Archive for the ALC Publishing Category


Publishing A Doujinshi, Part Two

April 15th, 2004

Part 2

Terms from yesterday’s discussion are in italics, new terms are bold. In case you care. ^_^

I’m going to have to assume that you already have a story or comic that you want to publish, because I can’t get into the mechanics of how to draw a comic here. For one thing, I’m not an artist, and for another, there are many guides on how to do that already, scattered about the Internet and in print. I won’t presume to try and teach you how to create a panel scheme or do toning or anything like that.

I’ll be making one more assumption, too – that you, like me, will be building this doujinshi digitally. Japanese companies are used to working from hard copy, they have many more industries that include hand-drawn illustrations. Here in the U.S., however, almost all our magazine and newspaper art is done digitally and all but the grassiest grassroots publications use a computer program for layout. I actually write from time to time for a newsletter that is laid out by hand, photocopied and hand stapled, but the mailing list is about 200 people, so it’s not surprising…. and the editor for that newsletter is moving towards digital layout, now that he has a computer that doesn’t bite. ;-)

Again, if you’re doing a copy book, then you really *don’t* need expensive equipment – laying out the pages by hand and making a master with white layout tape and your illustrations will be plenty fine. Then you can make copies of the master and staple them. Viola! Instant doujinshi!

If you’re planning on doing something a little fancier, you can still prepare hard copy masters and take them to a copy center for copying and binding. The advantage of this is that you don’t have to buy, learn and clutter your hard drive with graphics programs, and the copy machines at the copy center are probably better than the ones you have at home or school.

But, if you plan on making a perfect bound doujinshi and you don’t have an industrial printer and paper cutting machine in your basement (I’m not saying you don’t…I’m just sayin’ *if*…) then you’ll be laying this out on a computer, probably with a graphics program and some version of publishing software. You’ll also need a reasonably memory-rich computer, with good processing speed and a decent scanner that can handle higher DPIs (dots per square inch – we’ll get to that in a sec) than the usual web graphics.

I used Photoshop 7 as my graphics program. I’m not graphically inclined – in fact, I’m pretty much graphically retarded, but I have very little trouble manipulating text or graphics on this program. When you buy a copy of any of ALC Publishing’s Yuri manga, you’ll see the results – clear text on backgrounds that aren’t visibly manipulated. (It’s not easy when you do a translation, because sometimes you have to cut and paste *teeny tiny* pieces of background to cover kanji, then type in English over it, often with lines and other art in the middle of it all. Next time you buy a translated manga, look for a page with text over a screentone and if you look carefully, you’ll see what I mean!)

I work with my graphics files in layers – and I save them in layers. Yes, it makes for much bigger files, but corrections take 1/10 the time when you only have to retype a single word, or add punctuation to a layer, rather than re-white out a word balloon and retype it all…or worse, redo an entire toned background.

This is one of the advantages of building the page digitally, too, rather than toning and lettering by hand, then scanning it all in as one image.

Regardless, you’ll need a good scanner to convert the hard copy into a digital file. Your scanner should be able to handle at *least* 300 DPI (and if it doesn’t, then it’s horribly outdated and old and you need to replace it anyway.)

DPI stand for Dots Per Inch, and it’s a measure of print quality. Most average web graphics are 72 DPI, but most print graphics are 400, 600, and even 1200 for color photographic-quality print magazines. So you’ll definitely need to have a decent scanner. Do NOT attempt to publish in less than 300 DPI – small text will appear spotty and hard to read, backgrounds will be fuzzy. Unless you don’t care if your book looks professional or not.

ALC’s latest translated Yuri manga, WORKS, was done at 400 DPI and I think it came out pretty clear. More than that and the files are just monstrously unweildy in size, even for my brand spankin’ new computer with lots of extra HD and RAM.

