A post about A Comic Shop broke out on Bleeding Cool that got a bunch of anime bloggers and journalists in a huff on my twitter feed.
For whatever reason, they feel like the ad above in question that will be used for part of a flyer is insulting to both manga and fans of manga and some have even called it nationalist propaganda!
I don’t know where the hell it says any of that and anyone who is local to the Orlando area knows that any form of advertising from A Comic Shop is intentionally silly.
(POST-UPDATE NOTE: I’m not removing this post as a reminder to myself to remain level-headed before posting on here. However, please take time to read this quick follow-up article before you leave or start writing comments. Thank you.)
I was busy with something and didn’t notice until my future phone notified me that I got called out by Daryl Surat(a writer from Otaku USA magazine) with this tweet that made me want to punch him in the throat.
Daryl Surat is a Floridian like myself and we have crossed many times on the internet, at conventions, and even Shonen Jump-themed barbecues. (LOOK AT THAT SHITTY L COSPLAY!)
Like myself, he does a lot of panels at conventions, often with his colleagues from Anime World Order. I like their work, so much in fact, that I invited them to host panels for the anime event track at this year’s MegaCon.
My feelings at the time to end Daryl’s breathing had little to do with anything referred to A Comic Shop’s apparent disdain for anime and manga. It was more so that he THAT HE SAID THE CLUB I BUILT AND WORKED HARD TO RUN FOR OVER FIVE YEARS BELONGED TO SOMEONE ELSE.
FUCK YOU.
*Ahem*
Anyways, after correcting him and the internet in that regard, I decided to see what was up. I asked Aaron Haaland, owner of A Comic Shop, about it and he told me his plan was to promote the recent reboot of the DC Universe to new fans while acquiring used manga to sell later for $1 a book.
A Comic Shop has recently started selling several manga releases from Vertical and Udon. He’s been considering selling more, but he plans to be picky about it and read before he orders.
The advertisement is unconventional but that’s how A Comic Shop has thrived as a business. They’ve been successful for years and I witnessed them take something that only 40-year old virgins enjoyed and made it something cool for young people in Orlando that used to like anime and manga.
I know Aaron pretty well and he bears no ill toward fans of anime and manga. Hell, he asked me to bring anime events to his store on a regular basis to bring in new customers and has supported me and my club through our efforts.
To give an example, when I ran “It’s MANIME! Nite @ The Geek Easy!” not only did they design, print, and distribute flyers for the event, but they even bought a keg of beer to share with my attendees FOR FREE! (The above is a different design that I made, but it’s still cool.)
Does that sound like a store that doesn’t like anime fans? No, it sounds like a fucking epic party! And it was. If you weren’t there you’re already dead.
Because of the success of the “Anime Nite @ The Geek Easy” events at A Comic Shop, I’ve decided to move the meetings Propeller Anime used to have at Full Sail University over to the shop.
I’m pretty excited about this move as it will breathe new and very necessary life into the club and make it possible to do things we haven’t done before for the local anime community.
HEY I HEARD THIS PLACE DOESN’T LIKE ANIME!
Now it wasn’t just Daryl taking shots at A Comic Shop and Aaron. (But hell, he’s talking the most shit.) So to him and everyone else, how is this really bad?
Brick and mortar books stores that once carried manga are closing up, shrinking options for casual fans who buy on impulse. This actually hurts the manga industry. What, you think everyone buys online like you do? Nope!
Don’t even pull the argument of “how is it fair to trade a 144-200 page manga that was $10 for a 22-page comic book that’s $4?” It’s fair if the person trading it in thinks it’s fair. They’re not putting a gun to anyone’s head to do this.
If A Comic Shop gets some used manga and sells it pretty well and decides to carry some good new releases in the store, isn’t that actually an awesome thing?
Daryl and the rest of Anime World Order will be doing several panels at MegaCon on Saturday, February 18th. They’ll be good so check them out! I don’t plan on punching him in the throat at MegaCon but I could change my mind…
You can follow Kent Ward on Google+ or on Twitter @FistoftheMFK.
Whoa. What he said.
I fail to see why you’d be that incensed over what you’ve perceived as my misuse of the word “their.” There is not enough space in one Twitter post to state the difference between “an anime club that uses a comic book store as its meeting venue, for which said store provides advertising and catering at their own expense” and “a comic book store whose employees run their own anime club on site” (which is exceedingly rare).
