A little less than a year ago I wrote a big post on manga–how it truly is the future of comics, and that American comics publishers could and should be learning valuable lessons from it. Nothing that I’ve seen or heard or learned in the intervening months has changed my mind, that much is for sure. (The simple fact that at my bookstore (which I presume to be representative of most chain bookstores), size/format alone is what gets a comic book shelved with the hot-selling manga titles as opposed to the slow-as-molasses-selling non-manga titles, should be reason enough for publishers to be paying a lot closer attention.) Essentially, what manga has done is remove unnecessary obstalces to readership; in my opinion, American publishers haven’t done nearly enough work in this regard. Anyway, I recently came across the piece in the archives, and I think it holds up rather well. Check it out and see if you think it holds up, too.
