The way that western comics treats the success of manga not as the success of a directly analogous product they could learn from but as something mysterious and inscrutable and completely inapplicable to their own industry will never cease to amaze.
It is always amazing seeing how everyone in the entertainment industry fails at recognizing that Asian media is fine as it is, and doesn't need to be adapted to westerners. You can imagine what they would have done if Star Wars or something was Japanese. Starting with replacing the droids with re-drawn humans because "The west isn't much for robots, they want humans". Because they always make up these excuses about non-standard content as "unwanted", without having any legs to stand on.
For a medium that is supposedly bemoaned and ridiculed for it's infantilism and insipidness, comic book creators and the companies which run them tend to have a severe lack of hubris and inflated sense of self worth. Here's an industry that hasn't evolved since the 60s, using characters written in the 30s, who's sole existence nowadays is simply to peddle merchandise and they act as if they were all earnest Hemingway and Salvador Dali combined. Meanwhile, Japan and France (as well as Korea, Germany and Belgium) took OUR art form and just kicked our asses with it from here to Tuesday and we still act as if it's no big deal. We still act as if we're kings of the castle when we aren't even kings of our own castle anymore.
Gonna be different at every publisher, but our book revenue from all channels breaks down to about: - 14% comics - 18% graphic novels - 36% manga - 32% art books (though our artbook sales are about to quadruple...one hit book can really throw things off heh) PS: SDCC 2023 was UDON's best year ever sales-wise. Awesome show.
It's impossible to oversell just how huge popular and influential Berserk is. Dark Horse having exclusive rights to sell it is equivalent to someone having exclusive rights to print Dracula comics. The brand name alone is enough to drive sales.
Perch: „They want an audience that isn’t you.“ ME: „Congratulations, they were successful. So much that I now have to look into Manga to find something good, despite me always having preferred American comics. But then again, glad I was able to make the people at Marvel and DC happy, I guess.“
I don't think Dark Horse ever believed that manga was going to grow as big as it has. After all, they were still in the game when there was the small anime/manga bust in the early 2000s. They probably just figured they had attracted a niche audience and that the surge in popularity that began a few years ago was likely just a passing fad. So, yes, they missed a huge opportunity. On the other hand, they might have invested heavily and things could have crashed, leaving them very deep in debt. I read some manga and I can see the appeal to a larger audience that is more interested in the action rather than the drama (or soap opera). You have character growth but you also have a definite building of momentum building towards a definite conclusion. Western comics deals with a lot of drama (which I enjoy) but it's at the cost of the big action set pieces and there's definitely no conclusion on the horizon. Even if the publishers had to shut down production in the next year, I doubt they would ever do a definitive "The End" as they would hedge their bets that they would be publishing those characters again some day.
Dark Horse is a weird company in that it keeps doing stuff that Marvel gets all the hype for. Remember in 2014 when Dark Horse announced a new Star Wars ANH era #1 with an Alex Ross cover, but Marvel did the same thing in 2015 and everyone acted like this never happened?
Star Wars had a very long and beloved run from Dark Horse before Disney bought Marvel and decided to put everything in house...then started letting other companies make content based on their various properties, including Darkwing Duck, Marvel for kids, and Star Wars for kids. I really don't understand what they're doing comic-wise at Disney and I'm not sure they do, either.
Marvel has an absolutely wonderful knack of getting all the praise of whatever while getting none of the blame for their egregious actions. Marvel was the biggest contributor to he spectator bubble of the 90s, with endless 1st issue varient covers and peddling the grim-n-gritty extreme aesthetics but who gets blamed for the crash? Image and DC.
The thing I like best about Yoshi-P whenever a FFXIV live letter goes out is that he finishes it with a "Please enjoy it." No desperation, no exclusion, no ego. He wants as many people as possible to play his game and build their own private chocobo farm on an island or stab God in the face with a spear in a dimension of pure energy, whatever works for you. Western entertainment studios can learn something from that, comic publishers especially.
I remember reading interviews with the lady who made Fullmetal alchemist and the guy who made one piece and their humbleness and down-to-earth qualities were truly mind shattering. Compare that to Dan slott or Alan Moore or Mark Waid. Whenever they talk it seems like they see themselves as literary gods among men and we mere mortals can never truly understand the deft pen of the guys who wrote a couple issues of batman and daredevil
We need people to go out and buy Gantz, because if we bump up sales it’ll get a deluxe edition. And I need a deluxe of Gantz, come on people, read it, it’s an amazing story. I often had to just stop reading for a few seconds because I would be frantically flicking through the pages because the story is so crazy and frantic that you can’t read it quick enough, the pace is just crazy.
@@vincentflannigan2727It’s hard to explain, in the first chapter the MC & his friend are seemingly hit by a train and killed, but he just arrives in an apartment with a black sphere in it (which they later call Gantz). The black sphere starts giving them orders & information to kill an alien, they’re then transported to his location and all hell breaks lose. If they complete the mission they get points, if they get 100 points they can use to either get new weapons, or bring someone back from the dead that’s already in the Gantz system. They then get mission after mission and it gets wilder & wilder. This is a manga for adults, it’s got tons of violence & lots of full nudity. But the story is insanely good and is definitely the most fast paced, fun, interesting story I’ve ever read. I was a bit annoyed at the ending because my favourite character dies.
@@InfamyOrDeath-__- I absolutely loved the first half of the anime when I bought it years ago on dvd. The second half just felt too rushed and I kinda lost my excitement for it. I bet the manga is better anyway
@@PubeStache Yea I’ve never seen the anime, but there were only 26 episodes, so it only covered the first few volumes, a lot of these Seinen manga they do a poor job on the animes.
I remember Darkhorse really hitting it stride with manga in the late 90s and early 00s. They had some great titles: 3x3 Eyes, Akira, Blade of the Immortal, Dominion Tank Police, Ghost in the Shell, Gunsmith Cats, Hellsing (which came a bit later), Oh/Ah My Goddess, Outlanders, Shadow Lady, and whatever else I can't remember off the top of my head. And of course the Star Wars Manga which you mentions. A big one for me was whatever they were/are letting Adam Warren do (the Dirty Pair, Bubblegum Crisis, and later Empowered) whom I am still a big fan of. They did made some mistakes: Not abandoning Manga floppies until really late in the game, continue to publish manga collections with higher price tags because of better paperstock and slightly larger presentation (I liked this format... but with Viz and Tokyopop having everything at $10 and DH wanting $17 made it hard to compete), and they seemed to be putting all their eggs in the Action Sci-Fi genre which seemed great at the time (again, a fan) but later when Kodansha USA showed up... it took most of those titles away.
