Fandom

Things on Walls

Posted by Merrow on Oct 2, 2010 in Blog, Daily Life, Fandom, Fanfic, Fruits Basket | 0 comments

I’ve decided to take on one of the simpler items from yesterday’s post on things I wanted to do when I had time, “hang stuff on my walls.”

I’ve had some really pretty prints from Fruits Basket that I’ve been meaning to frame for years. They’re an odd size, being just a hair longer then an 11 x 14 frame.

I had these ones Fruits Basket prints tacked to my wall with funtak in my old apartment but I decided to upgrade them to real frames.

Lastly, I had a bunch of post cards and Fruits Basket collectable cards that I’d had hung up with tacks and funtak that I thought would look neat in frames too. For those of you who follow my fanfiction, here’s a little trivia. Discoveries was inspired by the postcard on the far left of the three lying in the grass, and Spotted! was inspired by the collectible card in the bottom center (Tooru between Yuki and Hatsuharu.)

I decided to pick this task because I was in AC Moore and found 12 x 16 frames on buy one, get one free and decided to take it as a sign. The smaller frames came from the dollar store.

Now that I’ve got frames and the artwork, next step is to get pictures in frames, and then frames on walls.

It’s the last bit I worry about. I’m near enough to train tracks that things occasionally rattle, and I want to make sure that none of these fall off. Also, I have to figure out where I’m putting all these things. My last apartment looked like a shrine to Fruits Basket, this is only a small portion of what was on the walls. I had really ugly wood paneling, so I practically wallpapered the room. I’d like to balance my house out a little more, especially since I have other pretty things I want to display. However I do have a lot of house, so I should be able to manage it. ^_^

PS: Yes, I’m working on my fanfiction. I’m currently working on a chapter of Full Course (as in it’s up in another window).

It has not been going well lately…

Posted by Merrow on Oct 20, 2009 in Angst, Anime, Anime Cons, Anime Syracuse, Blog, Daily Life, Fandom | 0 comments

But surprisingly I’m not in a bad mood. Let’s review the past week and a half… On Wednesday I came down with a cold that I’m still suffering with. Been to the doctor’s, it’s not strep, pneumonia, or the flu (swine or other-wise..). It’s just a really horrible cold that. won’t. go away. On Friday I popped a tire and scratched up the side of my car. On Sunday my anime club, Anime Syracuse, had it’s Fall mini-con. Attendance was disappointly low and even worse… $200 went missing from our cashbox. To top off the evening, when taking down the a vendor’s display one of our helpers managed to clock me in the eye with a wire rack display. Now I have a black eye.

I should be wallowing under the blankets somewhere, shouldn’t I? But actually I’m in a pretty good mood. For one, even though I popped a tire (and am still driving on a donut…) I have road-worthy tires in my garage just waiting to be put on. Even though the Sunday event had low attendance, everyone there seemed to have a blast! And the Monday free Funimation screening was very well attended compared to last time. Also, the event provided an excuse to have the Neko-jin Girls  (Kit and Neko of Neko-jin designs) up, and we had a fun night talking shop, manga, and bizarre yahoo japan finds. We are already making plans for them to come up just for fun some time this winter during school and job downtime.

Today my cold hit me pretty hard, so I pretty much crawled into bed the moment I got home. I decided to marathon the rest of the first half of “Big Windup” (warning link takes you to site with an auto starting video, but it also has free episodes to watch). I’d won it at our first free Funimation event, and we’ve watched some episodes of it at club. I really love it. I am admittedly biased. While I can’t stand to actually watch a real sporting event, I have something of an obsession with fictional baseball. I have just about every baseball movie out there from the Natural, Field of Dreams, A League of their Own, The Sandlot… you name it I probably have it or have at least seen it, same goes for books. Sadly, the only baseball manga I can think of that came out in the west was an OEL called Boys of Summer… but I’ve read scanlations for Touch, H2, CrossXgame… So when I heard there was a baseball anime, licensed and available for sale and everything… well I knew it would be mine. And obviously it was destined to be as I won it before I even had the chance to plunk down money for it.

But the first box set ends at episode 13 (of 26) and at an AWFUL place. It could be worse, it wasn’t a cliffhanger but they were just about to start a game! Now I have to wait until November to buy it.

Magical Manga Machine? (of the future!)

Posted by Merrow on Oct 8, 2009 in Blog, Books, Fandom, Manga | 0 comments

Image by gruntzooki via Flickr

I was reading an article on ICv2 that introduced me to a magical device call the Espresso Book Machine. It’s a kiosk that will print on demand a library quality paperback book in less then 2 minutes.  (300 pages they claim, in less then 4 minutes) There’s a video on the website that shows it in action. The ICv2 alludes to how it may change the book market, but seeing as my obsession is manga my mind immediately went to how it could effect the manga market. Most of what follows is speculation on how this could be used in the future, since the technology isn’t quite there yet. (Though the  machine is already being deployed and in use in some places.)

One of the major hurdles for current niche publishers is making the cost of printing and distributing small market title affordable. The costs are high to a small return. But what if you didn’t have to front the costs print or distribute your book?

