From China With Luv
I got a lovely package in the mail today!!! Yay! Love is Like a Hurricane Volume 4! Banzai! Banzai! Sadly… our printer was supposed to send us like 3 boxes ahead of our main shipment. *sniff* *sniff* But they only sent us 1 lonely box.
So… sadly, we have to take these babies to New York Comic Con. *sniff* *sniff* Waaahhhh! Kampai won’t even let me take a copy home. I might be able to sneak a few out of the box without her noticing and put them up on the 801 store. I’ll keep you posted on my success or failure.
~801-chan ^ ^
March 19th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
You are too kind, 801-chan! I shall keep my eyes on the shop
March 19th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Kind? O.o See Kampai! People think I am smart and kind! >_<
March 20th, 2008 at 8:17 am
801-chan will be double smart and kind if she does put the copies on the website to sell. ^_^
March 20th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
WOOHOO! i shall be snagging a copy at comic con! and i finally get to meet you wild and crazy girls…can’t wait!
March 20th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
It’s not MY fault… 801-chan does what she wants no matter what I tell her! LOL
I’d better hide MY copy, otherwise she’ll steal it off my desk… and I need it for reference.
Yeah, those dumb printers. Too bad I only know swear words in Chinese… otherwise I’d give those guys an earful.
March 20th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
I try to listen to you Kampai. But sometimes the little voices in my head are a bit louder!
And I know all your hiding spots! So if you call in “sick” again between now and Comic Con, that copy is totally fair game!
March 24th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Too late! I already drooled all over my copy of LILAH 4. It has my DNA!!! I’ll be able to prove it was stolen!!
*needs to stop watching CSI*
March 25th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Wow, it must be expensive to print books in China! How come 801 didn’t choose a US printer? Is it ’cause you’re sisters to June Manga and have to get your books published with them? I hope China’s okay with printing all your dirty books, hee hee.
March 25th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Actually, US printers have stopped printing explicit content for the most part. So most publishers of mature material have to get it done overseas.
But manga printed in China is better quality anyway because they use a different method of printing that works better for tone. Most US printers use the newspaper method (have you every seen those videos?) with a huge roll of paper that stretches for like miles. That works better for paperbacks and traditional comics. But printers in China print individual sheets that contain x number of pages. So you get crisper dots in the tone. With newspaper style printing, you get moire. That is when background tone starts to look like a checkerboard pattern instead of individual dots.
Hope that makes sense!
March 27th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
It makes total sense to me! I thought you guys were doing it ’cause it’s *cough way cough* cheaper there than here. I just had no idea that printers were such prudes.
In any case there’s Hurricane 4. Where’s Ikoku Irokoi Romantan? I hope it’s on the same ship with Hurricane 4. ^_^
March 31st, 2008 at 8:49 am
Wow, that information is so fascinating! I never thought there were major differences between the printers. In that case, don’t stop printing your books in China! The importance in re-creating the tone is very true. I own some books where the tone is messy and has ink blotches. You are doing the artist and the reader a huge favour by reproducing the manga true to its original japanese form.
And like aoi_aka, I also thought it would be cheaper to print in China. And I would have thought China would refuse explicit material! You learn somethin’ every day!
P.S. Did ya ever think some of the crew on the ship, female AND male, ever sneak a peek at the 801 books? How scandalous!
March 31st, 2008 at 10:22 am
Hmm… I don’t think people on the ship sneak peeks at the books. But the guys in our warehouse made the mistake of flipping through a loose book or two one day when they were bored! Mwahhhh! Comedy I tell you. They had tons of questions for me the next time I visited. They couldn’t believe that one of the characters wasn’t a girl!!
March 31st, 2008 at 12:00 pm
OK, so here’s the deal about printing in China. They won’t allow explicit materials to be printed in mainland China. They really frown on two boys getting it on. [There are no gays in China.
] But… we can get the books printed in Hong Kong. Which technically is a part of China now, but isn’t completely governed by the same rules… yet. We’ve had some shipments stopped by the gov’t… but so far so good. We haven’t had to pay any ransoms to get our books… yet.
And… lower printing prices are relative. Yes, the costs are slightly lower there than printing here in the US, but paper prices are rising, and since we don’t have large print runs on our 801 Media books, we’re really only paying a little less for printing the color inserts and dust jackets in China. The rest of the costs are pretty comparable to US printing prices. And it takes 1-2 months more production time to print in China.
March 31st, 2008 at 12:10 pm
So I think if you factor in time, it is more expensive to print in China…
It definitely requires more work and planning on our part. Speaking of which… what is in those boxes you got by your desk, Kampai? 
March 31st, 2008 at 5:28 pm
hahaha… Wouldn’t YOU like to know????