The important difference is that it seems like manga is allowed to target any demographic whatsoever, which means that some of it is aimed squarely at us, unlike American comics which are basically allowed to target any demographic so long as it isn't us.
If people in the industry (specifically the big 2) wanted to capitalize on Manga they would start ripping it off. MARVEL: Whats the number 1 selling Manga on Amazon? (Answer Berserk) MARVEL: Well lets not make a fantasy book withsome rated r imagery, hell lets not even do something different besides superheroes.... But you know what we should do? MAKE MORE SPIDERMAN KNOCK OFFS! YAAAA LOVE US!
The big two DID try "ripping off" manga once. By that I mean they made the characters bug-eyed "cute" monstrosities while the writing was the same old crap. Then ten years after that, British comics (what was left of them) tried the same thing, but to even less success. Except, arguably, The Phoenix, which was born during that period and moulded b yit, so it fit a lot better.
In reality its been a long time that Japan think in international market. Long before Manga exploded in USA, its was already sucessful in Europe and Latin America, and not just many Mangakas answered letters and emails from such fans, And many of those mangakas adapted their Mangas to foreigners. You can see that principally in the censorship of tittles who make sucess outside Japan.
Dark Horse & Seven Seas are the 2 American companies I care about. Dark Horse has my 2 favourite series, Berserk & Gantz. I have all the versions of Berserk, the deluxe, the regular tankōbons & digitally through the Dark Horse app. And Gantz, Hellsing, Blade of the Immortal, now they’re bringing out Trigun deluxe editions that I can’t wait to get.
I’m hoping they bring Appleseed back into print in those glorious Deluxe Editions. I have Berserk and Hellsing. And eventually I’ll have Blade of the Immortal and Trigun too.
@@kidicarus2215 It’s really weird because they do sometimes, the perfect editions of 20th Century Boys have lovely covers and nice paper, same with Pluto, I really like the paper stock in those. Then the hardcovers on Fist of the North Star and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure are nice, they have similar paper to regular manga. And then there’s the Fullmetal editions of Fullmetal Alchemist, they have really nice hardcovers with metallic lettering, then the paper stock is shiny paper, although I hate the smell of the ink on the pages, it’s not a nice smell. Compared to the lovely smell of the ink from the deluxe editions of Berserk, I’ll never forget the first time I opened one of those from its plastic wrapper and was hit with the lovely smell of the ink, and it’s a pretty unique smell that I haven’t got off any other manga. But all the manga’s ink smells differently, I always smell them haha.
@@86Nims I'd love to have the entire Masamune Shirow works done up like the Hardcover Ghost in the Shell books they released a few years ago. I just wish they would release an uncensored version of GitS. Other than that, the only thing I keep an eye on Dark Horse for is the next volume of Empowered.
For Dark Horse's manga sales, what was the actual driving force here? That Dark Horse unlocked the manga writing and artistic style? Or that Dark Horse sold a format in a size, paper quality, etc. that folks found affordable and enjoyable to hold in their hands? I've mentioned this before, but if a smaller and more affordable comic book trade format will sell well...then why doesn't DC Comics bring back their Blue Ribbon format? If Marvel Comics and DC Comics want to increase their sales while also returning to retail, then the Big Two need to STOP thinking about how to make comic books for the collector market. The Big Two need to start publishing affordable trades at a size format and paper quality that retailers will put on their shelves that will not become shelf warmers. Currently, the only comic book product Walmart gets from the Big Two are the bags of floppy overstock. And most of that Big Two floppy overstock is stuff the fandom would NEVER buy in the first place. So the collected floppy overstock at Walmart has become a shelf warmer that Walmart hides away next to their collectable trading card section. When Jim Lee proclaimed that comic books had taken back SDCC, what had comic books actually taken back?!? Most of the coverage that I saw from this year's SDCC were the toy previews and upcoming toy releases. Hasbro showing off their prototype for the Marvel Legends Crystar had more buzz than anything Marvel Comics or DC Comics announced at this year's SDCC. Even folks doing interviews with Super7 about the vacu-metal process made more buzz than whatever Marvel Comics of DC Comics announced. Come to think of it, I have no freakin' clue what comic book news Marvel Comics or DC Comics announced at this year's SDCC.
Are you sure about that headline? The most common headline appearing on my social media is "Tony Isabella tried to have Eric July killed!" (or something to that effect). Anyway, it mostly boiled down to Eric July is mad that people he's spent years talking sh*t about don't want him around. Go figure. Anyway, good on Darkhorse for sticking with the Manga and cultivating, as much as they could, that audience. I'm sure if they could have made the right deals, they would have gladly gone for some of the bigger (or at least more current) Manga titles available, but I'm not 100% sure they had the capital to take advantage of that market's success. I mean, Dirty Pair was old (in Japan) when Darkhorse got the license. Darkhorse was publishing Robotech (a 40+ year old series) very recently. What Darkhorse should try to do is find find some older Manga that could still grab an audience that the licensing for wouldn't be horrendous. Titles like Escaflowne, Samurai Deeper Kyo, Urusei Yatsura, Samurai Champloo, etc would probably be in their price range and would likely have some western appeal. Darkhorse doesn't have the deepest pockets, but they could still grow this segment of their operation if they're strategic.
I think a lot of people underestimate what a massive boom that Berserk has had in the last 6-7 years. Those Deluxe Volumes were sold out on back order for a while. And anecdotally, hugely widespread. I would wager that that one title by itself could have kept the company afloat the last 5 years.
HEY! Perch shout-out! 🥳 SDCC was fantastic. Best weekend ever. Crazy lines, crazy sales, Whatnot auctions, too many free drinks...it all came together! I don't know what some of these Bar Con shenanigans were? There were no shenanigans at any bar I was at. Or maybe I was the one CAUSING the shenanigans?! 🤐
It would be a dull video. “Angry old writer who has been acting out for years and is generally disliked by most people in comics, even the ones he says are friends, lashes out at online personality in hope of getting attention.”
A series about a shy introverted school girl can make it up to 400 plus chapters but comics best heroes can only hope to reach a waueter of that before getting rebooted
People always say Marvel and DC wanted a "new" audience... but did anyone ever think that maybe their goal should've been that they wanted a BIGGER audience? They tried tactics like All New All Different, ostracizing old readers, connecting comics to the MCU, increasing floppie prices, soft reboots, getting rid of Vertigo, creating Black Label, etc. Meanwhile, manga has "something" that is attracting a majority of America to read it.
Dark horse has berserk so that’s a huge money maker but I have to say dark horse imo isn’t a very good publisher of manga one of the best manga ever written (eden it’s a endless world) was published by them in English but never finished being translated which imo is one of the biggest sins against manga ever they have done that to many other series as well.
