Comic-Con International starts today, and for the first time in 9 years, I won’t be attending. This will be the first summer since I left college that I won’t be sitting industry panels about manga or standing around the Tokyopop booth handing out bags or waiting in line to see the latest DC superhero cartoon premier. But you know what… I don’t really miss it. I am sad that I won’t get to meet up with friends I’ve made through work over the years who I only get to see at San Diego, but as for the show itself, this is an overdue break. Not only am I glad to skip out on the crowds and hype, but I welcome a chance to distance myself from the manga world and reflect on my career and priorities.
After 5 years at Tokyopop and 4 years freelancing with Viz, GoComi, CMX, and even a tad of Seven Seas, it’s hard to let go of manga. I’ve spent so much time following the industry moves and fan opinions, I’ve tried to stay abreast of tastes and trends – it’s hard for me to believe that manga has been part of my daily routine for almost a decade. I still comment on my favorite blogs, and from time to time still do interviews and articles (like this one posted on Newsarama a couple days ago), but increasingly I wonder – do I really have anything to say, or is it just habit?
In writing Return to Labyrinth, I am certainly influenced by my exposure to and admiration for manga, especially when it comes to melodrama (this comes out even more in volume 3 than previous volumes, I think you’ll find). Manga sites occasionally cover the books, as publisher Tokyopop has historically insisted that everything it puts out is manga, and I am grateful for the coverage. At the end of the day, though, RTL isn’t really part of the manga sea, so there’s no reason for it alone to anchor me there. I used to edit/adapt 4+ manga series at any given time, but now I’m down to just 1 (Fullmetal Alchemist) – hardly the active resume of an industry insider.
So this year, while my old colleagues and friends talk about bursting manga bubbles or debate the anthology model or pontificate on the impact of Borders’ financial woes, I’m going to spend this Comic-Con weekend at home and turn off my industry news feeds. Maybe I’ll reopen the crate of 50,000 LEGO bricks that I dragged out of my Grandma’s basement last week – bricks that have gone unplayed with since I first joined Tokyopop. Perhaps I’ll be responsible and get cracking on the final volume of Return to Labyrinth! In any case, it’s nice to know that I can shut my eyes and ears to manga for a week and the world will keep on turnin’.