It’s not even a misuse on my part. “Their” in this case refers contextually to the venue, and not to the officer composition, who is doing the scheduling, history of ownership, or any other such detailed information. Most people reading that sentence wouldn’t interpret it the way you did. If an anime club were to say, meet at a public library–in Orlando this was not unheard of once upon a time–it is a matter of common parlance to refer to it as “the library’s anime club,” regardless of whether or not the individuals in charge of running said club were employees of the library or not. I had fewer than 140 characters to post the link, credit where I first saw it, and convey that it’s where your anime club has held meetings. This is a non-issue. The all-caps and threats of violence are without merit, even as an initial response.
To the matter at hand: I understand that you have the benefit of personally knowing the designer of this advertisement and owner of the establishment. But the majority of people who have seen this ad–myself included–are not privy to that level of information and therefore cannot contextualize the phrasing and imagery in question the way that you can. We’ve never met this guy. All we have to go on is the picture, the text, and the environment in which they are presented.
In the current comics environment, there is very real and very demonstrable hostility between readers of American comics and Japanese ones. The reasons are numerous but ultimately originate from the fact that the majority of what is published for each in the US are meant for drastically different age/gender demographics than the other. The result is segregation: the manga people go to one section and the comics people go to another section. These groups are not particularly integrated.
The intent of this advertisement is threefold: to accumulate stock of used product in good condition for resale, to reduce stock of New 52 issues that although returnable are refunded at a reduced value, and–most importantly–to create brand-new repeat customers from a base that already has no objection to the act of reading comics (in this case Japanese comics). However, because that intended target audience does not have the contextual familiarity with the store owner or with US comics (and is likely to have been subject to contentious encounters among US comics fans), that is not what they end up seeing. The use of “buy American” and “limit one per American citizen” does not come off as a joke. It comes off as “it is wrong to read those Japanese comics, and you should read these American ones instead.”
Here’s just one anime news site carrying the story. There are nearly 200 comments. There is no need to read all of them, but it helps to get a general idea of what percentage of people who saw the ad “get it”: http://tinyurl.com/8yckbbl
As you can see, it’s not very many. Although this is a local ad meant to attract local business, it is being perceived as an initiative by DC itself because they did fund/approve it. It would be a mistake to write this off as “dumb kids on the Internet.” The intended audience the ad desires to reach consists of people very much like these respondents; people who may not be so familiar with the Justice League that they know the character Cyborg is not actually “Robama.” (Even that Teen Titans cartoon ended over half a decade ago.) So to their eyes, this ad comes off as demeaning, hostile, and all the other things that drove them away from comicbook stores in the first place. Even someone like myself who is quite familiar with what is currently happening in US comics feel like this ad comes across like a slap in the face, because I have no way to know that the owner of this store isn’t really going to demand proof of US citizenship before permitting the sales. After all, we’ve recently had a story about a crazy xenophobic comic store owner whose complaining basically caused Dark Horse to revise their digital distribution operations.
True, nobody is going to remember the specifics of this in like…a day. The sale will probably do well, especially with a large comic convention coming up. And sure, this is just one store owner in one region of the country. But in terms of the big picture, we have two groups of people that don’t get along and now an action has been taken that directly reinforces widely-held perceptions on both sides of the fence.
To someone like me, whose agenda is “stop being so obsessed about where stuff comes from since there’s good stuff on both sides”? Things like this do not help. At all.
aaron: It is rather disingenuous for you to comment in agreement as if you were just an average guy who happens to agree with the post, when in fact you are the owner of the comic shop in question and the person who designed the ad. I’ll put that aside because it’s more important you hear this:
Anime and manga readers tend to be young and tech-savvy. The fandom thrives primarily via the Internet, and the largest communities have formed around where they go to read comics/watch cartoons, and where they go to read news about same. That site I linked above, for instance, is the most popular anime website in the world (English-language or otherwise). This next one is the website from which virtually all English-speaking anime fans get their news:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2012-01-17/comic-shop-dc-funded-ad/buy-american-trade-manga-for-dc-issue
Your intention for this ad was to appeal to these very people and outlets, not turn them away. However, a great deal of the individuals reacting to this ad on the anime/manga-dedicated news outlets–people whose familiarity with the New 52 is minimal such that many have not have read any of it–are concluding that you’re a bigot and so is DC for funding the ad.