I wonder if the reason they did not bet on manga is because they license mainly adult themes, and think "We need to sell to the masses to make money, so we'll do comics too". And then somehow the comics made "for everyone" and are spread out over hundreds of titles, barely sell 33% because kids don't read those and the adults wanted their adult comics. So it would be a marketing problem for the western comics, while it would be a perfect scenario on the manga where all the adults buy their adult comics.
If I remember correctly, Dark Horse published some Mass Effect comics, Avatar comics and they might have done Games Workshops' Malus Darkblade perhaps too (itself a respin of an earlier GW character in the 80s). If so, then I remember thinking, this is what comics needs more of! Going into comics in different IPs and genres! Recently I watched a documentary about the origins of Games Workshop and learnt a helluva lot that I did not know about the company, having assumed I knew a lot about the "early days". In those times it was in fact a very diverse company spanning RPG and Table Top Miniatures. In aid of that they hired miniature sculptors but also authors and artists and game designer along with the business smarts at the top (some talented people to say the least). Over the next few decades they released lots of game systems and also lots of "multi-media" eg books, comics and other auxillery products. Imho the lesson to learn, is "multi-media" and "cross-over" is the business to be: Each different media fuelling and supporting other media markets but overall the overall IPs created being promoted and penetrating into society and culture and gaining so-called "life-long" followers aka people who will buy the products for years to come as well as potential for growing new customers. Games Workshop today has unfortunately become more narrow and more corporate and like Marvel/DC which also has become narrow and corporate and unfortunately a propaganda instrument in the hands of a game of thrones at the political level, this is not the way to create lasting success. I do think there's some lessons in the trend described even with the licence money pouring in. Dark Horse might have done well not only trying to implement multiple IPs in comics but also trying to take IPs into various other media in conjunction with the comics to grow into a truly formidable company angling for future growth and commercial power. Manga could have been a part of that too.
I was first drawn to anime and manga, especially shonan titles, when the when i say the good guys don't win just the physical fights, but the ideological fights, not only do they beat the bad guys, they make them their friends and part of their team. Western media always just had the bad guys lose, and never address the ideology of bad guys, and now we have tons of videos like "10 villains that where actually right" No where did anyone make Thanos see the error in his ways, they just beat his body, never his ideas. All three Kung Fu Panda movies where perfectly written for the b ad guy to have a redemption arc, but then the villain just decide to be evil, even after they learned their ideology is wrong, it puts a blemish on a very fun trilogy.
I didn’t even know Dark Horse put out manga. Well, that’s not 100% true. I knew they had some manga titles but they weren’t the ones I cared about except for Trigun.
Dark horse has the rights to a lot more manga than you'd think, and a good variety. Horror like Gantz, Hellsing, Berserk. Romantic comedy like Oh My Goddess, Chobits, and Cardcaptor Sakura. "Fanservice" titles for guys like Dirty Pair and Gunsmith Cats. Historical fiction like Blade Of the Immortal, Lone Wolf And Cub. All of which are very popular, and hugely influential on other comics and manga. Dark Horse lucked out by licensing them before they got really popular, and now those titles they licensed back in the 90s/00s are what's going to keep them afloat.
It's easy to see the success of manga now, but this wasn't always the case. Dark Horse may have played it safe, but it probably served their ideals/business model. Quite a few manga and anime companies went bust during the anime wave. Most notably Pioneer, Bandai, and ADV in terms of anime. Tokyo Pop, Del Rey, Comics One, ADV and probably a few others I'm forgetting for manga. Another thing to note, is that dealing with Japanese companies has been difficult. At least according to what I've heard. I can't imagine that this has become any easier as manga and anime have become more popular.
What are the differences in their business and marketing approaches when it comes to manga and comics? Are they trying to sell to different markets? Are the formats the same? How are they marketed? I would really like to hear about that, because Dark Horse puts out good stuff. I can't believe that Usagi Yojimbo doesn't have mass appeal. I just can't believe that.
I wonder if Dark Horse just playing it too safe, and not taking risk. I also think that if DH increased their manga production to more than 1% is a much better strategy than depending on something like live-action adaptations, like other companies have tried.
So did anyone ask him why Darkhorse doesn't invest in more manga? I'm curious how he would answer that (provided it wasn't just a non-answer to avoid responsibility for bad decisions).
They are owned by the wokest company Black Rock right now, so they probably are simply focusing on supporting titles with diversity and inclusion right now and leaving manga as a side business they can release for that bonus cash. I mean if you got infinite money from investors, why go for the sales?
Well I can't even tell you what they have underneath the label anymore but Hellboy. Everything else they put out I couldn't tell you for western comics. Meanwhile I can tell you they publish Berserk, Trigun, Ah My Goddess, and Hellsing at least for Manga.
@@vincentflannigan2727I saw the anime in college. I had a friend who was super into it. He had all the vhs tapes and we binged watched it at his house. It was pretty cute. I liked it but not to the extent of how obsessed he was about it.
@@vincentflannigan2727 Yes. It's long and the art style changes a lot over the 20-30 years it was running. But the relationship feels good between the two main characters. There were also two anime. I think the old one was an OAV, but the one in late 2000s-early 2010s was enjoyable. It doesn't cover the entire manga series though.
@@vincentflannigan2727 As someone who grew up with OMG/AMG, it was good when it started, but after awhile it felt like the author just ran out of ideas and was spinning his wheels. The ending was also pretty bad too. On the other hand, now that the story is essentially done, you can (potentially) buy the whole thing and just binge it. The issue with it when it was releasing was the "new volume, nothing much happens" problem.
Dark Horse has Published *Blood Blockade Battlefront(Kekkai Sensen).* It’s written by the same manga author created Trigun. And still to this day, Dark Horse still haven’t published the Sequel series. And Blood Blockade Battlefront has two Anime adaptations. The Manga is still ongoing in Japan. Currently the on 3rd series now. If one manga represents 66% sales than why stop publishing Blood Blockade Battlefront? I know Dark Horse is reprinting Trigun into an Omnibus. Since Barbie made a lot of Money Hollywood is now interested to make more movies based on Mattel toys. *You Fools Open the Pandora Box!*
I think Dark Horse probably is ideologically driven, which is why making money on manga is something they don't see as a positive but a negative. At least they refuse to print 3x3 Eyes manga for no reason other than "Don't want to".
