Tokyo Comic Book Report: Japanese girls love Deadpool!

Majority of patrons that Saturday were women.

Well, to turn a generalization into something more accurate... at least one does.  When I visited Blister in Hamacho, one young woman was flipping through a Deadpool comic, cracking up and excitedly sharing various panels with her friend.  Before I left, she had in her hands a huge stack of American comics, at least one of which featured Deadpool.  So someone in Japan likes Deadpool, Marvel.  Take my infallible advice and start a huge marketing push centered on Deadpool over here and I'm sure it'll pay dividends!  Thank me with money.  You're welcome.

I'm not sure how I got the idea Blister was so difficult to reach, like a comic book Shangri-la.  It turns out it's pretty darned easy if you're staying in Hatagaya.  The subway train that takes you to Shinjuku will deliver you to Hamacho Station and from there it's about a five minute walk.  The first time I visited Blister I believe I went to a different platform in Shinjuku Station, but that was several lifetimes ago.  I've cheated death so many times since then, they all tend to blur together.

Blister's running on limited hours these days, but on Saturdays, they're open from 11am to 5pm, which gives you plenty of time to get in and browse.  The store is very cramped, and on this particular day there were six or seven other customers.  It felt crowded.  The store is heavily invested in Marvel and DC, mainstream stuff.  The going price for a brand new American comic magazine in Japan these days is 540 yen.  That's about 6.85 USD to you and me, Russ.  Blister does feature some bargain 100 yen comics in longboxes to your right as you enter.  The selection is hodgepodge and I long ago bought them out of every single Cassandra Cain Batgirl back issue they had.  None are to be had these days, but you can still buy issues of the Stephanie Brown series.

The Avengers were hanging out in Shibuya.

Speaking of Cass, I bought the very last copy of Batgirl: Fists of Fury found in the wild here in Japan, so don't look for that, either.  It cost 1800 yen (22.83 USD, quite a mark-up from the 14.95 US SRP), but it was worth it to reaffirm my position as her #1 fan in Japan.  It seems the other Cass trades like Silent Running and Death Wish are slipping out of print and going for mega-yen on Amazon.jp.  While Fists seems to be hanging in there and I could have paid 500 yen less for it online, the trouble I've had getting things like Showcase Presents Batman and the Outsiders 1 and New Mutants Classic Volume 1 means snap it up if you see it.

Besides the Cass book, I also bought Astonishing X-Men #52 (because it has a neat Xi'an Coy Manh cover), Conan #32 (a random choice because it was 100 yen and I still enjoy Kurt Busiek's run on that title), Conan the Barbarian #2 and 3 (more Dark Horse, love Becky Cloonan's art), Minutemen #1 and 2 (the pull of Darwyn Cooke proved too strong to resist), New Mutants #46 (more Xi'an, but this time with Dani Moonstar, also irresistable) and Walking Dead #100 (Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard-- this is the second time you've scarred me with a single horrific image!  I nearly barfed!).  No Dark Horse Presents, so no new Nexus.

Blister is stocked deep with Before Watchmen titles.  I only wanted a sample, so I didn't catalog everything they had, but I think I could have bought the entire run up to current if I'd been so inclined.  Good runs of the New 52, if you're into that.  Heavy on the Marvel mutant stuff.  They also have a lot of trades and collections, plus just about every Avengers movie action figure you could want, along with The Dark Knight Rises stuff.  The guy working the cash register was friendly enough, but we didn't chat due to the language barrier.  I think he recognized me from my last visit there, way back in 2010.  Now that I know an easier way to get there I could see myself patronizing Blister a bit more if I lived in Tokyo.  Maybe they could order more Fantagraphics and Dark Horse stuff for me, too.

Probably jet-lag, but Hulk really wanted to punch Thor.

My other comics-related activities included visits to Tower Records in Shibuya and Kinokuniya in Shinjuku.  Tower Records was having a major sale in their English-language book department so I snapped up a few bargains.  Now, Tower Records stocks a lot of Fantagraphics titles, but they seemed kind of depleted.  Coupled with the close-out type prices on other books, I'm wondering if they're overhauling things or getting out of the business.  That would truly be tragic because Tower Records has been a Tokyo destination if you want groovy things by Los Bros Hernandez, Peter Bagge and the like.

At Tower Records, I bought Lone Wolf and Cub volumes 4 (783 yen, marked down from 1565, or 9.93/19.85 USD), 19, 20, 22, 23, 25 and 26 (290 yen each, 3.68 USD).  I was tempted to go back and clean them out entirely.  I also found and bought a shelf-worn copy of Showcase Presents Batman and the Outsiders 1 (2573/32.64).  See what I mean about snap it up?

Kinokuniya has a very small section for Western comics, but it was there I managed to find and buy the elusive Perla La Loca (receipt lost, price unknown, a pearl of great value to me) to complete my Locas collection.  I'd ordered it months ago from Amazon.jp, but kept getting messages that it was delayed.  This was the only Love and Rockets book they had in stock, so apparently it was meant for me.  And now we are together at last and all is right in the comic book world.

Comic book quest... begins!

