Broccoli Books Blog

We received the draft of the Title X newsletter from designer Knuckles.

Our plan is to have a newsletter every month until the first volume is released in January 2007.

After that, we would like to have a quarterly newsletter.
And maybe extra ones for the big summer conventions.

Oh, the banner for Title X has been approved.
It’s going to be put on display from preview night of San Diego Comic Con, so you can find out before the Broccoli Books panel.

Broccoli Books panel
July 20 (Thurs)
4:00pm - 5:00pm
Room 7B

See you there!

Today I got a rough draft of the banner for Title X to be displayed at the Broccoli booth at San Diego Comic Con.

Another rush job for designer Knuckles (not real name), who was able to get it done over the weekend.

Currently freelancer S@ki and designer Knuckles are working on a newsletter that will also be passed out at San Diego Comic Con.

A JPG (GIF or maybe PDF) of the newsletter will be uploaded to a secret section of the BroccoliBooks website for the Broccoli Books fan club members.

Remember to join the Broccoli Books fan club by going to this link!

BTW.
Happy birthday to me~
Don’t ask me my age.

We got word from Broccoli Japan that Square Enix has 90% approval for Title X.

Rejoice!

(dance, dance, dance)

If all goes well, we will make the announcement at San Diego Comic Con.

Hint?
Maybe from the next post, we’ll call it Title G.

Layout staffer Brian sent us the first layout draft of Title X today.

Designer Chris went over the file today.
And noticed that we don’t have some of the fonts.
Dun dun dun!

Oh yeah, layout staffer Brian will be helping at the Broccoli booth at Fanime.
So you can meet three of the Broccoli Books staffers at Fanime - editor Dee (buddah head), layout staffer Brian (white dood), and freelancer S@ki (bossy one).

So stop by and say hello.

Slight change in plans for the Broccoli panel at Fanime.
Instead of editor Dee, freelancer S@ki will be hosting the panel.
Why a non-Broccoli employee?
Cuz she’s the bossy one.
It’s rumored that it runs in the family. (ahem)

Broccoli panel at Fanime
Friday, May 26
2pm - 3pm
Video Room 2

See you there!

Wow.
Is this the first time a book is going to print before it’s even announced?

That’s just craaaaazy!

Well, not really.
We already have solid order quantities for Title Z.

How’s that possible?
Well, we let distributors and book stores know what titles are being released six months ahead.

Title Z is a Broccoli Books Deluxe.
Meaning there’s extra content (freelancer S@ki begs to differ, but we don’t care about her opinions) & stuff.

It will also have a dust jacket.
Designer Chris is currently working on the design & should be finished by the end of today.

Title Z to be announced at Fanime.

Editor Dee and designer Chris were busy today wrapping up the details of Title Z.

They were supposed to finish it last week, but the package containing the cover artwork didn’t arrive until today. (plus preview pages for another series, Title W)

And it didn’t help that Anime Gamers retail store was moving their big furniture to the new location today. So in-between moving furniture, they worked on the final touches that includes 4 pages of translation notes, 3 pages of Title W preview, 1 page of color insert.

Busy day.

The folks at company M are really fast.

We just signed the contract for Title XX & they already sent us the digital files.
(We didn’t even send back the signed contracts yet!)

Our translators just started working on Title XX too.

Oh, the rest of the Broccoli Books staff said I should at least mention that Title XX is an art book.
Or was that consultant S@ki?
(how many hats does she wear?)

So Title XX will be our second art book after Juvenile Orion Illustration Book.

We’re planning for Title XX to be hardcover, although we need sales manager Ardith to consult w/ the book stores to see what their preference is.

Of course we should ask the consumers (you!) too.

So let us know what you’d like to see in the Broccoli Books art books.
Hardcover or softcover w/ dust jacket?
Fold-in pin-up poster?

Comment away!

Translator S@ki submitted the translation for Title Z over the weekend.

So we quickly sent the file to re-writer Jason to finalize the script.

Meanwhile designer Chris is busy making a mock-up cover.
Well, he needed to design the title logo first.

We already gave layout staffer Fawn the materials.

Lucky for her, the digital files didn’t have the Japanese text inside the bubbles.
Yay!

So that totally cuts down the clean up time & we can really push to get Title Z ready for pre-sale at Anime Expo.

Why are we pushing for an Anime Expo release?
Well, that’s another secret I can’t reveal yet.

We’re having translator S@ki rush the translations for Title Z.

She said Title Z doesn’t have a whole lot of text, but it’s not an easy translation.

I guess it doens’t really take place in modern-modern times, so she needs to be careful with how the characters talk & stuff.

Title Z is one big parody to a famous Japanese story, so editor Dee is preparing for a very long translation note section. It’s probably going to be a multiple page translation note broken down into sections. First part will be the synopsis & background story of the original story, of course.

Then there’s a bunch of pop culture jokes that the manga author likes.

It’s almost like FLCL.
All of the pop culture references are things Tsurumaki-san liked in his youth.

Although I don’t know if you call manga/anime references pop culture.
An otaku culture?

Editor Dee went through the entire book of Title XX to determine how to split up the translation.

We’re having three translators work on this project, because there’s simply waaaay too much text.

Title XX is slated for November 2006 release.
We plan on announcing it at Fanime, along w/ Title X and Title Z.

Hopefully by Anime Expo, we’ll have more titles (Y, W, V, U… heh) to announce.