I don’t get why they don’t just go after the manga creators themselves. Dark Horse, DC, Marvel... is there some reason they aren’t just hiring them to do series directly like they do other people from all around the world all the time? Marvel and DC especially seem like their in a good place to do that if they wanted. If I was Dark Horse, I’d be trying to scrounge up the rights to all the manga series I could that have been turned into cult movies. I’d get Oldboy back. I’d get Ichi the Killer. I’d be bring over Hideshi Hino stuff. (You’d think with the popularity of Junji Ito over there for like the last five years you’d see more horror manga Hideshi Hino and Suehiro Maruo are just going completely untapped) I’d be going after the rights for the manga for Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion and Sukeban Deka. I’d be going after stuff that isn’t out for some reason despite have a Netflix show, like Spriggan and Kengan Ashura. Maybe try to reach a deal with VIZ to print things they only put out digitally in English.
personally i think there is still an appeal to exotic factor of manga. in 10 or so years im sure the comics industry will be a lot more global, with the growing trend in the west of successful self management of series online and the japanese industry slowly opening up to more international applications
I would like to argue that manga has a global foothold. N its all thanks to the combo movement of its (mostly) faithful anime adaptation and online - albeit illegal - manga sites. Have someone read manga - even illegally - from their childhood, fast forward 10-15 years when they start earning money, and imagine their great surprise when the manga they read all those years ago becomes available at their local bookstore or even supermarket, or heck, facebook store😂. An extremely high chance theyll buy the whole set, or atleast start a collection. Manga n anime has been around for decades, especially in a large part of asia. So those aged 40/- have that ingrained attraction to manga and anime wether they know it or not. Its just a matter of how to part them with their money😁 Decades of marketing the whole industry, the fruits of it all is what we are seeing right now and the past 10 or so years.
One of the things that I think about manga storytelling that really has helped that market grow so big is that manga storytelling is how traditional (non American superhero comic stories) like novels are told. Ie they have a start, a setup, some events happen and then those events result in consequences which means it ends. Then they write a new story instead of trying to keep say... the rotting corpse of spiderman animated for 70 years. American superhero comic books are episodic, meaning EVERYTHING must resolve to baseline. There is no start, there is no end which means none of the events matter because if they mattered that would push it to conclusions, an end. Dc has tried to make things matter but the end result is them just literally crashing everything and rebooting their entire universe once a decade. So what you get is this endless malaise, a possibly fun but still meaningless pile of mush, like the Simpsons only batman. After seventy years of nothing ever actually happening (because all the events are meaningless because it won't end) they ask "why is viewership of the Simpsons down?" Well because it's got no bite, no grab that's why. Breaking bad went somewhere and that's how it drew a bigger audience in its time than the Simpsons. Go somewhere, make some sales. Nuff said.
The thing about manga is more than likely when the story is over that’s pretty much it but in comics the redo the story over and over keep re telling the spider man super man Batman story’s over and over basically to me comics industry can keep the same characters that’s popular and just keep retelling its stories so many years over and over Manga industry more than likely once the story completes its no retelling or different versions to keep retelling over and over again. Comic industry plays it safe by reusing the same characters story’s over again while manga industry the story ends that’s pretty much it Maybe the American industry doesn’t want to invest in something like because of the risk
Yeah man. N this way, it wont sully the original story. Yes, there will be re-releases with art update from the artist, n ofcourse a repackage with new cover art, but the inside is the same. Thats why cornerstone titles will always be around till the end of time. Coz it wasnt sullied by new stories retconning the original. Dragonball, spriggan, elfen lied, sailormoon, ranma 1/2, naruto, bleach, fruits basket. Some of these titles are more than 30 years old, yet theyre relevant even till today.
I can't make sense of this. Maybe "produces" is an undefined term? One way to look at it: They print 100 titles per month and one of them is manga. Another way to look at it: They make/produce one "new" manga book per year but almost all their manga sales are like trade paperbacks of back issues in bookstores but only counts as "produced" during the month it was first released.. Another way to look at it: They "Produce" the occassional manga book themselves but most of the manga they sell is actually "produced" in Japan and that gets them revenue from comic stores but doesn't count as Dark Horse production. etc.
I knew Dark Horse first as a manga publisher. Back in the mid-2000s going to the library to get manga. Also, I only watched the Dirty Pair anime :\ . Still pretty great, tho.
I have spent a lot of money on manga from Dark Horse. I think your title is a little off. They don't sell 1% manga, they produce 1% manga according to the statement.
As a non-native speaker I found the original comment puzzling. That is until I realized he meant manga titles. The title of your video on the other hand... is hard to misconstrue as anything but wrong.
Very interesting..though I would gather out of that 66% manga sold revenue, 66% of it goes back the to the original Japanese Publisher/Manga-ka due to licensing contracts. Licensing is probably also a factor why they haven't pushed or reprinted some of their previous manga back catalogue. Due to the fact the licensing has expired or more rather another company has the licensing rights due to them picking up the merchandising license which includes the manga rights. Can't remember where but I did read/hear that a lot of manga/anime IP rights are sold off as merchandising licensing (rights) in the U.S. And those companies buying up the merchandising license either just sit on it, or are only interested in the merchandising aspect & don't bother partnering with anyone to publish the manga license part of the contract license as its not lucrative enough!?
The way that western comics treats the success of manga not as the success of a directly analogous product they could learn from but as something mysterious and inscrutable and completely inapplicable to their own industry will never cease to amaze.
It is always amazing seeing how everyone in the entertainment industry fails at recognizing that Asian media is fine as it is, and doesn't need to be adapted to westerners.
You can imagine what they would have done if Star Wars or something was Japanese. Starting with replacing the droids with re-drawn humans because "The west isn't much for robots, they want humans". Because they always make up these excuses about non-standard content as "unwanted", without having any legs to stand on.
For a medium that is supposedly bemoaned and ridiculed for it's infantilism and insipidness, comic book creators and the companies which run them tend to have a severe lack of hubris and inflated sense of self worth.
Here's an industry that hasn't evolved since the 60s, using characters written in the 30s, who's sole existence nowadays is simply to peddle merchandise and they act as if they were all earnest Hemingway and Salvador Dali combined.
Meanwhile, Japan and France (as well as Korea, Germany and Belgium) took OUR art form and just kicked our asses with it from here to Tuesday and we still act as if it's no big deal. We still act as if we're kings of the castle when we aren't even kings of our own castle anymore.
It's been around for centuries and the current model that works for it has been around for decades. They will never learn by now
Gonna be different at every publisher, but our book revenue from all channels breaks down to about:
- 14% comics
- 18% graphic novels
- 36% manga
- 32% art books
(though our artbook sales are about to quadruple...one hit book can really throw things off heh)
PS: SDCC 2023 was UDON's best year ever sales-wise. Awesome show.
Great to hear.
You could say they were banking on Manga becoming a "Dark Horse".
Ehhh...
See yourself out...
