front. Mainstream bookstores refuse to carry the most explicit yaoi manga. Likewise, yaoi pubs need to recognize the advantages of working with the DM market… the DM pays you within 30 days.

[Ed. Note: Obviously I agree with Mr. Jones here...]

So, do you think English-language readers can expect more or fewer options for ero-manga and yaoi in the future?

That’s not a question for me, that’s a question for readers. If you support the books, there’ll be more.

Any last advice you would give to small publishers of yaoi manga just starting out?

If you’re a licensee? Don’t make Libre angry.

If you’re self-publishing original material? Come into publishing with realistic expectations, and plan for a long, steep climb. This is not a sprint, so don’t quit early if things don’t go your way at first. Have fortitude and conviction.

Well, it definitely sounds like you have had “fortitude and conviction” — so has it been worth it? Knowing what you know now, would you do it all over again?

Even now, I can walk away from this at any time. But I’m not going to.

So, that’s it, folks. I hope you’ve enjoyed this conversation as much as I have. I want to thank Simon Jones for taking time out of his very busy schedule to answer my questions. If you found what he had to say useful, please take a look at what he has to offer in his (of course NSFW) catalog — if not for yourself, than how about for that super-supportive otaku boyfriend in your life? I’m sure it will be a gift he’ll remember. And who knows? Maybe he’ll be so inspired, he’ll run out and buy you the hot yaoi in return…

Enjoy reading articles like these? Don’t miss out! Subscribe and get them delivered right to you!

Psst! Want a free yaoi full-color yaoi comic? Just sign up over at our Free Comic page and we’ll send you the download link!

Learn More!

• Wondering where our conviction comes from? Check out Why This Gay Man is Creating Yaoi!
• Interested in creating your own manga? Start with How to Write a Full Comic Book Script and How to Find the Perfect Yaoi Artist for your Graphic Novel!
• Want to see how our second comic is coming along? (Or just want to look at some pics of the cute boys fighting and making out?) Click on over to Yaoi Art: “Artifice” Pencils! (Age 18 and over, please!)
• Want to support DramaQueen by buying a book with hot sex and pretty, pretty boys? Check out our review of Empty Heart by Masara Minase!

A conversation with Simon Jones of Icarus Publishing. (Part 1.)

Recently, there’s been some discussion about how some small yaoi publishers have been struggling despite offering quality yaoi titles to their readers. With DramaQueen in particular, it saddens me to hear of their difficulties — I’ve enjoyed their work, found their enthusiasm infectious and have great affection for company president Tran Nguyen, despite having only met her a couple of times — she’s just that cool.

So, the question for me is “How can a small yaoi publisher survive, even flourish, in today’s competitive bookselling marketplace?” To get some answers to that question, I reached out to Icarus Publishing’s Simon Jones. I started corresponding with Mr. Jones on Warren Ellis’ creator forum The Engine in 2005 (a forum which, alas, has since shuttered its doors). This was right when I was first conceiving the Yaoi 911™ project and since then, I’ve found our email correspondence and the articles of his (NSFW) blog very helpful and inspiring.

Mr. Jones is not a yaoi publisher — in fact, the work he publishes is very much heterosex comics for straight guys — but it shouldn’t surprise you that I would want to hear what he has to say: This whole project is about being inclusive, I feel we’re all in this together when it comes to publishing erotic manga and, most importantly, Simon Jones knows his stuff. He has a keen understanding of the comics publishing industry and his blog has a strong reputation for excellent articles about all forms of erotic manga publishing, including yaoi.

When Simon Jones has something to say, it’s worth listening to. Especially if you’re a publisher of erotic comics, such as yaoi — or even if you’re a reader who’s just looking to see yaoi publishing actually survive the next decade.

So let’s get started!


Mr. Jones, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us about these issues. Let’s start off by introducing you to our readers. What is your title and how would you describe the work you publish?

I’m the publisher, editor, graphics, pre-press, licensing, and janitor of Icarus Publishing. We produce porn manga; we see ourselves more as a manga publisher than a porn publisher, and that guides the way we do business and how we present ourselves.

I’ve heard you describe your work as “ero-manga” — how would you define ero-manga for those not familiar with that term?

I find it interesting that you ask how “I” define ero-manga, as if it were subjective, its essence malleable by my whims… it’s not. Ero-manga are explicit pornographic comics from Japan. A commercial, physical product. There’s no nebulous concept or lifestyle to be ascribed to it, no depth to be probed outside of itself. As a publisher, I neither shape it nor direct its development. I merely serve, and act in service of, the material.

You say you see yourself more as a “manga publisher” than a “porn publisher” — what do you see as the distinction there? How important do you think story and character are for ero-manga?

The strength of most manga is actually not the plot. It’s the focus on storytelling and the likability of its characters. This holds true for ero-manga which, lets face it, usually aren’t very deep in the story department. There is excitement and energy in the art, angles are dynamic, the pacing is predictable but clear, and the framing is varied and not afraid to get up close. Characters emote.

What got you interested in being a publisher and how did you get started?

I publish manga because I like manga. I publish ero-manga because it’s one genre that I like, that almost no one is publishing. As a fan, that sucks. So my motivation is similar to most other publishers out there… we want to work on material we believe in and enjoy. We want the market to suck less.

Have you ever been tempted to create your own manga?

Of course, I dabble in drawing occasionally. Don’t have the dedication required to make a manga now, or the time. There are 1000 pages of hi-res manga scans across three computers I need to clean and reformat. Sorry, my dear Intuos tablet, back on the shelf you go.

Icarus Publishing’s anthology magazine Comic AG has been called ero-manga’s “most popular series.” That’s pretty cool. As a publisher, how do you define success?

