>Mignola is years past his prime
>Scott Allie got #MeToo'd
>losing the Square Enix license at the end of 2020
>being sniped by various other publishers to Sony (Death Stranding and Insomniac Spidey to Titan) and Nintendo (Kirby Art & Style Collection to Viz) books
Are they gonna be okay?
Japanese buyout incoming.
Those Berserk omnis have apparently been doing very well so I wouldn't be surprised if they just double down on Japshit. Still, losing SE is a big blow since those Final Fantasy books did really well.
How do deals with publishing deals for videogame books actually work? I just assumed it's "okay, here's X dollars, we do all your stuff for Y years" , but that's obviously not the case. Makes no sense that they'd do the artbook for Concrete Genie but not Death Stranding.
>>losing the Square Enix license at the end of 2020
what?
We had a thread about it a few months ago when it was announced. SE are setting up their own Western publishing branch with Penguin having some kind of financial stake in it. The FF7 remake artbook is the first big book they're releasing.
DH has slowly been losing a lot of their bread and butter licenses and would be better served if they looked at what Heavy Metal and Vault recently agreed to do and look at someone for a joint venture. They have a way forward since there are some people who prefer to bring their creator owned stuff to DH versus to say Image, but they need to be more aggressive than they have been. Karen Berger essentially fell in their lap and sadly while her taste hasn't necessarily diminished, she doesn't have the might of DC or the backing of a large entertainment company (Warners) to really push these titles the way Vertigo was built.
DH should have gotten the AWA people to come with them versus starting their own company; DH should look to someone like else to partner up with, either Fantagraphics or one of the bigger companies, or someone else like Valiant.
The berserk HCs have sold 2 million copies thus far. They are by far Dark Horse's greatest business triumph, eclipsing 30 years of Mignolaverse. Dark Horse is as well the third largest manga publisher behind Viz and Yen Press respectively. Considering bookstores are where most comics are sold (and they trend further that way each year), and considering Manga does excellent in bookstores, Dark Horse will do more than fine.
Does Dark Horse pick out certain seinen manga to localize that fit with their brand or what?
I'm sure it's some combination of that and what is available, and what they think will be a good investment. I think because they come from comics originally they try to invest in manga that they expect a reader of comics would enjoy.
Stuff from Yen Press for example seems to be tailored more to people that are already weebs
they better be networking with Young Animal or whomever to get a proper Berserk anime going.
>whomever to get a proper Berserk anime going.
But we had that in the 90s
They'll be fine. Arguably there's nobody alive right now that knows more about the business side of comics than Mike Richardson. He's spent years spreading the company's revenue out so that they can take multiple hits and still stay afloat. Manga licenses provide steady income, he's done a great job cultivating long term relationships for media development, he invested early in digital distribution, he's just been steadily positioning the company to ride out market disruptions. He's got a slow & steady philosophy and he can do that because he's the only one calling the shots. Not shareholders, no partners, no executives, no one pressuring him.
>Scott Allie got #MeToo'd
Be fair. Finally dislodging Raggedy Handsy is not a bad thing for Dark Horse.
I've still got money on DH being the next company to break with Diamond. Richardson's been a critic of the system for a while but their market share wasn't big enough to disrupt anything alone, they needed of the big two to break rank first.
Good post
Why the fuck would japs want to enter the dying US comics industry ?
Comic shops are a dying industry. Comics are not
>Japanese buyout incoming
Good luck getting Richardson to sell his company, it's been his baby for over 30 years.
They're actually expanding. They actually gave Karen Berger, founder and former EiC of Vertigo her own imprint last year. Also I will say that one of Dark Horse's greatest strengths is that they've cultivated a very loyal fanbase over the years. Not the kind of petulant fanboys who begrudgingly buy comics from DC or Marvel even though they hate them, but a really strong positive fanbase.
>Comic shops are a dying industry. Comics are not
The only digital comics selling at all are old stuff, so yes, comics are dying across the board.
There's no market to go after, Dark Horse probably survives purely on their manga sales these days, what else do they have that is selling ?
Also what IP does Dark Horse own that would prompt a purchase of the company ? They are pretty much licensing everything.
Manga is comics
>The berserk HCs have sold 2 million copies thus far.
Holy smokes. I didn't know it was THAT popular.
No, it's Manga. You see this board you are posting in, it's called /co - Comics & Cartoons
You do not post Manga here, why ? Because Manga is not comics, everyone on this board knows the distinction, so why are you playing this game ?
Lead the victory. Always admired how DH was hardly ever pozzed up too. Just good stories for the sake of entertainment and without pushing any kind of ideology.
Japshit is literally the only thing that sells in the comic market anymore because American comic books suck these days.
They still have Alien and Predator
Manga is Japanese comics. Deal with it.
>Manga is Japanese comics
Yes, which is why they are separated from western comics.
/co - Comics and Cartoons
/a - Anime and Manga
Yes?
why would anyone look at anything Vault
AWA writers are all great but their artists all suck
Valiant is DOA after the movie flopped
Big Guy and Rusty