Forum - View topic
REVIEW: Tokyopop Manga Creator 2

Actually, a graphic novel is the proper term for what TokyoPop is trying to call OEL or Global Manga. Even the manga (Japanese comics) they sell can be called a graphic novel or trade paperback collection. Manga was only used to designate the country of origin. It does not denote a publishing format or an art style.

These terms exist for a reason. You can't just arbitrarily toss them around to try and make more money. Well, TokyoPop does. Yet there are some people who like to think of the medium as an art, literature, and it is undeniably also a commodity. So from a scholarly and business point of view, you must have standard names for them. The comics and graphic novel industry has been around for decades, long before TokyoPop was even a minor player. Long before Mixx Entertainment decided to change their name to TokyoPop once their size and price format change took off like wildfire.

They have been industry standards. While some of these, namely ones at DC and Marvel, have arguably hurt the industry, the standards worked. The terminology of graphic novels, comics, and manga simply as word for Japanese comics worked. Hell, if you think comic is too low brow, then take a hint from Will Eisner and call it by a classier term like sequential art. If it's an original full volume comic, it's called a graphic novel. Collected editions of periodicals like most comics and most manga are labeled as trade paperbacks. Don't forget that the vast majority of actual manga is also first published in periodicals and the later collected. It is this secondary form that you see on the bookshelves in America.

Along comes TokyoPop. I even have ads for Chobits that call it a graphic novel. They're selling to American audiences, nothing wrong with speaking English. We call it manga out of respect for the Japanese creators. Now I find it disrespectful to use that term in a bait and switch campaign. TokyoPop started creating their own books and started using the term.

Now American or Japanese, both have good and bad books. Yet TokyoPop have been taking non-Japanes creators and making original books. This is much cheaper than getting a Japanese book licensed. Plus Del Ray and Japanese owned Viz were sucking up some of the better titles anyway. I by no means am saying the original projects are inferior. I am pointing out the fact that it's cheaper and maybe now necessary for TokyoPop to produce original graphic novels instead of buying the rights to Japanese ones. In order to get fans to notice, they take the cheap route and steal the word manga for these books. It's sad that they don't feel American readers would not be interested in American books. They act like they have to trick people into thinking the book is Japanese. I think it hurts domestic creators that they have to go under this pandering foreign label. Just think about what they're doing. Think about what you're saying. A domestic product needs a foreign label? Why?

Manga is a term for a foreign product that is imported. It always has been. TokyoPop doesn't think the industry standards apply to them. They think they can take shortcuts. Heck, they even steal the term and slap it on some cheap software here. I call bullcrap.

What Xenos said. Calling the works of North American/European authors "manga" just reeks of that weeaboo mentality of slapping a Japanese term on something to "make it cooler." We already have a word for works like this, a word that's been used for over a century. Comics. (Hell, from what I understand, the term "komikku" is used in Japan on occasion as well.) Art style (and how much these comics replicate manga "style" is debatable in and of itself) has nothing at all to do with country of origin.

To Xenos:

I'm not going to argue with your logic because you make some good arguments. But you should probably know that your assumption of:

"I am pointing out the fact that it's cheaper and maybe now necessary for TokyoPop to produce original graphic novels instead of buying the rights to Japanese ones."

This is completely false in terms of it being cheaper. Creating a book from scratch costs 3~6 times as much as it is to license a book from Japan. I don't see how you could think otherwise unless you don't understand what licensing means. Anyway, you may wish to re-examine some of your arguments with this in mind.

3~6 times as much? Where are you getting that number? Think about it. Paying for a license from a huge selling and popular manga or paying a new artist starting out to write and draw a book. Which do you think costs more? I'm fairly sure Japanese publishers aren't asking for a cheap price to publish their book. Never mind bidding wars between US publishers for a popular Japanese license. Meanwhile, a new or even somewhat known author is happy to get published and is not likely to have a bidding war over their book. Never mind they could instead go to Image or Dark Horse or Oni Press instead of TokyoPop. A number of TokyoPop artists are culled from fandom. They have talent contests and use these new and hopeful artists as cannon fodder on the shelves.

Not to mention the power play. In licensing manga, the Japanese publisher has more control. When hiring a new artist, TokyoPop is the primary publisher and is likely calling the shots. Plus if they decide to go into film and other media with the property, they don't have to share profits with the original Japanese author and company. Plus.. "Moichendizing. Where the real money from the movie is made."

Now I'm not saying that these new artists aren't as good as a number of manga. I've found a couple nice books by artists known and unknown to me at TokyoPop. Actually, I'm moreso wondering if TokyoPop's method is really fair to these upcoming artists. Certainly it's more fair than Marvel and DC and their ways, but there are plenty of other better smaller publishers.

First, is TokyoPop's instance of calling it manga. So does that mean something needs to have a Japanese label on it to make it sellable? What's wrong with admitting somethign is domestic? Why the need for a foreign label?

Second, TokyoPop is publishing full volume graphic novels. Most manga in Japan is sold as periodicals. Sure, they have contests like TokyoPop, but the winners don't get full volumes, they get tossed in writing chapters in magazines among popular series. It's a whole different set up.

Plus, I wonder what the rights situation is. Does TokyoPop control everything like Marvel or DC? Or are they more for creators retaining their rights like a number of smaller and newer publishers? I'm leaning sadly toward the former. I heard one author was surprised to find that TokyoPop made a radio drama out of his comic. Of course TokyoPop labeled it a MangaCast. Cause everything has to have the name manga in front of it, even if it's a damn audio drama. Another reason this software seems so cheap. It's just another product they slap the label on. They've really devalued the name manga.

	Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback	All times are GMT - 5 Hours Goto page Previous 1, 2
Page 2 of 2

Forum - View topicREVIEW: Tokyopop Manga Creator 2

Forum - View topic
REVIEW: Tokyopop Manga Creator 2