Today I’m going to crack open the covers of Yuri Monogatari 5 once again and let you see the “East” side of the equation – 6 stories by some of my favorite Japanese artists. This was exactly the kind of stuff I wanted to bring to the western world – stories by women about women who love women. When Rica Takashima and I had that first discussion over lunch that eventually led to the creation of ALC Publishing, we both agreed that what had originally motivated us to create our own work, was that we wanted to tell silly yet real, fun to read stories about life as a lesbian. I genuinely think we hit paydirt this volume. Yesterday you saw that the “western” stories have such immense variety in tone, art, style, story…and today, you’ll see some of the “eastern” stories that broaden our book in both scope and style. Now is a really good time to thank our translator Erin for doing such a spectacular job with all these stories.

“The Last Day” is our first story, by one of the pair that makes up one of my favorite circles, Sakuraike Taki of Sakuraike. Her work is loose, full of movement and emotional swings. She does “cutely embarrassed” so well, that I find myself staring at those panels in her work for prolonged periods of time. As an aside note, this story was incredibly difficult to adapt to a left-to-right format. There is, in this story, a panel that took me a whole day to work on, but damn, I think it looks GREAT! With luck – you’ll never even notice. “Last Day” is a story about choices, about learning to face life – and love – head on, without running away.

Allow me to gush for one second. When I first read “Until The Sun Rises, Then Sets Again” I absolutely knew I had to get this story into a volume of Yuri Monogatari. There is nothing about this story I don’t love. The art, the story, the characters (who are part of an ongoing series that I would love to bring out as a collection,) everything. I was pleased as punch to meet the artist, Nishi UKO, last winter at Comiket and she was as delightful as her work. This story follows two teachers who have to get past a rather large misunderstanding at the beginning of their relationship. It’s simply wonderful.

This is the second Sakuraike offering, “On the Road Where the White Flowers Bloom.” It’s a goofy look at the life of the straight half of a Yuri doujinshi circle. There’s a lot of doujinshi world jargon, which we’ve attempted to make clear to the non-otaku audience, but I think that the general forehead-slapping silliness will communicate just fine. Sakuraike Kana’s stories often have a goofiness to them that appeals to me, even when she’s doing a “serious” love story. (This, btw, is not a serious love story. ^_^)

I am so excited to once again be publishing something by Tadeno Eriko. This story is a bit of a gamble, though. “The Everyday Adventures of Two Women in Love” is the story of an older couple who have long ago gotten used to each other’s foibles. Because one of those foibles is an obsession with name brands and shopping, this story has a zillion footnotes. I hope you all don’t get distracted by them, because the actual story itself is really sweet. (The wife suggests that you just read the story first, without worrying about the notes, so you’re not distracted. Then go back to learn what the heck she’s talking about.) I chose this story, because there is one panel in it that I adore with all my heart – when you read the story, you’ll probably guess the panel right away. It’s a totally long-term couple thing. :-)

One of the best things about Yuri Monogatari is that I’ve been able to guilt Rica Takashima into drawing more Rica and Miho for us! LOL We get a lot of requests for sequels to Rica ‘tte Kanji!? and nothing would make me happier than to be able to put together a second collection of stories about them. This time, Miho has to face a rather troubling question about their relationship. This story was clearly drawn with a sequel in mind – and I want to know what’s going to happen, so we’ll just have to nag Rica for more! Rica will be our Guest of Honor at the 2007 “Yurisai” event, so make sure you come and ask her about it. ^_^

The end of the book is a story about beginnings. “The Beginning of the Beggining” tells the story of…please don’t make me say it. lol I love Houjou KOZ’s clean art and bare storytelling style that allows for maximum reader participation. Her stories are so much about internal monologues and self-realizations, that this makes a great introduction to her work.

And there you have it – 14 stories, with a tremendous amount of variety. From school girls to old women, from first loves to old couples, from endings to beginnings and from harsh reality to freakish fantasy, Yuri Monogatari 5 has what *I* think is a brilliant variety of stories by incredibly talented artists.

Once again – pre-orders for Yuri Monogatari 5 are currently available on the Yuricon shop, at your local comic shop through the August Diamond Previews, through you local chain bookstore through Diamond and on Amazon.com.

Thank you to everyone who commented – quite intelligently – on yesterday’s post. The incoherent rants are almost never in reaction to posts like that, they tend to be very series-focused. I don’t think I have to explain why. ^_^

Since I ended yesterday’s “discussion” (by which I mean, “genteel rant”) with an admission that what I look for in Yuri is stories of lesbian experience, it seemed logical to me to jump in to today’s review with examples thereof.

As I also mentioned in a comment to one of the comments, the desire I had to read Yuri that reflected lesbian life and love was one of the motivating factors in creating ALC Publishing. And it continues to be one of the reasons that we focus on doujinshi artists who are out there creating really excellent lesbian narratives that are not likely to be found in mainstream manga.

When I started this year’s Yuri Monogatari Project, I thought, initially, that I might do the book with a “West and East” approach – have the English language stories read left to right until halfway in the book, then ask the reader to flip to the back and start reading right to left for the Japanese translations. But. Because we market Yuri Monogatari to a G/L/B/T market, as well as to the manga market, I thought that that might be asking too much of my non-otaku readers. (What do you think? Is it something that you’d like or not? Comments? Thoughts?) So I ended up just going with a left-to-right format. This means we have to flip the Japanese pages. Because we have to do that, I have become quite good at flipping things in a way that does not lose the original flow. It’s a complex process to explain, but it works.