If you are doing digital layout, you’ll need publishing software, too. I’ve used Adobe Pagemaker, which was pretty easy to learn initially, and Quark, which was *not* easy to learn. I published the first volume of Yuri Monogatari on a free trial version of Pagemaker, in fact. LOL When I went to set up Rica ‘tte Kanji!? I used the version of Quark they had at work and if Frank, the graphics guy, hadn’t been there to help, I would have killed myself.  However, the new version of Quark, 6.0, is much, much easier to understand. Not exactly for beginners, but I didn’t want to kill myself this time….

Lastly, you’re going to need some kind of program to make your Quark file or whatever into a PDF. Mostly everyone in the world uses Adobe Distiller. The PDF is what you’ll be giving the printer, which means no changes can be made to the pages by the printer. This means you’d better damn well have those layered files around, so you can make a change, save it into a new version, redistill it and hand a new PDF to the printer!

To sum up you’ll need:

Good, memory-rich computer
Scanner that can handle high DPI
Graphics program
Publishing Program
Program to convert to PDF

And finally, we’re off. Next time, we talk about actually putting together the doujinshi.





Publishing a Doujinshi, Part One

April 13th, 2004

Part One

AniLesboCon (ALC) Publishing was born in 2003 with the mission of creating and disseminating high-quality yuri manga (that is, Japanese-style comics with lesbian images and stories) in English.

Last year we published two books: Yuri Monogatari 1, a compilation of nine yuri stories by thirteen artists and writers from seven different countries and; Rica ‘tte Kanji!?, a translation from the Japanese version of the sweet and funny stories of Rica and her girlfriend Miho, by Rica Takashima.

This year, ALC is proud to announce the publication of WORKS by Eriko Tadeno, which now on sale at the Yuricon Shop.

Even as I type, we are also working on this year’s volume of Yuri Monogatari, which is slated for a summer release – and for the fall, Volume 1 of Shoujoai ni Bouken: The Adventures of Yuriko, with illustrations.

So, after three books under my belt, and two more in the making, and as several folks have asked me for advice about this, I thought I’d walk you through the process of publishing your own doujinshi.

Doujinshi is Japanese for a work put together by a like-minded group of people…i.e., a fan work. In other words, a doujinshi is a self-published, or small-press published work. There are many, many groups of people doing this in the American comics field, and several good small comics presses extant. You may want to get in touch with them for their advice, if you want to do American-style comics. I’ll be focusing on Japanese-style doujinshi, with a strong emphasis on the kinds of things you might see at Comiket (Comic Market) in Tokyo.

Let me start by saying this: This is work. Like anything else, if you want your publication to look good, you’ll need either a lot of time, energy and money to put into this, or a stable of friends and employees to help. Both is best.  ^_^

First you need to decide what *kind* of doujinshi you are going to be making. Today’s entry will be some thoughts about the things you need to think about before you begin.

On the cheap/easy end of the scale is something called a copy book. This is basically xeroxed pages folded together and stapled, with *maybe* a color copy cover. You can format the pages easily in any graphics program, import them as images into Word, or some other common word processing program – or even copy them directly and cut and tape the pages together in the order you want, then run the pages through a copy machine at work or school. The color copy page is folded and stapled on and you’re good to go.

If you choose a copy book then your costs are going to primarily be: time, for formatting and; materials, for copying. You might have paper costs and ink, if you’re doing this at home, and a saddle stapler will be helpful. If you want to spend a little more money and want it to look nice, you can go to a copy center and have them do it – saves time, costs more. If you’re like me, you can steal both time and materials from work and only have to be careful about doing it out of sight of your supervisor. ;-)

Any type other than a copy book is going to require binding of *some* kind. If you plan on stapling, or having your book spiral bound, then you can go to a copy center. If you plan on making something with a flat spine (called perfect binding) you’ll need to talk to a real print shop. If your book is more than 50 pages, perfect binding looks *much* nicer and more professional – it also costs a lot more.

