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NEWS: Digital Manga's Ludwig B Kickstarter Meets Goal




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Kadmos1



Joined: 08 May 2014
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 26, 2014 4:34 pm Reply with quote
Congrats! In addition to more Tezuka, I'd like there to be more Ishinomori.
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trunkschan90



Joined: 08 Aug 2002
Posts: 592
Location: California
PostPosted: Fri Dec 26, 2014 5:18 pm Reply with quote
Kadmos1 wrote:
Congrats! In addition to more Tezuka, I'd like there to be more Ishinomori.


I know what you mean. I would like the rest of Cyborg 009 translated especially the new God's War manga arc and the one-shot chapter Warrior's Holiday.
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here-and-faraway



Joined: 21 Jun 2007
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 26, 2014 8:20 pm Reply with quote
I always love to see these things succeed. Congratulations to its organizers and supporters! Way to go!
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1thought



Joined: 17 Sep 2014
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 26, 2014 11:51 pm Reply with quote
Does Tezuka stuff sell that badly they have to Kickstarter everything?

I really don't even know why they got the rights to the whole library if that is the case.
And Barbara,Swallowing the Earth, and Unico are out of print.
They can't even keep a 1 volume story in print??

And I'm just going to assume this but is DMP getting the entire Tezuka library the reason Vertical Inc can't/won't reprint any of their Tezuka releases and also why maybe Viz hasn't reprinted Phoenix.
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katscradle



Joined: 05 Jan 2013
Posts: 469
PostPosted: Sat Dec 27, 2014 3:20 am Reply with quote
I supported this, even with the holidays. Luckily it was a smaller project with many different tiers that let me find a level I was comfortable with. I am a little less happy than I should be though. It sounds like there are going to be a lot of Tezuka Kickstarters in the next year with the plans the President of Digital Manga wants. As they are going to be forgoing normal distribution for the new Tezuka titles I'm a little worried I may miss out on something I want again if I can't pledge at the time.


1thought wrote:
Does Tezuka stuff sell that badly they have to Kickstarter everything?

I really don't even know why they got the rights to the whole library if that is the case.
And Barbara,Swallowing the Earth, and Unico are out of print.
They can't even keep a 1 volume story in print??

I don't think every title by Tezuka would require crowdfunding. Ludwig B might have been something that was a good choice for Kickstarter though. Still, Digital Manga does not have the whole Tezuka library. Jungle Emperor Leo is not licensed yet but, not apparently for lack of trying. And Vertical is adding eBooks for their Tezuka titles.

Digital Manga also said they underestimated the demand for their earlier Tezuka titles, so they're upping print runs for the new books. However, they aren't comfortable doing a reprint for the older titles as they may normally because they expect sales to be slow at the same time. For those titles they're apparently planning to do a new Kickstarter for reprints (which will be the second time they've done it for Swallowing Earth), or a stretch goal added onto another Kickstarter. But, honestly books going OOP quickly from them is nothing new. And I find it almost as frustrating as their distribution problems.
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Randamo



Joined: 18 Dec 2014
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 27, 2014 3:50 am Reply with quote
I've supported the Captain Ken kickstarter and now the Ludwig one; but I feel reluctant to do this again, unless it was just to get the digital release. My funds can't support this stuff, and it's a bit more pricey to pay the extra international shipping cost.

I'm just wondering, looking at the two kickstarter pages, why Captain Ken only needed $13,000 whereas Ludwig needed $21,600.
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ninja noir



Joined: 20 Sep 2009
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Location: Ireland
PostPosted: Sat Dec 27, 2014 4:55 am Reply with quote
Randamo wrote:
I've supported the Captain Ken kickstarter and now the Ludwig one; but I feel reluctant to do this again, unless it was just to get the digital release. My funds can't support this stuff, and it's a bit more pricey to pay the extra international shipping cost.

I'm just wondering, looking at the two kickstarter pages, why Captain Ken only needed $13,000 whereas Ludwig needed $21,600.


Yeah, that's what I was wondering too. It's the same number of volumes at the same number of pages, so what makes Ludwig need a higher goal?

