Finally getting some traction! Keep it coming!
And so TIL that the term âotakuâ only came into use relatively recently. Good to know.
its been in use since the mid-80âs, though generally it was used judgmentally. First time I came across it was when a photo of some people in my Anime fan club (based out of Fort Worth TX) accompanied an article in a Japanese Anime magazine. The title of the article was âAmerican Otakuâ, and this wasâŠ1986 IIRC. It was probably at least a year or so before we got someone to explain what the word meant.
I really really like this, canât wait for the next installment!
Gainax brought the word to general American anime fan use with âOtaku no Video.â âOtakuâ was not a word they said or used around me when I worked for them.
Otaku trivia: Otaku is actually a pronoun. Japanese geeks went around calling each other - more or less - the equivalent of âthou.â So non-geeks started calling them the âthous.â
Is there an easy way to click from one page of Bani Gyaru to the next? I have no idea how many pages Iâve missed, if any, and I love this story, but the Prev button doesnât work!
Iâll fix it
Great strip, Lea!
Just read the last threadâIâll concur that the manga style was not embraced at that time. I can think of maybe two comics that were done back then by U.S. creators that were moderately successful and were Manga influencedâNinja High School which was self-published, and Shuriken, both by men, and both during the black and white boom in the mid 80s. By 89 the black and white boom had busted and that was that. Eclipse had minor success with a few Japanese imports. Akira was at first an isolated success. There were no digest-sized manga. Few anime had been translated, and a lot of anime fans still watched anime with fan subs and plot summaries.
Now I may have some of that wrong, but thatâs my memory of it.
As for how women were treated in the comics industry then? See: Colleen Doranâs blog. She goes into it pretty extensively. Itâs gotten better, but not by much. And if Tess Fowler and Mari Naomiâs recent confessions are any indication, we have a long way to go.
Creator-ownership outside of self-publishing was a rare thing indeed, particularly in genre comicsâin other words, 99.9% of the industry, and by 1989, youâd have to be a little nuts to want to self-publish.So I could easily see how Leaâs chances were shitty to nil. And itâs not like she gave up. Itâs a testament to her persistence that she stuck with it long enough to have the success that she has.
I donât know anything about Gainaxâthis hasnât interfered with my enjoyment of the strip, though a few details about what they do and what fans make of them might be helpful to folks like me. But I imagine thatâs yet to come. I havenât had any problem with the continuity. I like the hand-lettering here! I wish the whole strip were lettered this way!
Looking forward to more.
actually⊠you can reference almost the entire Antarctic Press catalog from that time period (though some of their titles jumped back and forth between Antarctic Press and Eternity), and it was almost entirely âManga Influencedâ. Enternity also had several other Anime/Manga influenced titlesâŠincluding picking up the license for ROBOTECH post COMICO, and they did a run of what amounts to CAPTAIN HARLOCK fan-fiction when someone finally noticed they had no legal rights to the property.
I would also contend that the âBlack and White Bubbleâ had not yet burst by 1989. It would still be until the mid-90âs when digital colorization services began to become cheap enough that small press outfits could afford it. And its not like there were all that many 4 color web-pressâs operating that could print a color comic, and had reasonable access to the distribution chain, I know by 92 it was down to Ronalds in Canada. We had Bremmer in San Antonio but they only did color covers and black and whites and their early attempts at digitization weâre pretty awful⊠just ask Terry Moore about what they did to his photo ready cover paintings before he moved Strangers in Paradise to ImageâŠanyways⊠B&W independents were still a big deal up through the mid-90âs⊠you might have heard of a few.
Creator Ownership was , and I know Iâm beating a dead horse hereâŠreally not a rare thing at all either. the majority of the titles I was shipping in 89 that didnât have âMarvelâ or DarkHorse" or âDCâ somewhere in the indica were probably black and white creator owned titles (only some self published). that probably only represents 15% or so of the titles I shipped, but it did happen. unless we want to talk about Circulation numbers as a mark of âRarityâ, and even then the numbers were much lower even on major titles than most people would realize. * my memory is a little fuzzy⊠but since I was seeing everything that came through that warehouse every week for a few years at that time period, and I was personally reading 80-100 titles per week, most of them indy comics, I do think I have some standing to back my claims
It is a shame though that Lea didnât have more success at the time period in getting her ideas picked up. âTEJASâ was a brilliant idea, and among other things, it was decades ahead of its time âSteamPunkâ wise.
