Hey everyone, I’ve got a big announcement.
I’m going to be bringing my manga review blog, The Manga Cliche Review, over to All About Comics!
This blog is about reviewing a few manga that fall under a commonly used trope and will hopefully update throughout the week, changing topics with every three posts about a certain cliche. Not only will I include a good example of a certain cliche, but a bad one, a classical one and a little bit of history about the cliche’s use, if I can find some.
I made this decision partially because I’ve neglected the blog due to lack of free time and partially because I’ve decided I rather like All About Comics. So without further ado, a little talk about the new blogging regulations.
Here's what breaking the new FTC regulations will do to you.
I think the new regulations are a good idea. It allows review blogs to be more transparent about testimonials, like the advertising industry. None of the review blogs I follow found any serious problems with the new regulations. The writers simply said: “oh look, new regulations” and started posting where the material they reviewed came from. Easy as pie.
Obviously, in order to review a product, I have to tell you where that product came from. It will likely only come from three places, since none of the comic book publishing companies recognize me as a reviewer. These three places include: buying from bookstores, borrowed from friends (or the Tokyopop library over the summer if I had nothing else to do that day) and online scanlation sites (ONLY if a comic book has not been published in the U.S. or I am hard-pressed to find copies nearby.) Nonetheless, I will be letting you guys know which of these three sources I procured manga from.
First, my material connections. I did intern for Tokyopop this summer. It was an unpaid internship and the only things of any value that I gained were a few free meals, some manga on the table for anyone in the office to take and a little (extremely useful) plastic fan. It was an awesome experience for me and, yes, I’m going to try to get a job with the company when I graduate, but I’m not quite there yet. I also interviewed for an internship with Viz, but nothing came of that.
Second, my typical results. This one confuses me a little, so bear with me if I’m not talking about the right thing. I’m not exactly hawking out any products here, I’m just sharing my criticism. I’ll be frank, I really DO like Tokyopop (or at least the people I worked with while there,) but the company has manga I don’t like. That being said, I like a lot of their manga. I also like a lot of Viz’s manga, a lot of Go!Comi’s manga, a lot of CMX’s manga, a lot of Del Rey’s manga and a lot of manga from other publishers. The publishers I just listed also have manga I don’t like, but, in general, I like manga A LOT. That’s why this blog and its various components are about comic books and manga. Still, I’m not trying to sell you anything from one particular company and I hope that is clear.
My news posts will not even be covered by these FTC regulations, but I figured I should at least talk about them a little because I’ll be moving The Manga Cliche Review over here and to let you know where I stand.
Here are some links to useful info and discussion of the new regulations:
How to Avoid Risk from FTC’s New Regulations for Bloggers