Unless you want a hard cover book, you’re going to want to look at card stock of varying weights or perhaps textured paper, also of various weights. Weight indicates how thick and heavy (duh) the paper is. I wouldn’t swear to it, but my guess is that a paper’s weight is based on how heavy a standard amount of that paper is… i.e., 20 lb. weight paper (which is standard copy machine paper) would weigh 20 lbs. for a ream, or 1000 pages, or whatever the standard amount of pages is, while 24 lb. paper weighs more for the same number of pages.

Paper will give the book a soft, flexible body, card stock will give it strength and solidity. And of course, your budget will dictate what you can use. If you’re trying to do this on the cheap, a lightweight textured paper, or pale-colored paper can probably go through any home printer and come out looking good…. You can get paper from any paper seller, on- or off-line, for cheaper than buying it at an office supply place, or buying it through a printer. Stationery, art, scrapbook, craft stores have small amounts of different papers you can experiment with to see what works for you.

Okay, next – book size. This is a REALLY important choice, because it will make a difference as to how easy it will be to print and bind. And you’ll need to know it for your page layout, too (that will come later, but you NEED to know before you start what size you’re going to use.)

The standard size in the U.S. for paper is 8.5″ x 11″. We and Canada are just about the only countries in the world that uses this as a standard size. ^_^

If you are making a copy book, then you can just assume you’re folding a standard sheet of paper in half, so each page is 5.5″ x 8.5″. Or, conversely, you’ll be printing on 11″ x 17″ pages and folding *them* in half, so you’ll have a book that is 8.5″ x 11″.

If you truly desire to publish a doujinshi-style book, then your book will probably be one of several sizes, both of which are international standards, but almost never used in the U.S. The usual paperback-sized doujinshi are A5, although you can find doujinshi in all ISO sizes under the sun.

A5 is technically 148mm x 210mm, but in U.S. measurements it’s slightly harder to render: 5.83 x 8.27 inches. Stick with metric, if you can, when setting up your parameters.

If you choose one of the other international sizes, remember this – chances are, your printer (hardware and/or person) will not have ISO size paper to hand, so if your chosen size is bigger than the normal 8.5″ x 11″ sheet, you’ll be paying for very big paper, which will have to be cut down. A5 can be cut down from a standard sheet and is a nice size to read from, IMHO…that’s what ALC Publishing uses. B5 is also common for doujinshi (182 mm, 257 mm/ 7″ x 9-7/8″) and so is A4 (210 x 297 / 8-1/4″ x 11-3/4″), but A4 is larger than our standard page – remember, bigger paper means more expensive.

One last consideration before you start…the paper you will print on should be heavy – i.e., thick – enough to not have art show through when you print it out. Unless you’ve got light strokes and no heavy black areas, regular copy paper won’t be thick enough.

Okay…that’s enough for today. Tomorrow, I’ll depress you with the list of equipment you’ll need. ^_^





Yuri Manga: Rica ‘tte Kanji!?

February 5th, 2004

How stupid am I? I’m here, trying to tell you all about Yuri anime and manga and I *completely* forgot to talk about this most Yuri of Yuri manga!

As you may have realized by now, I’m always on the lookout for characters that break out of the conventional molds of shoujo manga. And to be honest, right now I think that there are exactly *two* Yuri artists out there who do so successfully. I’ve already reviewed Free Soul and Indigo Blue by Yamaji Ebine – today I want to talk about a wonderful, very unconventional Yuri manga – Rica ‘tte Kanji!? by Rica Takashima.

Let me state this right up front – I translated this comic, and I’m good friends with the author. That having been said, I think that this is one of the very few “pure” Yuri  manga available – and the *only* one available in English at this time. (By pure Yuri , I mean that this is a lesbian narrative, written by a lesbian, for an audience of women.) Indeed, it’s *because* I felt that way that I wanted to bring this story to the English-speaking audience.