Iâm familiar with some of that stuff, yes, I know Antarctic press published Manga based work, and yes youâre beating a dead horse.
By âend of the black and white boomâ I donât mean that black and white titles were no long being printed or selling, I mean the black and white boom when everybody and their brother was self-publishing their own Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle knockoff. After that it was no longer a boom, it was just a small part of the industry, as you say, represented by much lower numbers, and the bar of entry became higher.
The point was simply: it was a competitive environment where few creator-owned manga-influenced books thrived. And I mean thrived, not existed.
It was even harder if you were a a female creator.
Everything else is hairsplitting and you wasting your time taking up space on this thread that should belong to people talking about Leaâs strip. And now I am no longer listening to you because I am no longer interested.
On what scale do we use to judge weather or not an artists work was valued âlessâ based on gender versus the quality of the product produced?
Iâve just been wondering where the line is between the very real issues of misogyny (that still exists) and what would be considered commercially viable properties by publishers? Or where the line is between âthe old boys clubâ, and and a persons difficultyâs in successfully networking in the industry due to say⊠personality conflicts?
so far as TMNT knock offs⊠I recall exactly 2. can you name a few others to fill in my memory gaps?
Mod Edit: Removed unnecessary snark
Iâm enjoying this series quite a lot; I was a comic book store dogsbody during this era and was the resident Jr Otaku. The first run Viz stuff, Ninja High School (The World shall be saved by Steam!), DarkHorseâŠall of it made such a huge impression. Then a few years later I went to Japan for a cultural exchangeâŠand I was hooked.
I had a Lum T-shirtâŠand wore it proudly. Big pink heart and all.
Loving this series, Lea. Donât let the mansplaining jerks grind you down. Looking forward to the next installment!
itâs been nearly 30 years, but there were a glut of parodies of TMNT comics in the 80âs, which was discussed by pros and in the trades as the B&W boom, referring to all the books attempting to capitalize on the TMNT âformulaâ. Iâm surprised you didnât see them in the warehouse where you worked.
A friend of my husbandâs who lived in Los Angeles bought a copy of all of the parody titles he could find, sure that one of them was going to be the new TMNT #1 and heâd make a fortune off it. I donât have copies of the Comics Buyers Guide or Friendly Frankâs catalog or Westfieldâs subscription service order form from back in the day, but someone who did or owned a store at that time could tell you how many more than a handful there were.
the wikipedia article only discusses 4 parody titles, but there were many others.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles_(Mirage_Studios) they are discussing Mirageâs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1984-1993 years
âThe success also led to a black and white comics boom in the mid-1980s, wherein other small publishers put out animal-based parody books hoping to make a quick profit. Among them, the Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters, the Cold-Blooded Chameleon Commandos, the Pre-Teen Dirty-Gene Kung Fu Kangaroos, and the Karate Kreatures were obvious parodies of TMNT. Most of them were sold to comic shops in large numbers, but failed to catch on with readers. This speculation led to financial problems with both comic shops and distributors, contributing to a sales collapse in 1986â87.â
aha! thank you. i could recall The Hamsters and the Kangaroos specifically. knew there were others, just couldnt bring them to mind. (someone once tried to claim âKarate Pig, Ninja Flounder, and Kung Fu Monkeyâ was in that boat, but since it was a Chinese wushu comic retelling of âJourney to the Westâ I have to disagree)
anyways, thanx.
I recall a dealer in 1986 asking $75 for Albedo. I recall many retailers asking considerable amounts over cover price on b & w booksâall hoping for a jackpot. In reality, they were gamblers and not very good ones.
Some other funny animal parody titles: Boris the Bear and Fish Police.
Independently confirmed among professionals working in comics in the 1980âs: 1987 was the bust year. There were self-published b&w titles after that, but the days of making money were OVER.
Moderator note: Letâs keep our posts from being rude and stay on topic.
My memories of geekdom in the '80s are different. I donât remember anyone being into anime as early as 1989. Akira had only just been released, AnimeCon hadnât happened yet, and none of the big distribution of movies or comics was really underway. Iâm sure there were people into it, but I canât imagine youâd see a lot of anime cosplay, or see that much emphasis on manga.
Then again, maybe Iâm just referencing my own circle of geekdom in the '80s. I saw Trekkers, LOTR fans, D&D players, wargamers, sci-fi fans, ren faire types, etc., but didnât really see anime start to get big at cons until the '90s at least.
But then again, maybe thatâs just me.