Anyway, the way that DMP are doing this worries me. They cannot expect the same people to be able to back every kickstarter that they launch. I, for one am not made of money and supporting a kickstarter every month at those prices is something I cannot do, especially taking into account the cost of international shipping.
But unfortunately, it does look as though this is the only way I will be able to get my hands on these books. It feels like if I don't use Kickstarter, i'm screwed. If they expect this to be a regular thing, they need to make these books cheaper.

I would much rather they publish a few select titles the regular way than have them attempt to publish everything through Kickstarter. I mean, how much of this is going to be junk?

Okay, I need to stop ranting and sit down now. (Although I really could go on and on...)
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Kadmos1



Joined: 08 May 2014
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 27, 2014 2:34 pm Reply with quote
In terms of Tezuka titles selling well hear, from what I remember hearing about on PAS ANNCasts, certail Tezuka titles have done well for Vertical.
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F-Man



Joined: 18 Sep 2013
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 27, 2014 3:19 pm Reply with quote
Vertical et al. already licensed the most marketable titles. While the rest can still be good and even better than some of the stuff that's out, I can fully believe that Kickstarter is necessary to make profits on them. Only a percentage of the marketable ones already released ended up even being profitable. I can agree doing Kickstarters to reprint titles does not seem like a good idea though.

The larger goal since Captain Ken was to expedite production and have them released faster. That's why the previous Kickstarter was a third of a million as well, the plan then was to release nearly all of Tezuka's manga in only 6 years, and it's a damn shame it didn't work out.
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1thought



Joined: 17 Sep 2014
Posts: 65
PostPosted: Sat Dec 27, 2014 4:25 pm Reply with quote
Well I don't know how many more Tezuka titles Vertical would have licensed I know they would still be putting out some.

If Vertical was allowed to they probably already be releasing say Tree in the Sun/Mittsume Ga Toru

Anyways..

Tezuka might have more of a fan base in North America if Viz reprinted Phoenix.

Which I think now they can't. Or Vertical can't at least reprint their stuff.

Volumes of Phoenix have been out of print for almost 10 years now.

Viz had a great opportunity with releasing 20th Century Boys and Pluto to market it by putting a insert in the back of the books Naoki Urasawa'a favorite manga or the manga he thinks is the best or however you want to phrase it.

I really don't get Viz they never market their titles outside of hey you like Naruto read Bleach. Or outside of the lineup of titles. Shonen Jump read other Shonen Jump. Read Shojo Beat read other Shojo Beat etc...

Instead of that how about a few inserts of manga someone might of never considered and variety say in the back of Naruto yeah okay maybe a insert for some Shonen Jump things but also Maison Ikkoku,Cheeky Angel,Phoenix, and Please Save My Earth for example.

Anyways without Phoenix in print.
And Vertical's stuff not getting reprinted.
The possibility of new people getting into Tezuka is going to dry up.


And DMP doesn't plan on selling their Tezuka releases on a wide scale.
Without Amazon or Rightstuf that's like 80% of where people probably get their anime/manga from.

Just seems this Kickstarter thing is going to run out of steam really quick for DMP.
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F-Man



Joined: 18 Sep 2013
Posts: 111
PostPosted: Sat Dec 27, 2014 6:13 pm Reply with quote
1thought wrote:
Anyways without Phoenix in print.
And Vertical's stuff not getting reprinted.
The possibility of new people getting into Tezuka is going to dry up.


And DMP doesn't plan on selling their Tezuka releases on a wide scale.
Without Amazon or Rightstuf that's like 80% of where people probably get their anime/manga from.

Just seems this Kickstarter thing is going to run out of steam really quick for DMP.

I completely agree with all of this. All the elements to NOT create any new Tezuka fans are now in place, so these Kickstarters are only going to rely on existing fans whom are going to become less and less interested with each passing release.
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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 15298
PostPosted: Sat Dec 27, 2014 9:50 pm Reply with quote
1Thought: Viz didn't reprint Phoenix, but they did put it out on Kindle. The real problem is that Aronofsky and the Wachowskis 'borrowed' from it with The Fountain and Cloud Atlas. And if you want me to go there, I can rephrase it as 'pulling another Lion King on TezukaPro'.
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Chrno2



Joined: 28 May 2004
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Location: USA
PostPosted: Mon Dec 29, 2014 7:19 pm Reply with quote
Good news. But what I would like to see DMP do is give decent releases of these titles on quality paper and binding made to last the way Vertical has done in the past.
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