MSX: 'Okinawa' at the printers, and the book got some upgrades!

It's going to be an exciting few months, folks

Hey everyone! How’re you doing? Christopher here and we got a pretty exciting image in from our friends at Fantagraphics and we wanted to share it with you!

What you’re seeing there are the printer proofs for Fantagraphics’ print edition of Okinawa, by Susumu Higa. That’s the book that we serialized here on Substack beginning in February last year, and is still available to read for paid subscribers.

So what are some things you might take away from this image up top?

We upgraded the book to hardcover. We talked it out with Eric Reynolds at Fantagraphics, and agreed that because of the prestige of the project and the length, a stronger, upgraded binding made more sense. We didn’t raise the price either!

This book is huge. It’s exactly as thick as two larger-than-average manga volumes, weighing in at 552 pages. The binding is glued-and-sewn fabric binding which should definitely accommodate the size and make for a comfortable reading experience too.

There are color pages. The good folks at Fanta also let us have the color pages that we wanted, so that we could print Higa-sensei’s original cover artwork for the book in full color. Colour, even. I really like the original covers, but the market demands in the U.S. for “Art Comics” are pretty different than they are in Japan, and designer Kayla went with a more graphic cover design that would help the book find its audience… But we kept the original covers too.

In short: Thank you to Eric, Kayla, and Paul at Fantagraphics for working with us to make this the best possible printed edition of this material, we’re so thrilled by it.

There are a few more secrets to reveal too, but we’ll let them slip all in good time.

So yeah, we’re really, really excited about this project, with the book releasing everywhere this July, assuming there are no horrible shipping disruptions.

A sad reality of contemporary publishing is that we’re all beholden to the algorithm, and pre-orders count for a lot when it comes to online sites recommending the book to other readers… which spurs more sales. So if you’re considering getting the book at all, please consider pre-ordering it in your venue of choice. The online booksellers’ algorithms love pre-orders, and even a local comic shop might order a copy for the shelf or two if your monthly comics pre-order includes Okinawa.

Pre-Order Links: IndieBound, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, BookDepository, Kinokuniya. Our friends at The Beguiling also have it, with the old placeholder cover.

If you support your local comic shop, it’ll be in the May PREVIEWS catalogue for items shipping in July, and we’ll send a note here when that’s available to preorder through shops who use Diamond.

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Thanks for indulging us in this promotional push, but quite honestly it’s Substack (thanks, Nick!) and you guys subscribing here that have allowed us to get this project back on track and release it in such a nice edition. Thank you, sincerely, on behalf of the whole team.

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Since I’m here, here’s a quick update:

• Mangasplaining Podcast Episode 90: Baki goes live on Tuesday April 11th at Mangasplaining.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

• Episode 91 is a special, unannounced Mangasplaining X Tokyoscope Podcast Crossover! It’ll go live on April 18th. We should be back to normal updates after that.

• We will be announcing our next 3 manga serializations and a special manga one-shot in April. Serializations for all start in May. Contracts signed, work has begun, it’s gonna be awesome.

Alright! See you with show notes on Tuesday!

Christopher