Better than the kind of dark horse berserk came up with
It's impossible to oversell just how huge popular and influential Berserk is. Dark Horse having exclusive rights to sell it is equivalent to someone having exclusive rights to print Dracula comics. The brand name alone is enough to drive sales.
They also have the rights for 3x3 Eyes, and aren't even trying to sell that.
They also have the rights to other really popular series like Gantz.
Perch: „They want an audience that isn’t you.“
ME: „Congratulations, they were successful. So much that I now have to look into Manga to find something good, despite me always having preferred American comics. But then again, glad I was able to make the people at Marvel and DC happy, I guess.“
I don't think Dark Horse ever believed that manga was going to grow as big as it has. After all, they were still in the game when there was the small anime/manga bust in the early 2000s. They probably just figured they had attracted a niche audience and that the surge in popularity that began a few years ago was likely just a passing fad. So, yes, they missed a huge opportunity. On the other hand, they might have invested heavily and things could have crashed, leaving them very deep in debt.
I read some manga and I can see the appeal to a larger audience that is more interested in the action rather than the drama (or soap opera). You have character growth but you also have a definite building of momentum building towards a definite conclusion. Western comics deals with a lot of drama (which I enjoy) but it's at the cost of the big action set pieces and there's definitely no conclusion on the horizon. Even if the publishers had to shut down production in the next year, I doubt they would ever do a definitive "The End" as they would hedge their bets that they would be publishing those characters again some day.
Dark Horse is a weird company in that it keeps doing stuff that Marvel gets all the hype for. Remember in 2014 when Dark Horse announced a new Star Wars ANH era #1 with an Alex Ross cover, but Marvel did the same thing in 2015 and everyone acted like this never happened?
Star Wars had a very long and beloved run from Dark Horse before Disney bought Marvel and decided to put everything in house...then started letting other companies make content based on their various properties, including Darkwing Duck, Marvel for kids, and Star Wars for kids. I really don't understand what they're doing comic-wise at Disney and I'm not sure they do, either.
Marvel has an absolutely wonderful knack of getting all the praise of whatever while getting none of the blame for their egregious actions.
Marvel was the biggest contributor to he spectator bubble of the 90s, with endless 1st issue varient covers and peddling the grim-n-gritty extreme aesthetics but who gets blamed for the crash? Image and DC.
The thing I like best about Yoshi-P whenever a FFXIV live letter goes out is that he finishes it with a "Please enjoy it." No desperation, no exclusion, no ego. He wants as many people as possible to play his game and build their own private chocobo farm on an island or stab God in the face with a spear in a dimension of pure energy, whatever works for you. Western entertainment studios can learn something from that, comic publishers especially.
They could also learn to not make battlepasses and gacha, but that would require respecting the customers and not just going for the money.
I remember reading interviews with the lady who made Fullmetal alchemist and the guy who made one piece and their humbleness and down-to-earth qualities were truly mind shattering.
Compare that to Dan slott or Alan Moore or Mark Waid. Whenever they talk it seems like they see themselves as literary gods among men and we mere mortals can never truly understand the deft pen of the guys who wrote a couple issues of batman and daredevil
We need people to go out and buy Gantz, because if we bump up sales it’ll get a deluxe edition. And I need a deluxe of Gantz, come on people, read it, it’s an amazing story.
I often had to just stop reading for a few seconds because I would be frantically flicking through the pages because the story is so crazy and frantic that you can’t read it quick enough, the pace is just crazy.
@@vincentflannigan2727It’s hard to explain, in the first chapter the MC & his friend are seemingly hit by a train and killed, but he just arrives in an apartment with a black sphere in it (which they later call Gantz). The black sphere starts giving them orders & information to kill an alien, they’re then transported to his location and all hell breaks lose. If they complete the mission they get points, if they get 100 points they can use to either get new weapons, or bring someone back from the dead that’s already in the Gantz system. They then get mission after mission and it gets wilder & wilder.
This is a manga for adults, it’s got tons of violence & lots of full nudity. But the story is insanely good and is definitely the most fast paced, fun, interesting story I’ve ever read. I was a bit annoyed at the ending because my favourite character dies.
@@InfamyOrDeath-__- I absolutely loved the first half of the anime when I bought it years ago on dvd. The second half just felt too rushed and I kinda lost my excitement for it. I bet the manga is better anyway
@@PubeStache Well the anime simply ended during the manga's 3rd arc. In total there's 9 arcs in the manga. The anime just made up an ending.
@@PubeStache Yea I’ve never seen the anime, but there were only 26 episodes, so it only covered the first few volumes, a lot of these Seinen manga they do a poor job on the animes.
@@InfamyOrDeath-__- I have the set of paperback omnibuses. Loved the story for years. Gigant (same author) is pretty fun as well.
I remember Darkhorse really hitting it stride with manga in the late 90s and early 00s. They had some great titles: 3x3 Eyes, Akira, Blade of the Immortal, Dominion Tank Police, Ghost in the Shell, Gunsmith Cats, Hellsing (which came a bit later), Oh/Ah My Goddess, Outlanders, Shadow Lady, and whatever else I can't remember off the top of my head. And of course the Star Wars Manga which you mentions. A big one for me was whatever they were/are letting Adam Warren do (the Dirty Pair, Bubblegum Crisis, and later Empowered) whom I am still a big fan of. They did made some mistakes: Not abandoning Manga floppies until really late in the game, continue to publish manga collections with higher price tags because of better paperstock and slightly larger presentation (I liked this format... but with Viz and Tokyopop having everything at $10 and DH wanting $17 made it hard to compete), and they seemed to be putting all their eggs in the Action Sci-Fi genre which seemed great at the time (again, a fan) but later when Kodansha USA showed up... it took most of those titles away.
I am not shocked anime and manga sales are high in the middle east
The important difference is that it seems like manga is allowed to target any demographic whatsoever, which means that some of it is aimed squarely at us, unlike American comics which are basically allowed to target any demographic so long as it isn't us.
If people in the industry (specifically the big 2) wanted to capitalize on Manga they would start ripping it off.
MARVEL: Whats the number 1 selling Manga on Amazon?
(Answer Berserk)
MARVEL: Well lets not make a fantasy book withsome rated r imagery, hell lets not even do something different besides superheroes.... But you know what we should do? MAKE MORE SPIDERMAN KNOCK OFFS! YAAAA LOVE US!
The big two DID try "ripping off" manga once. By that I mean they made the characters bug-eyed "cute" monstrosities while the writing was the same old crap. Then ten years after that, British comics (what was left of them) tried the same thing, but to even less success. Except, arguably, The Phoenix, which was born during that period and moulded b yit, so it fit a lot better.
In reality its been a long time that Japan think in international market.
