AMINE AND MANGA

For the fourth time now, the Javits Convention Center is playing host to the New York Comic-Con. An increasingly important part of the convention, though it actually precedes when the floor is open to attendees, is the annual Graphic Novel conference organized by ICv2, which describes its mission as tracking the various developments taking place “inside pop culture” And each year, the the highlight of the conference is the presentation of the ICv2 White Paper, an exhaustive look at just how prominent, popular and profitable graphic novels of all types that are available in North America in English actually are.
As in the previous years, the report was presented by ICv2's founder and president, Milton Griepp. He began by talking about what exactly his company means when they talk about graphic novels. Specifically, the statistics assembled cover original stories that only appear in graphic novel from, collections of comics that have been previously printed in newspaper or published as single monthly issues, and finally, translations – primarily, but by far not exclusively, of Japanese comics. Overall, these three types of books brought in US$395 million in sales in 2008, up from about US$375 million last year. For comparison, in 2001, the first year that ICv2 started tracking these figures, graphic novel sales amounted to only about US$75 million. In general, sales of graphic novels in bookstores still increase at a faster pace than in comic shops, while sales to libraries are increasing even faster. And even as the overall shape of the growth curve has began to flatten, the positive effects of the popularity of the Dark Knight motion picture and the upcoming Watchmen movie have made graphic novels of all kinds more prominent than they ever have been. In Griepp's words, a situation of this kind comes around once in a generation – and these two films present the greatest opportunity for publishers since manga first really made its entrance in America to introduce new readers to graphic novels of all kinds, and convert those who are only familiar with Batman and Watchmen to the wide variety of graphic novels that are out there .
Turning his attention to manga specifically, however, Griepp pointed out that in 2008, North American publishers released a total of 1372 individual volumes, down from 2007's 1513 – a drop of about 9%. And ICv2 projects that throughout 2009, there will be only 1224 volumes brought out. Perhaps more important is the fact that the actual sales figures of manga are down some 17%, to about $175 million, and are now at the level last seen in 2005. In his opinion, this decrease is driven by at least four factors. The first is the overall effect of the economic recession that the U.S. is currently in. The second is the lower visibility that anime properties that could potentially drive manga sales have, as television and cable networks, in particular Cartoon Network and Adult Swim, cut the number of anime on their schedules, sometimes in favor of non-animated original shows. Another is the changing graphic novel order policy of the Borders chain of bookstores, which Griepp speculated may have something to do with the departure of Borders' graphic novel buyer, Kurt Hassler, who left the company in November 2007 to join manga publisher Yen Press. And finally, he pointed to the simple effect that the Twilight series of novels, and the film based on them, had in siphoning off the audience of female readers that could be expected to be manga customers.
Nonetheless, if taken as a category (alongside superhero, fiction/realistic, humor, and adult-oriented graphic novels), manga still has the largest actual number volumes that are being released, and of the 9,600 individual volumes that are currently on the Diamond Comic Distributors back list, about 43% are manga. However, both Diamond and individual retailers are becoming more active in ceasing to keep manga and comic volumes on the back list but available for ordering as long as they have in the past.
In general, the white paper finds that smaller manga publishers that only have a limited number of properties, likely with no television or marketing tie-ins, are the ones that will be hit the hardest by the current downturn. For mid-size companies, the future may lie in diversification into non-manga lines. And across the universe of North American manga publishers, concentration on the few titles that are still selling well will be crucial. One bright spot, however, is the continuing market penetration of manga into mass retailers (Wal-Mart and other department stores), and specialty retailers such as Hot Topic. No matter what happens to manga as a whole, Viz Media's Naruto remains in a class of its own, a very positive force that is still growing in influence, and attracting new readers with every volume.
.For the first time since ICv2 has begun to produce this white paper, they also engaged in an extensive survey of comic and manga retailers, to document their perceptions of just who is buying these books. Particularly interesting among the results of the survey is the differing perception of the gender of graphic novel purchasers. Most retailers, whether at comic shops or in book stores, still believe that the majority of those who buy graphic novels are male. On the other hand, particularly in libraries, some 65% of those surveyed report an even split in who is borrowing both traditional graphic novels and manga. And as far as audience ages go, the bookshops seem to cater more to teenage readers, and the libraries, overwhelmingly so. Another component of the survey asked retailers to talk whether they expect sales of graphic novels to decrease this year. 20% report decreases, and only 14% are expecting further slow-downs as the year goes on.
The overall feeling about the present and future of graphic novels, among both retailers and librarians, is cautious optimism. Naruto in particular is seen more and more as a mass property that has broken out of being thought of as merely a comic or that can be compared meaningfully to other comics. And the general state of the economy will have the effect of accelerating the general pace of change among graphic novel publishers, and make them more open to trying new things.

