"The Gamines Love Gaiman"

The Philippines was mentioned, so I just had to post this. :D

The Gamines Love Gaiman
Wired: Issue 14.04 - April 2006

Around midnight, in a Japanese bar in New York's East Village, the science fiction writer Neil Gaiman is pouring himself a shot of sake. It's the table's second bottle, part of a dinner that got started late because nearly every one of the 400 or so audience members at a talk Gaiman gave earlier tonight brought something for him to autograph - his novel Anansi Boys, DVDs of his BBC series Neverwhere, copies of his graphic novel Sandman. Wherever Gaiman appears, geeks of every stripe turn out in droves: beautiful goth girls with oil-black hair and cherry-red lips, overweight comics nerds (with dates), underweight comics nerds (with dates), science fiction obsessives, manga fanatics.

It's a fiercely dedicated fan base. "Do you know that paperback editions of Sandman actually sell better each year than the previous year?" Gaiman says. It's a shock. The book is 15 years old.

"Then I have a question for you," says another member of the party, Mitch Cutler, owner of St. Marks Comics. Located just around the corner, it's one of the country's best independent comic book retail shops. "Who do you think the next generation of readers will be?"

This is what comics guys talk about over dinner: What happens when 14-year-old boys put down their tales of garishly clad, overmuscled men who like to bash robots? "I'm not sure," Gaiman says. "But I do know that when I got to Singapore to do a reading, there were 600 teenage girls waiting. And when I got to the Philippines, there were 2,000 teenage girls waiting, screaming my name."

Cutler nods. "That's it," he says. "It's girls between 13 and 25."

Here's the theory: Unlike the typical superhero comic book, manga comes in as many flavors as there are geeks. Everyone at the table knows that, and they know that girls are more likely to read manga, even in the US. What they fervently hope is that when those girls no longer get the same buzz from their Japanese comics, they'll want something else. It already happens to some - they fall in love with Sandman. And then Cutler gives them something else. Y: The Last Man. Fables. Ex Machina. These books have little to do with spandex tights.

The trick is to make sure that walking into a comic book store doesn't feel like stumbling into an intense game of Dungeons & Dragons. Cutler's establishment, a narrow space amid the grunge of St. Marks Place, is well-lit, clean, and always has women on staff. Girl-friendly, in other words. Of course, that strategy also happens to appeal directly to the core constituency. "There's probably a beautiful girl with tattoos and piercings working at the cash register right now," Gaiman says.

"That's not true," Cutler says, flashing a smile and looking at his watch. "She left at 11:30."

- Adam Rogers