While flattering, being considered a top-tier ero-manga publisher is in some ways a hollow victory. There’s very little other ero-manga being officially produced, and the market overall for sex comics has dwindled since its height during the 90s. Does Comic AG successfully present ero manga to English readers? Yes, I strongly feel that we’ve produced the best products we can under current market conditions. Have we been successful in fully exploiting ero-manga’s potential in the marketplace? No.

So, in terms of success, it sounds like you take pride in the quality of the work you’ve been able to introduce to English readers, but that you still see that there’s a lot of untapped potential in the market. In particular, you say the market for sex comics has “dwindled” since the 90s. Why do you think this is? Do you expect it to come back and is there anything publishers can do to hasten that?

This is directly related to the number of retail outlets in existence available to us. We are not distributed through mainstream book stores, and we may never be. Direct market comic stores are run by individuals who can choose whether or not they want to carry adult material (and we are thankful to every retailer who does.) Adult bookstores have given way to DVDs and online porn.

[Ed. note: The number of Direct Market stores were greatly reduced in the mid to late 1990s as a result of a severe contraction in comic book sales. Speculation and poor business and creative decisions were most likely to blame for this.]

As a publisher, have things worked out how you expected? Any big surprises?

As far as meeting our modest goals, yes. But what I didn’t expect was slow acceptance by both fans and retailers who readily embrace ero (or hentai) anime, which is essentially the animated form of ero-manga.

What do you think are the biggest challenges a publisher of ero-manga faces?

The biggest challenges are ones we have very little control over… retailer apathy to outright avoidance of pornographic material, proliferation of unauthorized material online and the sense of entitlement that creates, the usual suspects. And of course, finding solid sources of investment.

Which is a topic you discuss specifically in relation to what’s happening with DramaQueen over at your blog. In the comments of that post, you also discuss the dangers of being a fan-run business — namely that a fan’s optimism might get in the way being realistic about how to run their business. Yet it seems you consider yourself a “small, fan-operated publisher” as well — are there ways where being small and fan-run can be a business benefit, both for ero-manga in general and the yaoi market in particular?

I can’t speak for anyone else but myself, but we only license 10 to 12 books a year, so every one of them is special to me. Or look at the books DramaQueen has managed to release… from a production standpoint, they’re beautiful. Of course, there is a direct flip side to this. Again, I can’t speak about DramaQueen or any other publisher specifically, I don’t have that knowledge. But just speaking generally, a rabid fan publisher might be less willing to make certain concessions. Maybe it’s the quality of the paper stock, or maybe it’s skipping a deadline to make the book perfect. We all think very highly of the books we work on, but we also need to be able to step back and say “this isn’t the Sistine Chapel. We have to ship.” As a licensee, I have to think of it this way: we need to make money for our licensors and artists. That means making good books, *and* making sound financial decisions. Interior color is great, and french flaps are lovely. But if they’re going to wipe out our margins, we just have to make do without them.

So, that’s the end of Part 1 of our conversation with Simon Jones, publisher, editor and janitor of Icarus Publishing. In Part 2 (now posted) we talk about manga publishers behaving badly, whether it’s possible to screw with a Japanese businessman, and what small yaoi publishers can do to survive in a tough market.

And if, in the meantime, you are finding yourself a little curious about Mr. Jones’ titles, you can read about them online at his NSFW online store and find them for purchase at your local comic book store. (And hey, if all those boobies on his web pages are making you a bit wary and you’re wondering what’s in it for a yaoi-loving straight girl, then Mr. Jones recommends A Wish of my Sister by female mangaka Masahiro Itosugi, an ero-manga trade paperback which features “boy-toy” (read: uke) character Keisuke. You can read a review of the work over at AnimeonDVD.)


Enjoy reading articles like these? Don’t miss out! Subscribe and get them delivered right to you!

Psst! Want a free yaoi full-color yaoi comic? Just sign up over at our Free Comic page and we’ll send you the download link!

Learn More!

• Want to read more about helping out small yaoi publishers? Check out How to Keep a Steady Stream of Hot Yaoi Coming Your Way!
• Interested in creating your own manga? Start with How to Write a Full Comic Book Script and How to Find the Perfect Yaoi Artist for your Graphic Novel!
• Want to see how our first comic is coming along? (Or just want to look at some pics of the cute boys fighting monsters and making out?) Click on over to Yaoi Art: “A Shot in the Dark” Inks! (Age 18 and over, please!)
• Curious about which DramaQueen book first won my love? Read a review of a great yaoi comedy: Yaoi Review: Challengers by Hinako Takanaga!

Sadly, not the actual book that we are in -- Amazon doesn't offer it...

So late last year, I was chatting with my buddy and colleague, Tommy Roddy — he’s the creator of Pride High, a series of comics about gay teen superheroes in high school… (C’mon, y’know you’re curious — click it! ) — and he turned me on to this guide that comes out once a year which offers readers excerpts from a bunch of gay comics. It’s created by the folks at Prism Comics and serves as a kind of a who’s who and what’s what for the gays in both mainstream and independent Western comics.

Anyway, I reached out to them, one thing led to another and now there’s an excerpt from “A Shot in the Dark” in the current issue! Just picked it up from my Local Comic Book Store twenty minutes ago and everything. How cool is that!

Of course, there’s also a bunch of other gay comics in there (including an excerpt from “Roulette” by yaoi creator Tina Anderson) — so if you like the guy-on-guy action (and can handle a little girl-on-girl action) it’s definitely worth a look.

You can read more about it here:

Prism Comics: Your LGBT Guide to Comics 2008 in Comic Shops Now!

Oh, and if you’re a Prism reader who’s looking to read the complete, full-color version of “A Shot in the Dark”, just fill out the form on the Free Comic page — a download link will be emailed to you right away.