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So: Manga. It’s being read by everyone but regular comics readers, and being bought everywhere but comic stores (Go with the generalization, please, so I don’t have to qualify every statement from here on out). We could go on and on about what it means to the market, if anything; about what the market did, is doing, and will do to chase after those sales, and how many copies AMBIGUOUSLY-SEXED POP STAR GOES A’COURTIN’ sells over IDEALIZED MALE POWER FANTASY, but that would require, you know, math and stuff.

[…]

What I do want to talk about is the pure dose of alien culture manga’s had on how I consider comics, pop, and “visual fiction”– it’s literally been like finding a hidden bookstore on the moon or something. The last three, four years have been a learning experience to say the least.

I couldn’t have summarized this conversational piece on manga better if I’d tried. Which I won’t.

Oh, one more choice quote:

Fashion, tastes, accessories, fads– The sun rises and sets on the whims of Japanese girls. Wouldn’t it be great if the Stan Lee of Japan wasn’t a hyperbolic carnie huckster raising a boy-army of misfits and pop junkies, but a nervous, shy, post-schoolgirl still obsessed with boy bands and losing weight, leading all of the other unpopular girls to stuff their backpacks with phonebook weepies? Mayu Shinjo is the Bizarro-Stan. AntiStan!