A vagrant is a person in a situation of poverty, who wanders from place to place without a home or regular employment or income. Many towns in the Developed World have shelters for vagrants. Common terminology is a tramp or a 'gentleman of the road'.
Vagrancy was a crime in some European countries, but most of these laws have been abandoned. Laws against vagrancy in the United States have partly been invalidated as violative of the due process clauses of the U.S. Constitution. However, the FBI report on crime in the United States for 2005 lists 33,227 vagrancy violations. In legal terminology, a person with a source of income is not a vagrant, even if he/she is homeless.

In the fairy tales of medieval Europe, beggars cast curses on anyone who insulted the beggar, or who were stingy with the money they gave a beggar. Witches would beg door-to-door for "milk, yeast, drink, pottage" in England. In some East Asian countries, vagrants are still revered and feared, believed to possess semi-religious spiritual powers.
In the 16th and 17th century in England, a vagrant was a person who could work, but preferred not to (or could not find employment, so took to the road in order to do so), or one who begs for a living. Vagrancy was illegal, punishable by branding, whipping, conscription into the military, or at times penal transportation to penal colonies. Vagrants were different from impotent poor, who were unable to support themselves because of advanced age or sickness. However, the English laws usually did not distinguish between the impotent poor and the criminals, so both received the same harsh punishments. The Poor Law was the system for the provision of social security in operation in England and Wales from the 16th century until the establishment of the Welfare State in the 20th century.
In colonial America, if a person wandered into a town and did not find work, he/she was told to leave town or be prosecuted. In the U.S., vagrancy laws were vague and covered a wide range of activities and crimes associated with vagrants, such as loitering, prostitution, drunkenness, and associating with known criminals. Under the vagrancy laws, police arrested people who were suspected of crime, but who had not committed a crime. Eventually, punishments were changed to a fine, or several months in jail.
After the U.S. Civil War, the South passed Black Codes, laws that tried to control freed black slaves. Vagrancy laws were included in these codes. Homeless unemployed black Americans were arrested and fined as vagrants. Usually, the person could not afford the fine, and so was sent to county labor or hired out to a private employer.
In the U.S. of the 1960s, vagrancy laws were found to be too broad and vague, and in violation of the due process requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as citizens were not informed of which behaviors were illegal. Police had too much power in deciding whether or not to arrest someone. Vagrancy laws could no longer violate Freedom of Speech, such as when police use them against political demonstrators and unpopular groups. U.S. vagrancy laws became clearer, narrower, and more defined. Since then, the status of being a vagrant is punished by the vagrancy laws, while other actions are punished under other laws.
In Papachristou v. Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156 (1972), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Florida vagrancy law was unconstitutional because it was too vague to be understood.
Nevertheless, new local laws in the U.S. have been passed to criminalize aggressive panhandling activities by vagrants.
In the U.S., some local officials encourage vagrants to move away instead of arresting them. The word vagrant has been replaced by homeless person. Prosecutions for vagrancy are rare, being replaced by prosecutions for specific offenses such as loitering. England eventually changed its poor laws, and today vagrancy is legal, while crimes are punished separately.