Long before Manga exploded in USA, its was already sucessful in Europe and Latin America, and not just many Mangakas answered letters and emails from such fans,
And many of those mangakas adapted their Mangas to foreigners.
You can see that principally in the censorship of tittles who make sucess outside Japan.
If the Barbie movie "proved" that gay stuff was the most profitable thing to pursue, I...don't understand how they understand the word "proved".
Thanks for the plug as always
Dark Horse & Seven Seas are the 2 American companies I care about. Dark Horse has my 2 favourite series, Berserk & Gantz.
I have all the versions of Berserk, the deluxe, the regular tankōbons & digitally through the Dark Horse app. And Gantz, Hellsing, Blade of the Immortal, now they’re bringing out Trigun deluxe editions that I can’t wait to get.
why about Viz media?
I’m hoping they bring Appleseed back into print in those glorious Deluxe Editions. I have Berserk and Hellsing. And eventually I’ll have Blade of the Immortal and Trigun too.
Viz doesn't usually put the same amount of care into their products. You don't get hardcovers, good paper, translation notes, or other perks with Viz.
@@kidicarus2215 It’s really weird because they do sometimes, the perfect editions of 20th Century Boys have lovely covers and nice paper, same with Pluto, I really like the paper stock in those. Then the hardcovers on Fist of the North Star and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure are nice, they have similar paper to regular manga. And then there’s the Fullmetal editions of Fullmetal Alchemist, they have really nice hardcovers with metallic lettering, then the paper stock is shiny paper, although I hate the smell of the ink on the pages, it’s not a nice smell.
Compared to the lovely smell of the ink from the deluxe editions of Berserk, I’ll never forget the first time I opened one of those from its plastic wrapper and was hit with the lovely smell of the ink, and it’s a pretty unique smell that I haven’t got off any other manga. But all the manga’s ink smells differently, I always smell them haha.
@@86Nims I'd love to have the entire Masamune Shirow works done up like the Hardcover Ghost in the Shell books they released a few years ago. I just wish they would release an uncensored version of GitS. Other than that, the only thing I keep an eye on Dark Horse for is the next volume of Empowered.
For Dark Horse's manga sales, what was the actual driving force here? That Dark Horse unlocked the manga writing and artistic style? Or that Dark Horse sold a format in a size, paper quality, etc. that folks found affordable and enjoyable to hold in their hands?
I've mentioned this before, but if a smaller and more affordable comic book trade format will sell well...then why doesn't DC Comics bring back their Blue Ribbon format?
If Marvel Comics and DC Comics want to increase their sales while also returning to retail, then the Big Two need to STOP thinking about how to make comic books for the collector market. The Big Two need to start publishing affordable trades at a size format and paper quality that retailers will put on their shelves that will not become shelf warmers. Currently, the only comic book product Walmart gets from the Big Two are the bags of floppy overstock. And most of that Big Two floppy overstock is stuff the fandom would NEVER buy in the first place. So the collected floppy overstock at Walmart has become a shelf warmer that Walmart hides away next to their collectable trading card section.
When Jim Lee proclaimed that comic books had taken back SDCC, what had comic books actually taken back?!? Most of the coverage that I saw from this year's SDCC were the toy previews and upcoming toy releases. Hasbro showing off their prototype for the Marvel Legends Crystar had more buzz than anything Marvel Comics or DC Comics announced at this year's SDCC. Even folks doing interviews with Super7 about the vacu-metal process made more buzz than whatever Marvel Comics of DC Comics announced. Come to think of it, I have no freakin' clue what comic book news Marvel Comics or DC Comics announced at this year's SDCC.
All I saw was Jim Lee in socialite mode posting pictures with people on instagram.
@@PubeStache So all flash, and no substance. Typical Jim Lee.
Are you sure about that headline? The most common headline appearing on my social media is "Tony Isabella tried to have Eric July killed!" (or something to that effect). Anyway, it mostly boiled down to Eric July is mad that people he's spent years talking sh*t about don't want him around. Go figure. Anyway, good on Darkhorse for sticking with the Manga and cultivating, as much as they could, that audience. I'm sure if they could have made the right deals, they would have gladly gone for some of the bigger (or at least more current) Manga titles available, but I'm not 100% sure they had the capital to take advantage of that market's success. I mean, Dirty Pair was old (in Japan) when Darkhorse got the license. Darkhorse was publishing Robotech (a 40+ year old series) very recently. What Darkhorse should try to do is find find some older Manga that could still grab an audience that the licensing for wouldn't be horrendous. Titles like Escaflowne, Samurai Deeper Kyo, Urusei Yatsura, Samurai Champloo, etc would probably be in their price range and would likely have some western appeal. Darkhorse doesn't have the deepest pockets, but they could still grow this segment of their operation if they're strategic.
He was trying to get him out of Comic-Con, but apparently he did really well just being there half a day at Gabe Eltaeb's table.
I think a lot of people underestimate what a massive boom that Berserk has had in the last 6-7 years. Those Deluxe Volumes were sold out on back order for a while. And anecdotally, hugely widespread.
I would wager that that one title by itself could have kept the company afloat the last 5 years.
Now that IDW is crumbling, Dark Horse should snatch all those IP's up.
How much of this is Masamune Shirow? That's what I wanna know. Ghost in the Shell and Appleseed were big pulls for DH.
HEY! Perch shout-out! 🥳 SDCC was fantastic. Best weekend ever. Crazy lines, crazy sales, Whatnot auctions, too many free drinks...it all came together!
I don't know what some of these Bar Con shenanigans were? There were no shenanigans at any bar I was at.
Or maybe I was the one CAUSING the shenanigans?! 🤐
SDCC commentary is the perfect time for Perch to comment on Eric July, as I'm told some people wanted to angrily confront him there.
It would be a dull video. “Angry old writer who has been acting out for years and is generally disliked by most people in comics, even the ones he says are friends, lashes out at online personality in hope of getting attention.”
@@ComicsPerch Then I'll cheerily request a video on Perch's Top 10 Korean pop songs.
A series about a shy introverted school girl can make it up to 400 plus chapters but comics best heroes can only hope to reach a waueter of that before getting rebooted
People always say Marvel and DC wanted a "new" audience... but did anyone ever think that maybe their goal should've been that they wanted a BIGGER audience? They tried tactics like All New All Different, ostracizing old readers, connecting comics to the MCU, increasing floppie prices, soft reboots, getting rid of Vertigo, creating Black Label, etc.
Meanwhile, manga has "something" that is attracting a majority of America to read it.
Dark horse has berserk so that’s a huge money maker but I have to say dark horse imo isn’t a very good publisher of manga one of the best manga ever written (eden it’s a endless world) was published by them in English but never finished being translated which imo is one of the biggest sins against manga ever they have done that to many other series as well.
