Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! - Hey, Censorman!
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AnimeCornerStore
Accredited Retailer
 Posts: 119 Location: Winchester, VA USA |
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While I don't disagree with the overall sentiment, Brian is, of course pandering to his 'generation entitled' audience here in both supporting and at the same time not supporting the buying of Anime at 'mom & pop' type retail locations. In my mind, there are lots of reasons to support both local and online dedicated retailers of Anime. Some of them might include: 1) You just can't match the feeling online of walking up an isle full of Anime figurines proudly displayed in their window boxes, or being able to touch the displays. I get to do this everyday, and it rocks. 2) It's really difficult to buy something like an art book if you can't flip through it first. Displaying 6 or 8 sample pages online is a poor substitute. 3) It's hard to hang out with other Anime fans without a local store. An online forum is really a poor substitute. 4) You can't ask questions about this, that, or the other thing to a clerk at 'brand X' big box mega store or online site, unless you want a stupid answer (or a blank stare). 5) The inside of an Anime store smells better than a website, and you can actually use it without taking that little black box out of your pocket. 6) You can't read manga for hours on end for free sitting in the aisle of an online store. 7) Not all Anime retailers are aggrandizing pricks like the guy in Tucson, but for those you encounter that might be, try working the other side of the counter for a couple days. It ain't easy. 
Sometimes, just sometimes, some things are worth more than just 'the lowest price'. That's how big corporations treat their labor pools (why run a factory in US when labor in Malasia is at a 'lower price') and we bitch about the moral injustice of that all day long. Just remember that when you spend your money at a small store, you are directly supporting someone’s family. Money spend at big box store just indirectly supports whatever minimum wage jobs they offer and the rest goes to corporate profits and executive salaries. Caring about this or not is, of course, up to you. Bob (aka Robert) President The Anime Corner Store Follow RACS on Twitter or Facebook or on the RACS Official Blog Quote: "Responsibility" is rapidly becoming, not just unfashionable, but actually untranslatable. |
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Adamanto
Posts: 154 |
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The world is an insane place. Ok, but it's still a terrible terrible "goal" to set. If you want to get involved in the comics industry, you should focus on the one from your own culture. |
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TitanXL
 Posts: 4036 |
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Unless you want to do a superhero comic that's owned by the company rather than yourself, the American comic industry isn't really a good place to break into. That's the Catch 22 when it comes to those things. You can't break into the anime/manga industry, and you don't want to break into the cartoon/comic industry here because it's so stagnant and doesn't have much freedom (only superhero or kid's comedies). Sadly, these kinds of dreams have no choice but to be crushed. You can't really make the kind of comic you want in the US industry, unless you only want to self-publish or something |
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samuelp
Industry Insider
Posts: 2243 Location: San Antonio, USA |
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And what's wrong with that? Why does someone have to have their "dream" also be their "job"? Making comics doesn't require expensive equipment or loads of people: It's not like making your own anime, for example. I think people sometimes get confused about their dream being to draw comics, or their dream being to draw a comic that gets famous and makes them rich... |
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TitanXL
Posts: 4036 |
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Well, I'd assume if you made something you'd like as many people to watch/read it as possible. No fun if everyone ignores your work and doesn't even know it exists |
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Adamanto
Posts: 154 |
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If by some miracle you managed to break into the Japanese comics industry and get into a magazine, you would mostly sit there and have an editor tell you how to write your comic in order to maximize readership, so you wouldn't be able to make the comic you want there, either.
That's how the entertainment industry works everywhere, dude. If you sign on with a huge publisher to produce stuff for them, you'll have to do stuff their way. That's why they're big - they know what people will buy, and they make creators create such things. |
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Anymouse
 Posts: 685 |
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Very true. There is a reason why both Japan and the U.S. have large alternative comics movements: because the mainstream can be stifling, commercialist and immature.
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TitanXL
Posts: 4036 |
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I really hope you're not saying there's no difference between the two industries. Because that's just flat out absurd and grossly inaccurate.
One of the biggest sellers in Japan is Kimi no Todoke. I really hope you're not calling that 'stifling, commercialistic, and immature". You can't say that about the manga industry because no one concept dominates the sales charts like the US industry where the only things that sell over like 5000 issues are superhero comics. Kimi no Todoke sells millions per, and it's a series that couldn't be made here in the US. |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14876 |
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For example, Fred Gallagher of Megatokyo fame. (Don't call his work manga!) Now, Kodansha publishes the Japanese edition in Japan.
Every greenhorn has to go thru that rite of passage. Even the younger Hayao Miyazaki worked on stuff he didn't like. Once you work your way up and build up clout, that's when you get to do more of what you want. Trusted with free rein by the editors, as they say. |
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Anymouse
Posts: 685 |
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Adamanto
Posts: 154 |
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I'm not. Just saying that neither industry involves you sitting at your desk and writing exactly what you want, and then getting it published just like that. If you want "your dream comic" on the market, you'll have to put it there yourself. |
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Yoda117
Posts: 406 |
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I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. Some local anime stores have been downright oppressive with the smell. It's like a lesser version of con funk, but hits you just as hard. |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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There's also the British artist James Turner, who started out doing, well, regular stuff for British companies and was commissioned to do some grunt programming work for Game Freak's Pokémon Black and White. Game Freak needed some extra Pokémon and asked him to design a few, the only foreigner to do so. Now he's working full time for Nintendo and making the English-language Mameshiba! comics. (He designed Vanillite, Vanillish, Vanilluxe, Vullaby, Golett, and Golurk, by the way.) He's still entirely outside of the anime business, but he's in the video game and now manga industries. If anyone could easily make the jump into anime right now, it's him.
There are a lot of independent publishers that will publish stories from an incredibly wide amount of subject matter. It's a lot harder to become a success for an independent comic book publisher, but it has been done before, such as with Life in Hell, Bone, or Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. This business is as large, if not larger than the mainstream American comics publishers, at least in terms of people working in it--the audience is just smaller (but more devoted than mainstream comic books, if you can believe that). The other alternative is to go into comic strips in the newspaper, which is the one part of the newspaper business that's still thriving--it's going online, but these comic strips still get a big audience and he cartoonists a decent paycheck. Well, if you're successful anyway. This is the hardest sector of the American comics business to break into because so many people go for it, and if you can't hit the ground running, you're going to be replaced with someone better. However, if you can last at least a few months, then your spot is secure. Unlike comic books, however, comic strips require a different narrative approach, both more free and less free at the same time--more free because you don't have executives telling you how the story should go, and less free due to the format. Nevertheless, I don't think the niece really wants to try either of these. If she has her sights set on Japanese businesses, it's going to be a long shot. It's not impossible, but it's far less likely than being recognized in her home country. |
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TitanXL
Posts: 4036 |
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Curses, you just had to say the Gear line rather than the Gobit line and I'd know who was responsible for my most hated Pokemon designs. |
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