Manga Hits the Newspaper Page

Rumors and newsroom testimony started bubbling up about a month ago that AM/Universal was shopping two manga-property strips for inclusion on the comics page, although it wasn't clear whether it was a formal sales packet that was being shopped or certain properties being introduced to buyers for formal presentation the next time around. A wire story out of Seattle took the story wide and caught a lot of people's attention, including comics-industry sources like Newsarama and the business analysis and resource site ICv2.com. The properties in question are Van Von Hunter and Peach Fuzz; Tokyopop is directly involved.

It makes perfect sense that a manga feature or two would appeal to newspaper editors. The newspaper industry finds itself the throes of a period of fading influence somewhere between a major circulation crisis and being the first critters over the cliff in a potential, spectacular worldwide death of the general-interest publication. Manga is just about the only comics-related phenomenon that has a hip, consumer- and youth-friendly sheen to it. For as much as they're known as conservative businesses, the major comics syndicates do tend to seek out representative offerings in broad trends whenever they can apply to comics. For example, the syndicates about five years ago were generally looking around for ways to capitalize on a then-blossoming awareness of cross-over Latin culture, (and please forgive me if that's a stupid way to put it). In fact, at least one syndicate was in the midst of developing an original manga offering about three years ago, to the point of soliciting suggestions for artists.

The original buy looks interesting but not daunting. You lead with numbers if you have numbers, you lead with some big clients if you have some big clients. Since they led with big clients, I assume the numbers are okay but not great. At least a couple of the papers mentioned -- in Seattle and Detroit -- are to my mind aggressive early buyers of comics features. It's a list that should grow, and from Tokyopop's position there's no pressure of the kind that usually categorizes a strip launch, as the entire effort amounts to a modest amount of extra cash and untold gobs of free advertising.

It's also worth noting that by positioning these strips for January, Universal may be going after a window that is being left on the page by the Calvin and Hobbes re-run effort, probably the biggest opportunity to launch new strips without having to muscle aside old ones (editors prefer to avoid the hate mail phase if they can) until Lynn Johnston finally retires.
 
posted 9:13 am PST | Permalink
 

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