I'll be gone for a few days.  I plan to find Blister, the comic book/toy store hidden somewhere in Tokyo.  I've been there before.  Come to think of it, it may not be open.  Well, here's hoping.  Wish me luck and all that.  My goal is to buy the new Dark Horse Presents with Nexus.  If I can accomplish that, it will be worth the heat, the humidity and the broiling sun of Tokyo in August.

If you want my advice-- stay out of Tokyo in summer.  Go in spring or fall.  I'm just not that bright.

Interested in buying American comics in Japan?

Yeah?  Well, forget about it.  The monthlies at least.  I know I've touched on this subject before, but if you're addicted to the American-style four color slender magazine we popularly refer to as the "comic book" and you live in Japan you'd better get ready for some hard cold turkey time, complete with DTs and hallucinations of Batman crawling under your skin.  Your best bets are either learn to live without, start buying digitally, order from overseas or have some sympathetic pusher-type friend mail you your fix.

Another thing you can do is make a pilgrimage to Blister.  This is problematic because it's not all that easy to get to these days and involves figuring out the Tokyo subways, being very patient while waiting for your arrival at the proper stop and then a fairly long walk through what will no doubt be unfamiliar territory to a small store that may or may not have what you're looking for.

It used to be easier.  At one point there were two comic book shops in Shibuya that sold American monthlies, with Blister being the largest and most exciting.  It was right in the heart of the shopping area just outside the station and across the famous Shibuya scramble intersection you've certainly seen in movies and in photographs.

In those days, Blister was an orange multi-story geek heaven and had one of the actual screen-worn Spider-man movie costumes on display!  All the action figures you could ever want and then comics and trades in the basement, plus a really cool young staff.  It moved to smaller digs in Harajuku and that's where I used to drop 100-200 bucks on comics and more whenever I hit Tokyo.  I experienced my first Free Comic Book Day at the Harajuku store, and it was marvelous.  So many people packed into the comic book section you had to wait your turn to flip through the longboxes.

Then Blister moved again and shrank to a less impressive storefront in a hard-to-reach neighborhood that isn't nearly so cool as either Shibuya or Harajuku, but probably leases space at more affordable rates for people selling comics apparently only I want.  My second FCBD at Blister's new location wasn't so exciting and a day or two later, I was jetting back over the Pacific Ocean, leaving Japan behind me forever.  Or so I thought.

Man, I loved Blister back in the day!  I still do, but I'm not sure I'll be making a return trip there this year.  Sorry to give you the bad news.  Now for the good.

If you love collected trades, graphic novels or English-translated manga, you're totally in luck here in Japan.  Japan's got you covered.  More than covered.  It's an embarrassment of riches, really.  You can order COD from Amazon.jp (currently my favorite source).  Sometimes you can even find things that are out of print in the US still available at Amazon.  At the very least, anything you can get from Amazon in your own country, you can get in Japan.  And the exchange rates make them comparable in price, or even cheaper.  And if you're in Tokyo, it's easy to hit up Tower Records in Shibuya and Kinokuniya in Shinjuku.  Tower Records is a straight shot from Shibuya Station and Kinokuniya is right behind Shinjuku Station. 

But don't take my word for it.  Ask Christopher Butcher, who found out in 2007 what I learned about the same time:  that Fantagraphics is majorly represented here at Kinokuniya (and also at Tower Records, although I don't think he went there).  You can also find your precious superhero books at Kinokuniya as well.  But the English-language manga section is the store's real appeal.  Butcher's right on about how large that section in Kinokuniya is.  It's large and stocked in-depth with all kinds of titles and genres.  While Kinokuniya does maintain a shelf of superhero trades, it's nowhere near as breathtaking as their English-translated manga selection.

Here's another good point he makes:

So, here’s my closing thought: A Japanese bookstore in Japan has a better selection and diversity of product for English-language graphic novels, including manga, bd, superheroes, artcomix, strip collections, etc., than 90% of comic stores in North America; if Kinokuniya can develop a market for that material then North American stores could too, and there’s nothing stopping them.

You have to understand Kinokuniya did this within the context of a market where comics are already widely accepted by a population-wide general readership, but as a business person, Butcher obviously understands the scope of what Kinokuniya offers.  I also enjoyed Butcher's photos of the Shinjuku night-scape, complete with the NOVA sign that no longer exists because that NOVA branch went belly-up along with the company not long after he shot it.

Which is to say in Japan terms, this photo essay is old news.  And also in the world of American comic book fans.  That doesn't mean it still isn't useful.  The info about Kinokuniya was still accurate as of May, 2010, the last time I set foot in the store.  I just happened to tumble across Butcher's photos this morning while thinking about whether or not American comics are popular here in Japan and if any new outlets for them had popped up since I my departure and return.  The late, lamented Journalista! once linked to it, so you may have already read it.  I didn't, much to my chagrin.  Wish I had.  Wish I'd known he was in Japan at the same time I was.

Not that he knows me or vice versa, but I could have clued him into Blister.  I miss Journalista!  Journalista! once linked to someone else's link to my angry evisceration of that overblown toilet paper-worthy book Identity Crisis and called it the "ultimate take-down" of said book.  And then I died and was no longer relevant to comics fandom!