He-Man Master of the Universe Movie

So, it looks like there might be a new He-Man movie coming soon (but not that soon). But the news is that the movie has landed a new writer. According to the Hollywood Reporter, "Warners sees the big-screen version as a gritty fantasy and reimagines Adam as a soldier who sets off to find his destiny, happening upon the magical world of Eternia. There, Skeletor has raised a technological army and is bent on eradicating magic."

WTF? Technological army? He-Man is fantasy - NOT Fantasy/SciFi. Wait a sec... if He-Man is fantasy... then maybe it should be a yaoi love story!!! It'd make more sense than an army of robots. He and Duncan (Man-At-Arms) can have a rocky relationship of sort. Of course, it'd be obvious who the seme be. Duh... Man-At-Arms.

Last of all, what about She-Ra? We need more women kicking butt. I'm sick and tired of lame women superhero movies. If it was Tissie, Allie, and I, we'd kick ALL the guys asses.

So, the moral of this post is, I don't know...

~Meg

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Reminiscing - My first brush with yaoi

A friend asked me if I would help her letter a new book that she had just been asked to do, and I said "Sure!" (Before this, I'd been helping her with shonen titles with lots of guns firing and explosions everywhere.) My friend went on to explain that this new title was a yaoi series. "What's yaoi?" I asked. What she did was to send me a link on wikipedia with the definition of yaoi. This was very informative, but I still didn't get it. Why would women want to read about two men having sex with each other? Wasn't yaoi just for gay men? All I could think about was too sweaty hairy men going at it. Little did I know how beautifully drawn the men in yaoi were, or how sweet and endearing the characters were. The more I read, the more I understood the appeal.

Romance. Check.
Mournful longing looks. Check.
Accidental brushing of hands. Check.
And I thought, "Wow, why haven't I heard of yaoi before?"

About a year later, we started a new hardcore line of yaoi books, and I realized the true potential of yaoi: Initiating new employees to the nuances of yaoi. *ebil laugh* One of the questions we always asked of our new victims, er, I mean employees was "Would you mind working with sexually explicit material?" If they answered "yes", we'd clap our hands and set to work.

One of my jobs was training out new recruits, so on one of my newbies first lettering assignments, I gave him our most sexually explicit book to work on. To his credit, he barely flinched. I was impressed! Everything was pretty straightforward until he got about 1/3 of the way through the book. Hmmm... how many ways can you letter SPLCH, SQSH, and SHLSH?? By being very very creative! My brilliant pupil delivered, but not without a few horrified looks and squints at his monitor. I did notice that a few of the other men in our office avoided his cubicle while he was working on those pages. I wonder why??

A few months later, we hired yet another person of the male persuasion. And, to my delight, Meg had him sitting on the other side of the wall of my cubicle. All I had to do was raise my arms, and I could show the person on the other side anything I liked, which included lots and lots of yaoi. Hmm... "OMG... is this a cell phone in a condom???" "Wow! I didn't realize that you could put 2 pens in there like that!!" Luckily, the new hire was a very good sport.

Ah... unfortunately, every job I have from now on will pale in comparison. *sigh* Good times.

~Allie

P.S. OK, my grammar is terrible. But, hey, I'm editing Engrish manga. Give me a break. LOL
... ?! ...

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Publishing Frustrations #1: unfinished book series

Fans complain about this all the time. Unfinished book series. Believe me, for all of us who work in publishing, it's equally as frustrating. We spend a lot of time working on these books, which is often a labor of love, and when the series gets canceled for any number of reasons, it's a very very sad day.

Series -- at least the English editions -- get cancelled for a variety of reasons: 1) the books aren't selling in the US market, and it's no longer economically feasible to continue publishing, 2) the publisher goes out of business (we've been seeing that a lot lately), 3) contract negotiations fall apart between the Japanese and US publishers, or 4) the manga-kas don't finish the series!

When I first started working full time for an English manga publisher (I'm sure most of you know who that is), three series were cancelled because they weren't selling. Historically, the first volume in a collection will sell better than it's subsequent volumes, and very rarely to you see a volume 2 selling better than a volume 1. So, if volume 1 only sells, say, 1500 copies, it's safe to say the numbers aren't going to go up from there. That's not to say that the book is bad... I think a lot of the time the book wasn't published at the right time (Worst would do so much better now that Naruto is out), or the book wasn't advertised widely. If no one knows about the book, no one's going to buy it.

In the case of a publisher going out of business (US companies), it really doesn't bode well for a title. Companies are very wary of picking up a title if they can't publish the first volume, unless they feel that a title has enough of a fanbase already to make it worth their while. Aurora Publishing picked up a few of Broccoli's titles, and I do with Aurora all the best. Likewise, Udon Entertainment picked up the Robot series when contact negotiations fell through for DMP. So far, they've published up to Volume 5, and I do hope they continue. It's a beautiful series. When Biblos went out of business in Japan, it put a whole lotta book series in limbo. Actually a handful of books that I did the production work on never did get published. I hope those books see the light of day. :D

Contract negotiations with Japanese companies are always tough. Just 10 years ago, very few Japanese properties were being published here in the US, so Japanese publishers were far less stringent about the requirements in their contracts. But, nowadays, Japanese publishers are savvy about the English market, and ultimately would like to have US offices. Kodansha is the latest publisher to venture (once again) in the US market. At least that was the rumor last year. I haven't heard any new news since then.

And the most frustrating of all... when the manga-ka doesn't finish the series!!! Eiki Eiki... what happens in The Art of Loving 2???? Youka Nitta... please please please come out of "retirement" and finish The Prime Minster's Secret Diplomacy 2!!!!!!

And... I want to know... how is Gabba King related to Pampi?? (Props to anyone who knows what book I'm referencing!) LOL Boo on DMP for dropping the series!!!

~Allie

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