This story has now been seen by a large amount of manga’s most ardent supporters nationwide. ANN and CRN provide the basis for the lion’s share of inspiration for a significant amount of fan bloggers, journalists, and so on. These people are all seeing your ad, and it is nearly universally NOT having the effect you desired. Indeed, the effect is SO opposite that many are now going to go and spread the word that DC and your store are promoting intolerance as a direct result of what you have done. (And by that, I mean more than the people currently writing about the DCU’s problems with depicting women/people of color.) This was supposed to be the demographic who’d comprise your potentially untapped new customer base.
Is this truly what you want people to think of you and the books you’re trying to sell them? Is there really “no such thing as bad publicity”? Wasn’t your intent that a lot of people would no doubt dig the new Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman if they’d just give the books a chance? Do you think shifting the needle from “neutral/slightly oppose” to “strongly oppose” for so many people with regards to their perception of US superhero comics is beneficial in the long run?
Correcting me personally should not be the priority here…
I really do understand your perspective and you do make some valid points. This post was written as a response to people on my twitter feed that developed the opinion that A Comic Shop doesn’t care for anime fans based on this advertisement.
Unfortunately, by the time I had finished writing this and hit the post button, the issue blew up beyond a ridiculous point. I’m incredibly intrigued that this story is running on places like Crunchyroll and Anime News Network.
I see the mass of negative comments from the Crunchyroll post, but it doesn’t help that their headline is “DC’s “‘Robama’ Ad Sends Out Battle Cry to Discourage Manga Sales.” What’s actually going on is that A Comic Shop is encouraging people to use manga they already bought as currency to encourage sales of an “American” brand of comic books. (Of course, you know this already.)
Anime News Network’s headline is “Comic Shop’s DC-Funded Ad: ‘Buy American,’ Trade Manga for DC Issue” and is not editorial at all. (I also see that the response from readers is far less hostile, which is a shock considering the nature of that forum.)
Segregation of of the fandoms is indeed a problem but on the flip side, anime fans in those comments who have not taken to the ad aren’t doing the fandom any favors when they ignorantly go on and say things that would implicate that American comics are terrible and that all manga from Japan is superior.
Hell, here is one of the comments I read, posted by “torbonator”:
“Marvel > DC
Manga > Comics
Japan > America”
It’s thoughts like this that have made it so the rest of geekdom have taken to looking down on anime fans. And as an anime fan myself, I don’t want to be group in with that.
Yeah, xenophobia exists in comic book fandom but American youth who have become anime and manga fans and have lashed out against all things American because they have failed to fit into society are no different. (Felipe Smith’s “Peepo Choo” illustrates this point very well.)
Convincing people who are a passionately into manga to buy American superhero comics is a lofty task. The problem is, the American comics industry doesn’t seem to have figured out how to corner that market. The only clear successes I’ve seen so far are “Scott Pilgrim vs The World” and “The Walking Dead.” The former is presented in a black and white graphic novel format similar to manga(and has art that looks closer to the average youth-targeted manga than superhero comics) and the latter has zombies in it.
I understand the push for the DC 52 since A Comic Shop believes in the product but I think a better deal to entice manga fans to “buy American” would have been to find volume #1 graphic novels of western comics that manga fans could enjoy and perhaps run a deal like “trade in X number of volume #1 manga and get one of these really good graphic novels for free.” (Actually, I’m just posting a deal that I would go for since I’m not high on the DC 52 like they are.)
I have a feeling that this ad will help A Comic Shop do better business than what I have proposed. It’s so controversial that every major anime/manga news site is picking it up and essentially giving A Comic Shop free advertising.
A friendlier ad would have not gotten the same coverage and while there are plenty of people mad, there are those the ad would not have reached otherwise who may find it worth trying out. (Who doesn’t have a volume #1 of a manga they aren’t going to read ever again?)
It won’t be known how well this will do until after MegaCon. I have a feeling that there will be a nice collection of $1 manga being sold at that store though.
But for anyone in Orlando who wants to go to a very good anime club that happens to meet at A Comic Shop, we’ll be having a meeting there on Saturday, January 28th at 4PM. You’ll find that A Comic Shop is a pretty cool environment for anime fans to hang out in. (No yiffing though.)
