Manga Marches On
Dirk
Deppey comments on
ICv2's news
that the ninth issue of
Shonen Jump cracked half a million
copies in sales. As ICv2 notes in the piece, that issue
contained a CD-ROM demo for a
Yu-Gi-Oh! PC-based video game, so
I could already hear detractors saying that these numbers "didn't
count." (Never mind that
Shonen Jump's regular sales have
skyrocketed 60% from 190,000 to 305,000.) Luckily, someone else
anticipated the naysayers and had a response ready:
Just to head off the usual naysayers: Yes, newsstand-sold
magazines are
returnable. But if the orders are going UP, there's a fair chance not
much is being returned, yes? And yes, #9 sold half a million because of
special promotion and a CD, not on the sheer artistic merits of the
comics within. Guess what. That's how people do business in the adult
world. Cope.
(Thanks to
Graeme
McMillan for reproducing Warren Ellis' observations.)
And
Newsarama
ran a press release from Viz detailing their plans for the "First
Anniversary Issue" (i.e., #13) of
Shonen Jump. I'm
starting to reconsider my decision not to renew my
subscription...
Meanwhile,
another
anthology from a different publisher may never even see its first
issue reach publication.
