All Entries in the "Yaoi in General" Category

Webcomic: Go Read OGLAF (NSFW)

So, I just spent the most awesome hour reading through an online webcomic called OGLAF.COM. You should too.

How To Keep Manga Fans Out Of Jail

A manga fan is arrested in his own home for owning manga for personal use. The next time it could be you. Here are the details of the case and one thing you can do right now to help change the law.

How To Find Bara In English

Like any blogger, I keep an eye on my Web site’s stats and visitors and I’ve discovered that a significant number of readers come here though search engines looking for “bara” — that is, Japanese gay male romance manga written by gay men for gay men (referred to by some as “muscle yaoi” due to the fact that the character design often is fairly muscular — particularly compared to traditional yaoi-style bishonen.)

How to Survive as a Small Yaoi Publisher Part 2

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.

How to Survive as a Small Yaoi Publisher

A conversation with Simon Jones of Icarus Publishing.

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?”

Why Most Manga Books Are Small and Black-and-White

I was asked why I was choosing to publish the first Yaoi 911™ book in color — an unusual choice for a manga book. In responding to that, I also commented on reasons why the vast majority of manga books here in the U.S. are not published in color, despite our culture’s current embrace of full-color comics. And I gave some reasons why these books are consistently published in a small “digest-size” format (typically around 5″ x 7.5″) as well.

I thought that readers might find these topics interesting, thus I decided to put my response into its own post. So, if you’re curious about why manga is printed the way it is here or why I’m bucking this tradition by creating full color yaoi, read on!

Why This Gay Man Is Creating Yaoi

Recently, in private correspondence, a woman asked me this question:

You want to make Yaoi? Why? I think I’d like to see you make something by a gay man for a gay man that might appeal to me on my level. 0_0.

Even though I’ve tried to address the larger issue of this in previous posts, this question brings up a specific point that I feel is worth responding to.

Should Yaoi Be Just For Women?

Yaoi is written predominantly by and for women — but is it “just for women”? Yaoi works feature guys falling in love, guys kissing and guys having sex — but is it actually “not homosexual”?

Who “owns” yaoi and why this is important is the subject of this article.

The Sweet Yaoi Action You Can Expect From Me

Some things I’ve been reading lately have gotten me thinking about “The One True Yaoi.”

I’ve talked about my motivation some in “Why Yaoi?” but I wanted to tell you the story behind why I’m making these books and what you can expect in them.

How to Keep a Steady Stream of Hot Yaoi Coming Your Way

Did you know that all the books in bookstores are returnable? That’s right — every book you see there can and will be returned for 100% money-back if they don’t sell. So, while being in the bookstore biz certainly isn’t easy, especially for independent retailers, stocking the books themselves is risk-free… for the bookseller.

So who bears the risk? And what the heck does this have to do with hot yaoi?

Why Yaoi?

My name is Alex. I’m a Bay Area filmmaker and a guy. And I’m putting a great deal of time and money into writing and publishing a series of Yaoi graphic novels — “Yaoi graphic novels” being boy-on-boy romance comics traditionally created by and for women.

What am I thinking?