A couple of quick things going on–

1. I didn’t get a chance to mention this yesterday but long after the ADV panel, I heard from a friend that they said that ADV Manga will probably not license anything for the next twelve months. My response: doesn’t matter, as long as they get out Yotsuba&! 6, which they’ve already got the license for.

2. dot-anime announced today that it’s discontinuing its points program, no doubt in anticipation of being merged with Anime Village. So if you have points, use them by July 31st! Here’s the full text of the e-mail I got:

Dear Georgia,

Dear dot-anime customers,

dot-anime regretfully announces the discontinuation of the Dot-Anime Points program effective August 1, 2008.

We urge our customers to use all of their unredeemed points by July 31, 2008. After July 31, 2008 all unredeemed points shall be forfeited and no point claims shall be honored thereafter. Please note, points are not redeemable for cash. Please see the program rules for complete details at http://www.dot-anime.us.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused and ask for our customer’s understanding and cooperation.

Sincerely,

dot-anime.us

Chris Oarr seems to be getting a little exhausted of fielding the question “When will Yotsuba&! volume 6 come out,” judging by this brief interview with Publishers Weekly. Oarr says that ADV is “not dead,” which means that they’re still fulfilling orders– even though they aren’t publishing anything new or even reprinting at the moment (i.e. they’re just selling what they have on-hand).

“I know we’ve been criticized for our PR strategy or whatever you want to call it,” Oarr said. “But right now, while we’re sorting everything out, it just doesn’t serve anybody’s purpose to answer the very reasonable questions that fans post on the Internet every day: ‘When will Yotsuba&! come out?’ We don’t know, and we’re not going to lie about it. I’m also not going to go out on the Net every day and say, ‘I don’t know.’ ”

On the one hand, I can sympathize: how many people do you have to say “I don’t know” to before people get it? Hell, I’m kind of tired of people asking about Yotsuba&!. But…for the lulz, you can’t beat John Jakala’s response at Sporadic Sequential:

When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out?