The Old School Otaku Lounge

I took one last trip to the Book-Off nearby before I head back home to MA, and I made sure to snap some pictures of the Eclipse comics in this tucked away box (I didn't buy any of them however). I don't know much about Eclipse Comics other than it's one of the earlier publishers of manga in the US before the Tokyopop $10 / volume thing became the standard. I thought that some folks here would appreciate the pictures. Some of these say Viz on the cover which I'm assuming is from the partnership between Eclipse Comics and Viz.



The last picture I took was of Lone Wolf and Cub but that's from First Comics. It was in the same bin though, so included here as a bonus I guess.



I think most of these were being sold for $2 / each at this Book-Off location.

Dude I wish I was with you, I would jumped on that Justy comic. I only have one import manga of Justy, and I hear those Justy issues are hard to find. I've never came across any of them yet.

I have a sizable collection of Eclipse comics over the years, with Golgo 13, Area 88, Robotech (if I'm not mistaken) and probably a handful more. I'd have to dig for my stuff later and post up what I got.

Eclipse was once a powerhouse of the American independent comics publishing business, but went out of business in 1993. Their licence with Viz expired in December 1988, so that Inu-Yasha and Justy would be strictly Viz. Golgo 13 was published here by several different publishers, but not Eclipse, and the story is similar with Robotech, which went through several different licencees including Comico, Antarctic, Academy, Eternity, and even DC Comics at the start.

Yeah, I know. I bought a lot of comic books in the 1980s.

From the very beginning of manga publishing in America (Gen Of Hiroshima) there were attempts to force manga into the 32 page floppy American comic book model, and none of them really worked. I think the format is too brief for manga, and the American comic book was and still is a dying remnant of the newsstand days, propped up by a shrinking fanbase and a specialty retailer network controlled by a monopoly.

I think Viz held onto the comic book format for a long time, but eventually the shrinking comic book sales (and the growing bookstore sales) meant they switched to "tankubon" format along with everybody else.

This is all the issues of Eclipse comics that I own, which half consist of Masamune Shirow works. I do have more Area 88 but eventually in the 40's issues they used the Viz name instead of Eclipse. I checked my Golgo 13 issues and they seem to have another company involved with Viz called Leed/Lead. I don't know hardly anything about that publisher other than im sure they were probably bankrupt and Viz got those Golgo 13 issues from them the best I can gather.

Yeah Inuyasha was def all viz--that was in 1998/99? Eclipse had been out of the picture for years.

I still have a bunch of Eclipse stuff in my comic box somewhere. Almost all of Area 88, a bunch of Masamune Shirow stuff, even the old Warren Dirty Pair comics before he took em to Dark Horse! it's always fun to come across those old books in bargin bins.

I started with that First Comics release of LW&C; which I learned about in the classic Whole Earth Catalog of all things. From Eclipse, I purchased everything from Shirow, Mai the Psychic Girl, Xenon, even some Cyber7. Only series I could never find subsequent issues for was Yamada's Lost Continent.

labsenpai wrote:I started with that First Comics release of LW&C; which I learned about in the classic Whole Earth Catalog of all things.

That was the print ver of Google before google correct? Yea I know the book from it being mentioned in my comm text books at school.

"Google before Google" is a great way to describe the Whole Earth Catalog. My definitely non-hippy parents had a copy of the 1971 edition, which was huge and filled with pretty much everything.

LEED Publishing apparently is owned by Takao Saito himself as part of his organization.

davemerrill wrote:"Google before Google" is a great way to describe the Whole Earth Catalog. My definitely non-hippy parents had a copy of the 1971 edition, which was huge and filled with pretty much everything.

LEED Publishing apparently is owned by Takao Saito himself as part of his organization.

That was how my professor described it to us in class. Ok now I know what LEED is about, thanks for clarifying it.

davemerrill wrote:"Google before Google" is a great way to describe the Whole Earth Catalog. My definitely non-hippy parents had a copy of the 1971 edition, which was huge and filled with pretty much everything.

I have the 1988 WEC edition called SIGNAL, which focused on information age tech & art. All of us GenXers were going to command the future with our MIDI tunes and metaphysical Hypercard stacks! I hate to think we (may) have spawned derpy-pet Tumblrs and "pulverized merchandise" videos instead.
/hate-hated those warren appleseed covers