THE BOY-MEETS-BOY BUSINESS TIMES:
It's been a tough year for YAOI fans: first starup publisher Iris officially calls it quits, then YAOI-focused DramaQueen and groundbreaking publisher Tokyopop fall upon hard times. For a little while, it sounded like another major publisher of boy-meets-boy manga, Digital Manga Publishing, was in trouble when news of layoffs hit the web. Thankfully, the rumors of DMP's demise have turned out to be rather exaggerated. While talking with Deb Aoki, DMP calms the waters, saying that they've had to pull back due to economic conditions, and unfortunately that means a slower release schedule.

Flower of Life

And Fumi Yohsinaga fans will be happy to hear that the fourth volume of Yoshinaga's shoujo series Flower of Life finally has a release date (May 2009, if you're one of them), though that's all that's coming out from the very gay-friendly Yoshinaga. Similarly, DMP has also launched YAOI Club, a "superstore" for boy-meets-boy manga that reportedly offers solid discounts on older titles (cool, I just spotted All Nippon Air Line for seven bucks), so DMP isn't acting the way fallen publishers like BeBeautiful and DramaQueen did.

YAOI Generation's Breath

However, amid the frustrating news about troubled publishers, there's news of a new publisher entering the scene. YAOI Generation recently announced their first title, breath by Chifumi Ochi. I guess only time will tell if YAOI Generation can fill the gap left in DramaQueen's wake.

SO SUPER INTERVIEWED:
So Super Duper creator Brian Andersen has hit our radar more than a few times lately and I really enjoyed this interview at the Rain on the Roof blog. The talk brings up a few new discoveries about Andersen, like his Mormon upbringing, missionary work in Guatemala and his mangling of the Spanish language.

I particularly found the origins of So Super Duper to be revealing:

"Originally I wanted to do So Super Duper as a weekly webcomic, but after I decided to get a table at the Alternative Press Expo I figured I would just print the first 30 pages of the story as a first issue to build interest. After the thoroughly enthusiastic response I got (people actually liked it and bought it!) from the first issue at the convention I switched gears and decided keep it a print book. I’m so glad I did. It’s brought a more solid, firm story to each issue and has allowed me to plan and develop the plot as an ongoing story arc instead of single, but sized story elements played over weeks at a time."

So Super Duper and creator Brian Andersen

I am constantly impressed with webcomic creators who manage to put out new content every week and I'm even more impressed with how Andersen has managed to get so much work in print. Talk about a workhorse!

THE 30TH CENTURY EXPECTATIONS GAME:
While last week offered more bad news for Legion fans, Graeme McMillan thinks he sees a curve ball coming. McMillan notes that mothballing the team just as a big Smallville appearance is coming up seems a bit of a waste, but also notes how the DC has been throwing a number of fake-outs lately:

"This wouldn't be the first time DC has tried this approach - they prefaced Final Crisis's revamp of the Jack Kirby New Gods characters with a series called Death of The New Gods, after all - but their timing does appear to be slightly off; shouldn't this kind of fake-out be done so that the "Ha, only joking! Here they are again after all!" reveal comes on the 50th anniversary, instead of the whole "Yeah, time to put the toys down for awhile" part?"

While I'm certainly looking forward to that Smallville episode (which hasn't been scheduled to air yet) and hoping deep, deep down it's instantly followed by the kind of spin-off talk that followed Smallville's Aquaman episode ... after all, the Legion would be an apt template for any network who wants its own Heroes. I'm trying to keep my hopes down so that I don't get disappointed when nothing happens. Still, I've been figuring we'll be hearing about the next Legion revamp once Legion of 3 Worlds comes out, which is why I'm hoping that the mini-series ends with the team's few gay characters getting pulled out of limbo.

The Legion of 3 Worlds

I've been having trouble finding copies of The Legion of 3 Worlds, though I've been reading the spoilers I can find ... has anyone been reading it? I'm guessing it's turned out to be more popular than expected if all the shops I've visited are sold out.

Luckily, the dead space that is summer TV gives Angy Puppy's Marc & Lee time to catch up on the latest from gay comic artists Brian Andersen (So Super Duper) and Tommy Roddy (Pride High). With all this reading time, Marc's seemingly never-ending foray into the Dune universe and Lee's new-found interest in the Mayfair witches (including the ubiquitous gay and bisexual males found in all of Anne Rice's pre-conversion novels) led to their latest list of 15 favorite witches in geekdom.

Check it out after the break!