Yen Press's impact

Today was one of those days where I started writing a longish post for the site and maybe got three-fourths of the way through before I decided to just can it… it was too long and presumptuous and uninteresting. Maybe it’ll be retooled for a future post; I don’t know. (One of the more interesting parts of it was comparing the covers of the January 2010 issues of Shonen Jump and Yen Plus. Can you spot the differences?)

But for now, I’ll just redirect you to an article by Deb Aoki entitled 25 Manga Milestones: 2000-2009. Look through them all, and you’ll see that Yen Press and related subjects have quite a presence; Yen Press itself (#13) and editor Kurt Hassler (#1) appear on the list plus Dramacon (#9), a previous title from Nightschool’s Svetlana Chmakova; the young adult novel comicization trend (#21); and manhwa in general (#16). An interesting list, especially if you’re fairly new to this whole manga thing and want a quick guide to relevant topics and trends in its recent history.

On a more personal note, the turn of the year was also Yen Plus Info’s first birthday, as the site went live on January 1, 2009 (here’s the first news post, if you’re curious). I’ve been considering reworking the site a bit; perhaps expanding it away from being Yen Plus-centric (in retrospect, it’s quite possible this site’s name and domain name could be considered trademark violations, should some lawyer at Hachette be fishing for a reason to justify their retainer fee…) and carrying news and perspectives on comics and things not related to Yen Plus or Yen Press. However, I’m just one guy with a full-time job and various other significant things to do besides read and write about comics, so I’m afraid such a site would be rather lacking in content, both in depth and volume. I’m considering some options, including bringing on more editors to this hypothetical reworked site (if I can find anyone who would want to join me), taking up a co-editor position on another site (if I can find anyone who would want me to join them), or just doing nothing and keeping YPI as it is. Your feedback in the comments would be appreciated.