comic-con 2002

by sumir on 08/09/2002 12:19:52 -0700

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Dark Horse Manga

Panelists: Chris Warner, Tim Ervin-Gore

Dark Horse's big announcements at this panel were Ghost in the Shell 2, Astroboy, and a new Lone Wolf & Cub, Lone Wolf 2100.

Continuing titles announced at the panel include:
 
bullet Super Manga Blast: One of the panelists mentioned how some people at first don't like certain titles in this anthology collection, but that over time "manga storylines sneak up on you" and that he encouraged everyone to give all the series featured a try. (Sounds like my experience with Initial D and Slam Dunk.)
 
bullet Oh My Goddess: They're having problems with securing the rights to print Carpenter lyrics, so a certain scene will have different lyrics. (No big deal IMO.)
 
bullet Blade of the Immortal
 
bullet Lone Wolf and Cub: This will be finishing probably by the end of this year. There are 28 volumes in total. One of the guys described it as a "gateway drug" to manga and that it is capable of making "grown men cry." It was also more or less remade in the Road to Perdition GN that the current movie is based on. From what I've read (Vol. 1-3), it is indeed worth reading.

New titles announced include:
 
bullet Lone Wolf and Cub 2100: It's a comic series inspired by Lone Wolf and Cub, by Mike Kennedy and Francisco Ruiz Velasco.
 
bullet Astroboy: By what many consider the father of magna, Osamu Tezuka, who produced 150,000+ pages of manga during his lifetime. Astroboy is the story of a robot boy that's inspired tons of other works. I'll admit that I haven't read any of it but I'm interested in the upcoming release as it was "the first work that began the worldwide explosion of anime/manga". One of the panelists stated he believed Astroboy was a bigger pop icon than Mickey Mouse. DH plans to publish 23 volumes (the complete series I believe) and apparently next summer there will be a CGI film released in the US.
 
bullet Tokyo Tribe: A favorite of the panel, I must admit that I do not know much about it. According to the panel, it is a "hard-nosed, street savy [and] reflective of Japanese street /youth culture".
 
bullet Ghost in the Shell 2: Shirow himself is supervising the localization of the upcoming GN. It'll be flipped with translated sound effects. It's 60% in color and Shirow used computer generated 3D graphic effects in at least some of the pages. The history of this new story started in 1991 in Japan, when new material was created as the original Ghost in the Shell was collected. A few years back the new collection was released, with over 100+ new color pages. The localization is a daunting project not only because of the need to redo all the English words after it is flipped, but because translating Shirow's work is hard as it has philosophical elements, physics, cyberpunk and other abstract stuff. The panel mentioned it helped that someone on the team had a physics background. This looks to be DH's big release; the panel mentioned it "takes comics up a quantum step more than anything I've ever seen."

After the announcements, there was a Q&A session. (Note that this is not a transcript.)
 
bullet Q: Someone asked a question regarding color pages and prices.

A: Color pages drive up the costs like crazy because even if only a part of the manga is in color, the whole manga must be printed as though it was entirely in color. This is because the printing process requires a whole sheet to be printed and then folded into a book. This fact made the Akira books pricey. Thus, for things like Super Manga Blast, where only a few pages of the beginning of the manga are in color, it has to be changed to be B&W. The panel also talked about how there was a stigma against B&W comics, which I think is unfortunately true. It's too bad because, like Frank Miller showed, there are good American B&W comics but apparently people don't care anymore.
 
bullet Q: I asked a question regarding whether or not DH would consider releasing anything un-flipped and with original sound effects.

A: Dark Horse essentially said no. They mentioned that flipping or not flipping does not influence the time it takes to put a manga out. This confirms my impression that TokyoPop's "100% authentic manga" philosophy is a bunch of lies. (But that's another article!) The panel also mentioned how it's hard to get people to read right to left and that it can be a "draining experience". As for sound effects, the panel argued that it's important to translate them because, unless you know Japanese, it's useless to leave the sound effects un-translated. (This I have no problem with.) The panel mentioned that they want to appeal both to hardcore manga-philes as well as casual fans, and that manga-philes don't seem to care whether manga if flipped or un-flipped. They also mentioned they were aware of how flipping can be jarring to the original artists, and that they were considering releasing some future manga un-flipped.
 
bullet Q: Are you guys interested in doing any Art Books?

A: Yes, they mentioned they are very interested. They will be releasing a translated Akira Club, an art book of, well, Akira. As for other titles, they were still undecided.
 
bullet Q: Someone asked about sales in comic stores and book stores, essentially bringing up the comparison between manga monthly issues and collected books.

A: DH mentioned that they actually make more money on the collected books than the monthly issues. They joked that the monthly issues were almost like advertising for the collected works. One of the panelists mentioned the popularity of collected works was probably due to the fact that manga unfolds in a more organic timeline; it's not canceled if the first 4 issues don't sell well. Manga thus reads well in big chunks, meaning fans ironically wait for collections. (See also Sumir's article on the Comic Book Stats panel.)
 
bullet Q: Will there possibly be a Hellboy manga, much like there was a Star Wars manga? (On a side note, I highly recommend the SW manga series for fans of SW.)

A: It's quite possible, as currently the Japanese manga community has been more accepting of Western influences. Frank Miller's cover of Lone Wolf proved to be popular.

With Akira finishing (or has it finished? - I'm really behind!), Ghost in the Shell 2 and Exaxxion definitely have my interest since I loved the original Ghost in the Shell anime and I'm a big Gunsmith Cats fan.

- Jonathan


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