In any case, I’m going to split the next review up into two posts, in recognition of that original idea. Today, I’ll give you a sneak peek at the stories contributed by Western artists, just over one-half the stories in the book. ^_^

To start us off today, we have “Vagrants,” by Jessie B., a wacky look at life on the retail job side. This story never fails to make me laugh. We’ve all had those kinds of jobs, where the job description, “customer relations manager,” and the job “clean the bathroom,” don’t jibe. Jessie’s story takes a look at two admittedly off-kilter people (who I would definitely have over for lunch) and their attempts at finding the right position for themselves. It’s a light-hearted, yet deeply snarky look at the world of non-office job hunting. And yes, love.

Niki Smith’s “Your Hair” is a frank look at the end of a relationship. The chiaroscuro contrast of the art really sets off the contrast between the two characters’ perspectives on what is going on. (Much as the sharp black and whites of June Kim’s 12 Days did.) When I say that Yuri Monogatari tells stories of “lesbian life and love” I am constantly reminded by the artists that this cannot only mean happily-ever-afters. Niki’s story, with its sharp art and sharp message is a unique perspective on this brutal, but not uncommon, fact of life.

Now that I am old, it always makes me happy to see stories about other old ladies. ^_^ That’s not true – I always liked the older couple love stories, even when I was younger. In fact, several of the first “lesbian” novels I can remember reading were stories of older women. Perhaps that’s why I’m terribly excited to be able to include Holly Hume’s “Emmeline’s Cruise” in this volume. This is not just a story about an older woman, but a story about freedom, about creating a new life and about how learning who one truly is, can take a lifetime. This story has a bunch of my personal “hooks,” but the thing I like best about it is Emmeline’s tendency to panic over little things. It makes her seem very real.

Susan Knowles’ “Rapunzel” is notable for several things: her reinterpretation of more than just one old, familiar story; and the fact that her protagonist looks like a real high school student, instead of one of the unrealistically stylish and adult-looking characters we’re used to. In fact, “Rapunzel” probably wouldn’t work at all if the main focus was on an adult character. It’s a story about bringing darkness into the light, and has the kind of ending we can all be happy about…until we think about it twice. ^_^

“Umbrella” continues Althea Keaton’s series of mood pieces. In direct contrast to Niki’s story of a relationship dying, with Althea’s usual focus on body language and tone, rather than action or setting, “Umbrella” feels a bit like watching a phoenix rising from the ashes of the past.

The next story pretty much violated two of my main rules for the “Yuri Monogatari” series – no schoolgirls and no coming out stories. Of *course* we’re going to have both in the series, but I try to avoid them on principle, because both have been done to death. In “Love Won” Sirk Tani puts an interesting spin on both of these tropes and, I think, has come up with a unique angle for the story – and some food for thought, as well.

Last up for the “West” side is returning artist Lilyshield, with her take on fantasy and the supernatural and love between women. Lily’s art has a distinctly Gothic quality and this story just fits it perfectly.

So, there you go – those are the stories that were written originally in English, specifically for this book. For my next post I’ll give you a glimpse of the six Japanese artists we’ve got lined up – and I’m positive you’ll be as excited as I am to see the finished product! ^_^

Pre-orders for Yuri Monogatari 5 are currently available on the Yuricon shop, at your local comic shop through the August Diamond Previews, through you local chain bookstore through Diamond and on Amazon.com!

I was going to ignore Okazu completely today in lieu of getting some work done, but I decided to make a quicky post instead.

I am in the last stage of the first stage of production on ALC Publishing’s newest 100% Yuri anthology, Yuri Monogatari 5. Cleanup and lettering is done and layout is nearing completion. This weekend, barring disaster, the book goes out to the editors for a first pass. When the corrections come back, I will make changes, then send the completed manuscript to the Senior Editor for another go-over. Then I get it back, take one last looksee, find the typo that somehow got by 4 people (and there is always one – and two more that get by 4 because I don’t catch them either) and then off to the printer for a proof. And then I start eating Rolaids like a snack food. :-)

I can’t show you (yet) sneak peeks for this volume, but let me give you hints on what is to come – over 200 pages of 100% Yuri, drawn by artists and writers from Europe, Japan, and North America.

We have 6 stories by Japanese artists for this volume: Rica Takashima returns once again with the continuing adventures of Rica and Miho and we welcome back Eriko Tadeno, creator of our collection WORKS, with a story about the everyday adventures of two women in love. This year we’re also thrilled to bring you four stories by two of my favorite doujinshi circles, UKOZ and Sakuraike. These vary from apparent endings to barely beginnings, with the trials and tribulations of a Yuri manga artist somewhere in the middle. I have no doubt that you’ll love all of them as much as I do. :-)

We also have stories of love, of loss, of battling rats and fighting vampires, and love young and old.

It’s going to be a great book. We’re trying our very best to have it out for Otakon (where we’ll have a table in the Dealer’s Room and a Yuri Panel on Saturday, more details to come)…well, let’s just say, we’re trying!

I’m going to spend the next few days cracking on the final pages, which means no new posts. Then I am taking a day or two off, because I need a break. *Then* I promise to come back with reviews of the most recent Yuri Hime and more great Yuri anime and manga!

In the meantime, let me throw you at this blog for good art-related reading. If you are planning on becoming a cartoonist or illustrator, why not learn from a professional? John Steventon is someone I learned about because I now work with his wife. But even my brief glance at his blog taught me a bunch. Read it. Tell him Erica sent you. :-)