Rica ‘tte Kanji!? (the title has no meaning, by the way – it’s like saying, “Like, Rica!?”) is the story of a young woman who moves to Tokyo to attend a Women’s College to study early child development. Rica is idealistic and funny, but not completely starry-eyed or naive. In fact, she’s probably the single most realistic character I’ve ever read in any manga. In an early scene, she frets over what to wear for her first time at a gay bar, ultimately deciding on her regular clothes…but she makes sure she has clean underwear on. ^_^

Rica meets quite a few nice people in the Nichoume (Tokyo’s Gay and lesbian District,) including a cool and interesting art student, Miho. Rica and Miho’s relationship progresses in Rica without high drama, angst, self-doubt, obsession over sexuality or roles. It’s a refreshing and adult look at two women who know who they are and don’t question their own sexuality. For this reason alone, Rica is entirely unique.

The emphasis in Rica is on character and realistic, but humorous, situations. We watch Miho nurse Rica through a cold, Rica makes dinner for a crampy and miserable Miho (one of my favorite scenes, as Miho bitches about the monthly joy of being a woman), they fantasize about each other, and in the end, they are just so damn cute, you can’t stop smiling. There is some conflict, but don’t expect suicidal angst here – these two women are long past high school drama.

The art in Rica is nothing like the conventional shoujo style – it has alot more to do with pop art, and contemporary modern painting, than shoujo manga. When the mangaka *does* use conventional imagery or themes, she tends to use it self-mockingly and point it out for us, so we can have a good laugh along with her. (Rica is portrayed fantasizing about her first time in the Nichoume with a background pattern of lilies – an author’s note points out the flowers and comments “The usual flower imagery.” ) It’s touches like this that make Rica so delightful and approachable – we are allowed to laugh at the characters, and ourselves, through the artist’s work.

The biggest downside to Rica is that, at the end, I wanted more. I hated to leave Rica and Miho behind, so I hope to convince the mangaka to do more for us. Hopefully we’ll be seeing a sequel in the next year or two. ^_^

Ratings:

Yuri – 10

Art – 9 (I *like* pop art!) Story – 9. Characters – 10. Overall – 9.5

Now here’s the advertisement:
To get *your* copy of Rica ‘tte Kanji!?, Look for the English-language manga at the
Yuricon Shop.

I mean this quite literally -this is the Yuriest manga you can get in English. Get yours today!





Yuricon News and new Yuri Manga!

June 19th, 2003

Yuricon ga owatta!

Well, it’s all over, except for the odd cleanup (and getting all these damn boxes out of my house!) but I don’t have my con report yet. Today’s entry is an advertisement for ALC Publishing’s second shoujoai manga title:

Rica ‘tte Kanji!? is now onsale!

Rica written by Yuricon 2003 Guest of Honor Rica Takashima, tells the tale of a delightful young Rica, come to Tokyo for the first time. We follow Rica as she makes new friends, explores the Nichoume and falls in love. Rica is a funny, charming tale and should not be missed by any fan of shoujoai manga.

Rica ‘tte Kanji!? is available online at the Yuricon Shop. Look for it at the Anime Castle, store in NY, as well!

Next time: Con Chair’s Report





Yuricon News: ALC Presents Yuri Manga Anthology Yuri Monogatari 1

April 13th, 2003

ALC Publishing and Yuricon are proud to present Yuri Monogatari

Yuri Monogatari is the first-ever English-language original shoujoai and yuri manga, now available through preorder on the
Yuricon Goodies page.

Yuri Monogatari, or “Lily Tales” is a compilation of 9 original shoujoai and yuri stories from talented artists and writers from all over the globe, making it a truly international work of art.

The publication has over 120 pages of stories – ranging from coming out, to exploration, love, comedy, tragedy and sex. Each artist and writer has brought something special to the publication and we’re very pround to be able to offer it through Paypal for only $10.00.

Order your copy of Yuri Monogatari now, because, while it’s cliched, supplies really *are* limited, so get yours today!!