Sure, you could go digital. But readers have been resistant, even with devices like the Kindle and and the Sony E-reader. It’s just not the same as holding a book in your hand.

The Espresso Book Machine meets the problem in the middle. Secure digital PDF versions of the book that are printed out on demand to anyone using the kiosk. Imagine being a small book publisher and your book is on a device in your local grocery store, next to the DVD rental machine. Imagine in fact that it is in EVERY grocery store, and anyone can print it out right when they want it. No shipping costs or delays! They don’t have to track it down in some specialty shop, or special order it at the book store, or order it online. Just choose your book, print, and go. You, the publisher, get your royalties and I’m sure a portion goes to the kiosk holder to pay for the production of that book.

As a small book publisher you now don’t have to pre-pay to print books, or ship them to stores…if you can even get someone to agree to put them on the shelves. You don’t have to find a place to store the unsold copies, hoping for a buyer or disposal if there is no hope. If you’re in a niche market like Manga, now you can sell any title in your catalog without any of these expenses. You don’t even have to be involved, other then uploading your PDF to the main catalogue and then you can focus on marketing and getting the people who want it that it’s available to buy. (Just go pick it up next time your picking up some milk!)

It wouldn’t work right now. They’re not close to being everywhere (at over $100,000 for the machine and printer it doesn’t seem cost effective yet.) They aren’t stand-alone and have to be manned by an employee and have an unbreakable connection to the internet. I can’t imagine how often you’d have to change the paper on one of these things. But even as they are I can see the benefits to a small time publisher. A one time cost of $100,000, while sizable might be worth it if you can have a machine that can print off any book in your catalogue in minutes, ready to be shipped to anywhere. They say it costs a .01 to print a page on this, so your typical manga (of generous 200 pages) would cost $2.00 to print.

I know there are other costs besides printing the book. And in manga there is even more expenses, like the licensing costs, translation, adaptation (both the text and artwork), pre-press costs, royalties, lawyers, employees, marketing… I’m sure the list is longer then I can imagine. But right now all those costs can be contained in cover price between 9.99-15.99, with this device you could charge the same but cut out whatever portion goes to all that managing of the physical book. Print out some copies for Amazon to sell, and the rest are fufilled right out of your offices…one at a time as they are ordered.

Personally, I would love a chance to get on the ground floor for a franchise on this. Imagine being able to place these in places with long wait times, like the DMV, airports, doctor’s offices. Or open a kiosk in the mall, next to the lady trying to sell you hand cream and the guy with the kiosk with the cellphone accessories. Right now these have to be manned by an employee, but imagine in the future when they eliminate that step and you could put these on their own, any place a person might walk by. Great for a coffee shop, or a hair salon… maybe one next to those chairs the guys sit on when their significant others are shopping? (Or conversely, one in the sporting goods store next to the golf equipment or at a boat show?)

In the manga world… imagine having one of these things at a con stocked with every manga ever published in English, French, Italian or Japanese?

If I was manga publisher here in the west, I’d so be advocating that the companies come together with the makers of this thing for a “Manga Kiosk” that could be placed in bookstores, comic book stores, game shops and any other place it could fit and be manned. Stocked with every title they have a license for, all across the board. Someone wants a copy of the latest Naruto, it’s theirs in less then 5 minutes. They want a copy of The Swan volume 14? Equally easy to find. The licensers get their cut, the stores where the kiosks are placed get a paid a rental fee for giving the space (like most vending machines do, usually a percentage of it’s intake so they’re invested in it’s sucess), and the customers have someplace to go where they can get their fix. Instantly.

An in the distant future, people would have old models set up in their game rooms rigged to give free books, just like people have old coke machines now. Okay…maybe that’s a little out there. But it would be cool!

Venus in Love 7 Yay!

Posted by Merrow on Oct 7, 2009 in Blog, Fandom, Manga | 0 comments

I promised myself I wouldn’t buy any books in the month of October… and then immediately regretted it when I got to the end of my available Venus in Love volumes just to discover that there was one more just released! Buying it would mean breaking my promise… and since 6 hadn’t ended in a cliffhanger I’d resigned myself to wait. But then it showed up at my door anyway! Apparently I pre-ordered it through right stuff months ago when they were having a CMX sale. Yay for thinking ahead!

In other news, after reading 1-7 of Venus in Love, 1-7 of Wild Ones, and 1-10 of High School Debut, I think I’m shoujo-ed out for a bit. Though it was nice to end up with High School Debut and it’s habit of taking most shoujo tropes and playing them for laughs. I think it over-reached itself with trying to get serious with the “love rival” chapter. Next up, I’m going to go in the complete opposite direction and catch up with Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys. I’ve only read the first one and really liked it. I was VERY tempted to make the “Friends Cult” symbol into a pin. I probably will at some point.

I’ve managed to keep up with my do three things every day promise, though sometimes the things have been very small. But everyday progress gets made, and that’s the whole point. ^_^ I’m feeling much better about it at least.