I wonder if the reason they did not bet on manga is because they license mainly adult themes, and think "We need to sell to the masses to make money, so we'll do comics too".
And then somehow the comics made "for everyone" and are spread out over hundreds of titles, barely sell 33% because kids don't read those and the adults wanted their adult comics.
So it would be a marketing problem for the western comics, while it would be a perfect scenario on the manga where all the adults buy their adult comics.
If I remember correctly, Dark Horse published some Mass Effect comics, Avatar comics and they might have done Games Workshops' Malus Darkblade perhaps too (itself a respin of an earlier GW character in the 80s).
If so, then I remember thinking, this is what comics needs more of! Going into comics in different IPs and genres!
Recently I watched a documentary about the origins of Games Workshop and learnt a helluva lot that I did not know about the company, having assumed I knew a lot about the "early days". In those times it was in fact a very diverse company spanning RPG and Table Top Miniatures. In aid of that they hired miniature sculptors but also authors and artists and game designer along with the business smarts at the top (some talented people to say the least). Over the next few decades they released lots of game systems and also lots of "multi-media" eg books, comics and other auxillery products.
Imho the lesson to learn, is "multi-media" and "cross-over" is the business to be: Each different media fuelling and supporting other media markets but overall the overall IPs created being promoted and penetrating into society and culture and gaining so-called "life-long" followers aka people who will buy the products for years to come as well as potential for growing new customers.
Games Workshop today has unfortunately become more narrow and more corporate and like Marvel/DC which also has become narrow and corporate and unfortunately a propaganda instrument in the hands of a game of thrones at the political level, this is not the way to create lasting success. I do think there's some lessons in the trend described even with the licence money pouring in.
Dark Horse might have done well not only trying to implement multiple IPs in comics but also trying to take IPs into various other media in conjunction with the comics to grow into a truly formidable company angling for future growth and commercial power. Manga could have been a part of that too.
I was first drawn to anime and manga, especially shonan titles, when the when i say the good guys don't win just the physical fights, but the ideological fights, not only do they beat the bad guys, they make them their friends and part of their team. Western media always just had the bad guys lose, and never address the ideology of bad guys, and now we have tons of videos like "10 villains that where actually right" No where did anyone make Thanos see the error in his ways, they just beat his body, never his ideas. All three Kung Fu Panda movies where perfectly written for the b ad guy to have a redemption arc, but then the villain just decide to be evil, even after they learned their ideology is wrong, it puts a blemish on a very fun trilogy.
I didn’t even know Dark Horse put out manga. Well, that’s not 100% true. I knew they had some manga titles but they weren’t the ones I cared about except for Trigun.
Dark horse has the rights to a lot more manga than you'd think, and a good variety. Horror like Gantz, Hellsing, Berserk. Romantic comedy like Oh My Goddess, Chobits, and Cardcaptor Sakura. "Fanservice" titles for guys like Dirty Pair and Gunsmith Cats. Historical fiction like Blade Of the Immortal, Lone Wolf And Cub. All of which are very popular, and hugely influential on other comics and manga. Dark Horse lucked out by licensing them before they got really popular, and now those titles they licensed back in the 90s/00s are what's going to keep them afloat.
Dark Horse even talked about how they could've licensed JoJo's Bizarre Adventure before it got big but passed on it.
It's easy to see the success of manga now, but this wasn't always the case. Dark Horse may have played it safe, but it probably served their ideals/business model. Quite a few manga and anime companies went bust during the anime wave. Most notably Pioneer, Bandai, and ADV in terms of anime. Tokyo Pop, Del Rey, Comics One, ADV and probably a few others I'm forgetting for manga.
Another thing to note, is that dealing with Japanese companies has been difficult. At least according to what I've heard. I can't imagine that this has become any easier as manga and anime have become more popular.
What exactly does "one percent of output" mean? 1% of the titles they publish? 1% of SKUs? 1% of what denominator?
The Barbie headline is most definitely NOT the most-repeated news from there. If that’s what you get, you’re looking for it.
It says more about Dark Horse’s “original” IP, than it does the alleged power of manga. Now, if Marvel or DC said this…
What are the differences in their business and marketing approaches when it comes to manga and comics? Are they trying to sell to different markets? Are the formats the same? How are they marketed? I would really like to hear about that, because Dark Horse puts out good stuff. I can't believe that Usagi Yojimbo doesn't have mass appeal. I just can't believe that.
I wonder if Dark Horse just playing it too safe, and not taking risk. I also think that if DH increased their manga production to more than 1% is a much better strategy than depending on something like live-action adaptations, like other companies have tried.
So did anyone ask him why Darkhorse doesn't invest in more manga? I'm curious how he would answer that (provided it wasn't just a non-answer to avoid responsibility for bad decisions).
They are owned by the wokest company Black Rock right now, so they probably are simply focusing on supporting titles with diversity and inclusion right now and leaving manga as a side business they can release for that bonus cash. I mean if you got infinite money from investors, why go for the sales?
Well I can't even tell you what they have underneath the label anymore but Hellboy. Everything else they put out I couldn't tell you for western comics. Meanwhile I can tell you they publish Berserk, Trigun, Ah My Goddess, and Hellsing at least for Manga.
@@vincentflannigan2727I saw the anime in college. I had a friend who was super into it. He had all the vhs tapes and we binged watched it at his house. It was pretty cute. I liked it but not to the extent of how obsessed he was about it.
@@vincentflannigan2727 Yes. It's long and the art style changes a lot over the 20-30 years it was running. But the relationship feels good between the two main characters. There were also two anime. I think the old one was an OAV, but the one in late 2000s-early 2010s was enjoyable. It doesn't cover the entire manga series though.
@@vincentflannigan2727That depends. Are you into wacky slice of life comedy with supernatural elements thrown in?
@@vincentflannigan2727 As someone who grew up with OMG/AMG, it was good when it started, but after awhile it felt like the author just ran out of ideas and was spinning his wheels. The ending was also pretty bad too.
On the other hand, now that the story is essentially done, you can (potentially) buy the whole thing and just binge it. The issue with it when it was releasing was the "new volume, nothing much happens" problem.
Dark Horse has Published *Blood Blockade Battlefront(Kekkai Sensen).* It’s written by the same manga author created Trigun. And still to this day, Dark Horse still haven’t published the Sequel series. And Blood Blockade Battlefront has two Anime adaptations. The Manga is still ongoing in Japan. Currently the on 3rd series now.
If one manga represents 66% sales than why stop publishing Blood Blockade Battlefront? I know Dark Horse is reprinting Trigun into an Omnibus.
Since Barbie made a lot of Money Hollywood is now interested to make more movies based on Mattel toys.