This post initially confused me, since I took Daryl’s Tweet to mean that @FistoftheMFK founded the anime club there, and your outrage meant that you, not this @FistoftheMFK person founded it, and how dare Daryl get it wrong. Then I looked at your Twitter handle, and had no idea what you were talking about.
Yeah, I’m going to echo Daryl’s sentiment: you have the benefit of knowing this person, and what the ad might mean. But it’s on the internet now, and it’s also relevant how it looks since it ties in with the existing fan/store divide between comics/manga. I think most people’s LCS is not as good as yours, and they’ll see this as a wedge.
Personally, the only American comics I read are Vertigo’s Fables and Dark Horse Star Wars. I’ll wait a month or so until Aaron advertises a “we’ve got all this manga on sale” event, and then visit, once the firestorm dies down.
Wow. This is almost like reading Orange Anime in the 2000s – but with better grammar.
Interesting predicament. Regardless of right or wrong, though, this DID get A Comic Shop some press. The question is whether is it good PR for the short term or damaging in the long term…
Food for thought.
I can see why fans of anime and manga could take offense to the ad. Granted, the people who are most likely to take offense to the ad are the ones who most likely post “Japan >>>>>>> AMERIKKKA$$$”. I think the lesson in general is comic based jingoism is bad on both sides.
In any event, Kent I really think if this blog post was to chastise Daryl Surat over misappropriating your anime club to an anime club that you run that belongs to A Comic Shop is at best an overreaction and at worst literate internet trolling. From the way I read it, I thought it was your anime club and only after re-reading could I see your point. Beyond that, ending your post with a half threat to assault to someone you know (who praised you twice during this controversy on twitter) is never cool.
If your point was to rebuff the attitude that A Comic Shop likes anime/manga and wants to sell it, well duh. Only the most rage-blinded people would think they’re buying up manga to then proceed and burn it. Having said that, the ad taken in a vacuum isn’t positive to manga or manga fans. It reads as “get rid of your old shitty manga and trade it for the superior American comics that everyone has been talking about”. That and DC doesn’t have any other high profile black characters anymore appearing in non-canceled books (save Batwing).
Hey Mr. Pandich,
Daryl knows I wasn’t going to punch him in the throat. But I was very frustrated that something I worked hard on for years be called someone else’s. Daryl had explained himself in his response and I have moved. (And as you can see, I even praised his work and promototed.)
I’ve said all I could say on this matter without repeating myself. I do appreciate everyone’s thoughts and concerns. I’ve told Aaron to check this post regularly today because I feel there is a lot of useful feedback in these comments that I think he can use moving forward with a market he is unfamiliar with.
Thanks you everyone for stopping by. I’ll try to approve more comments when I get the chance.
Kent. The only thing I got out of this post is you wanted to physically harm someone who didn’t agree with you and also at some point end his life. All I saw here was a kid throwing a tantrum.
You don’t handle things very well.
And I think it’s sick that this comic shop takes Cyborg and renames him Robama. And I’m only assuming this was done because both Cyborg and Obama are black.
I also think it’s stupid that you expect people to dismiss this comic shops poor tastes simply because it’s a comic shop. It’s not simply a comic shop. It’s a brick and mortar business!
Fair enough; the two of you do know each other and obviously have a working relationship. I do totally understand being super frustrated with internet stuff especially when it contains something going viral with most negative comics disparaging a friend. No hard feelings from me to you or to A Comic Shop. Thanks for clarifying. See you around at Megacon.
Thank you Mr. Pandich for understanding. The whole thing had me very frustrated on multiple levels. Part of me wishes I slept on the matter before writing a rebuttal. It would have certainly been less hostile.
I do not hate Daryl Surat. I agree with him on many points in regards to fandom. Sometimes he’ll say something that will aggravate me but I say things that aggravate people as well, as I’ve seen in some of these responses.
I wish Daryl talked to me before he brought up the issue yesterday out in the open so I could clear things up with him since I can get more information about what was going on. But likewise, I should have talked to him in person to vent my frustration before I began writing this last night.
I was tagged on Facebook with this. I used my actual name here. It’s not disingenuous all. You are over thinking that.
You made some good points and I’ll make my points on my outlets.