Man, folks are much better at writing than me

Manga Maniac's really covered my thoughts on the CMX issue. People say, why should it matter if there's one less manga company? Well, she covered most of it, but I'll tell you why variety is important. Variety is important because while most of us enjoy the Narutos and the Black Birds of the manga world, it's the smaller and more boutique titles that help broaden the fan base. Sure, there will be the fans who will ONLY buy Naruto, but many will branch out to other titles. They come for the Naruto, stay for the Full Metal Alchemist, and maybe they'll end up with Black Jack or Bunny Drop. When the younger fans mature, or branch out from the big titles, I want smaller, more niche titles waiting for them. I want the people who will be creating a renassiance in American comics to be able to access the most titles. Most titles don't really grow unless there's a push. Review copies sent to blogs can be the taste maker for a title, and being able to go to amazon and check out reviews or put your hand on a book is also important.

For manga to grow further, we can't just rely on fan translations. Fan translations of Naruto were probably out the first chapter, but when the anime hit TV, and the manga volumes hit the stores- then we saw a boom. We overstate the internet- what is popular there is less tiny webcomics than scans of Naruto, less original productions than videos of Jon Stewart, for something to grow an audience, people need to know it's there. Just by the dint of seeing something on the shelf, it's easier to check it out than in the scramble of titles on a scanlation site. I would have never found Usagi Drop[OK,. Bunny Drop] if it hadn't been liscenced. I hadn't heard about it before, but suddenly, there was buzz- that's the power of a publisher.



BTW: Screw DC