*You Fools Open the Pandora Box!*
I think Dark Horse probably is ideologically driven, which is why making money on manga is something they don't see as a positive but a negative.
At least they refuse to print 3x3 Eyes manga for no reason other than "Don't want to".
I don’t get why they don’t just go after the manga creators themselves. Dark Horse, DC, Marvel... is there some reason they aren’t just hiring them to do series directly like they do other people from all around the world all the time? Marvel and DC especially seem like their in a good place to do that if they wanted.
If I was Dark Horse, I’d be trying to scrounge up the rights to all the manga series I could that have been turned into cult movies. I’d get Oldboy back. I’d get Ichi the Killer. I’d be bring over Hideshi Hino stuff. (You’d think with the popularity of Junji Ito over there for like the last five years you’d see more horror manga Hideshi Hino and Suehiro Maruo are just going completely untapped) I’d be going after the rights for the manga for Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion and Sukeban Deka. I’d be going after stuff that isn’t out for some reason despite have a Netflix show, like Spriggan and Kengan Ashura. Maybe try to reach a deal with VIZ to print things they only put out digitally in English.
Sad Hellboy noises
long past his prime
😞😞😔😔😖😖😫😫😩😩😭😭
personally i think there is still an appeal to exotic factor of manga. in 10 or so years im sure the comics industry will be a lot more global, with the growing trend in the west of successful self management of series online and the japanese industry slowly opening up to more international applications
I would like to argue that manga has a global foothold. N its all thanks to the combo movement of its (mostly) faithful anime adaptation and online - albeit illegal - manga sites.
Have someone read manga - even illegally - from their childhood, fast forward 10-15 years when they start earning money, and imagine their great surprise when the manga they read all those years ago becomes available at their local bookstore or even supermarket, or heck, facebook store😂.
An extremely high chance theyll buy the whole set, or atleast start a collection.
Manga n anime has been around for decades, especially in a large part of asia. So those aged 40/- have that ingrained attraction to manga and anime wether they know it or not. Its just a matter of how to part them with their money😁
Decades of marketing the whole industry, the fruits of it all is what we are seeing right now and the past 10 or so years.
One of the things that I think about manga storytelling that really has helped that market grow so big is that manga storytelling is how traditional (non American superhero comic stories) like novels are told. Ie they have a start, a setup, some events happen and then those events result in consequences which means it ends. Then they write a new story instead of trying to keep say... the rotting corpse of spiderman animated for 70 years.
American superhero comic books are episodic, meaning EVERYTHING must resolve to baseline. There is no start, there is no end which means none of the events matter because if they mattered that would push it to conclusions, an end. Dc has tried to make things matter but the end result is them just literally crashing everything and rebooting their entire universe once a decade. So what you get is this endless malaise, a possibly fun but still meaningless pile of mush, like the Simpsons only batman. After seventy years of nothing ever actually happening (because all the events are meaningless because it won't end) they ask "why is viewership of the Simpsons down?" Well because it's got no bite, no grab that's why. Breaking bad went somewhere and that's how it drew a bigger audience in its time than the Simpsons. Go somewhere, make some sales. Nuff said.
The thing about manga is more than likely when the story is over that’s pretty much it but in comics the redo the story over and over keep re telling the spider man super man Batman story’s over and over basically to me
comics industry can keep the same characters that’s popular and just keep retelling its stories so many years over and over
Manga industry more than likely once the story completes its no retelling or different versions to keep retelling over and over again.
Comic industry plays it safe by reusing the same characters story’s over again while manga industry the story ends that’s pretty much it
Maybe the American industry doesn’t want to invest in something like because of the risk
Yeah man. N this way, it wont sully the original story. Yes, there will be re-releases with art update from the artist, n ofcourse a repackage with new cover art, but the inside is the same.
Thats why cornerstone titles will always be around till the end of time. Coz it wasnt sullied by new stories retconning the original.
Dragonball, spriggan, elfen lied, sailormoon, ranma 1/2, naruto, bleach, fruits basket. Some of these titles are more than 30 years old, yet theyre relevant even till today.
*Guts Theme intensifies*
I can't make sense of this. Maybe "produces" is an undefined term?
One way to look at it: They print 100 titles per month and one of them is manga.
Another way to look at it: They make/produce one "new" manga book per year but almost all their manga sales are like trade paperbacks of back issues in bookstores but only counts as "produced" during the month it was first released..
Another way to look at it: They "Produce" the occassional manga book themselves but most of the manga they sell is actually "produced" in Japan and that gets them revenue from comic stores but doesn't count as Dark Horse production.
etc.
I'd honestly forgotten Dark Horse ever did non-manga stuff.
I knew Dark Horse first as a manga publisher. Back in the mid-2000s going to the library to get manga.
Also, I only watched the Dirty Pair anime :\ . Still pretty great, tho.
perch is literally the only comics news channel that isnt biased by political view. your experience in the industry really shows
The comments are only 1% of the viewers, but 65% of the comments are just showing up to roast perch, more at 11
I feel like there could be a Japanese manga about Barbie, and it would out sell all the current X-men titles combined.
Imagine if manga was 2% of what Dark Horse produced. It would make up 132% of their revenue.
Question for the comments - does Heidi MacDonald/The Beat really say "an audience that isn't you"? Or is that Perch reading between the lines?
I have spent a lot of money on manga from Dark Horse. I think your title is a little off. They don't sell 1% manga, they produce 1% manga according to the statement.
Hey perch, I sent you an email about miles, if it is too long, I can send a shorter version
Dark horse took an L there for sure in terms of not maximizing their success
It's hilarious how Western comic companies egos won't allow them to accept that Manga sells better because western comics are trash now.
Great stuff. Enquiring minds would like to know why Perch keeps opening his videos with images of the leader of China?
Marvel & DC need a yaoi & yuri line!
Crazy!
As a non-native speaker I found the original comment puzzling. That is until I realized he meant manga titles. The title of your video on the other hand... is hard to misconstrue as anything but wrong.
Very interesting..though I would gather out of that 66% manga sold revenue, 66% of it goes back the to the original Japanese Publisher/Manga-ka due to licensing contracts. Licensing is probably also a factor why they haven't pushed or reprinted some of their previous manga back catalogue. Due to the fact the licensing has expired or more rather another company has the licensing rights due to them picking up the merchandising license which includes the manga rights. Can't remember where but I did read/hear that a lot of manga/anime IP rights are sold off as merchandising licensing (rights) in the U.S. And those companies buying up the merchandising license either just sit on it, or are only interested in the merchandising aspect & don't bother partnering with anyone to publish the manga license part of the contract license as its not lucrative enough!?