Forum - View topicBloomberg: Dark Horse 'Weighs Options That Could Include Sale'
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9834 Location: Virginia |
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When I got into manga, Dark Horse was one of the two big providers. Viz was, of course the other with CPM a distant third. Now Dark Horse seems to be trying to get out of manga. Many months they are only soliciting one title and a reprint at that. They have always been bad at completing series. I don't think they will be missed much.
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R. Kasahara
 Posts: 649 |
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I would miss them (being an independent entity; it's not like they're dying), but over the years, I've read more from them than just manga. They do seem to be slowly getting out of the manga game, though. Losing the CLAMP licenses to Kodansha Comics was a big one. Dark Horse's reprints and retranslations were nice enough that I replaced as many of my Tokyopop CLAMP books as I could with theirs, even for series that weren't my favorites. As for those that are, they did an especially good job on Wish. Kodansha's reprints so far look even nicer, but of course, they're much more expensive.
If Dark Horse is sold, I wonder if the company would move out of the Portland, OR area, and also what it would mean for their close relationship with Things From Another World. Hoping there would be no significant changes on both fronts. |
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LegitPancake
 Posts: 1294 Location: Texas, USA |
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Just please don’t change the Berserk spines again…
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njprogfan
Collector Extraordinaire Posts: 1160 Location: A River Named Toms |
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I'm on the fence with this one; on the one hand it wouldn't bother me with their manga side of things, especially since they had a penchant of not finishing series that I started reading, i.e. Ghost Talkers Daydream, Cannon God Exaxxion, Eromanga Sensei, Seraphic Feather, but on the other hand, they did publish some interesting stuff which I would love to see more of, like Wandering Island. With American comics, I've been out of that scene since the early 90's so I'm not familiar with their output. If they are sold, I'm hoping whoever picks up their large body of licensed work will maybe start fresh with some of the titles.
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blahmoomoo
Posts: 459 |
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One aspect of Dark Horse that I dislike is it seems some books get only one print run and never get reprinted. Wandering Island volume 1 is an example; it's a good thing I bought it when it was new because I recall it was gone in a year or two. Granted, this isn't exclusive to Dark Horse (see Yen Press' long runs of less popular but recent or ongoing series like Umineko or Barakamon; if I decided I was interested in those, I would be forced to start reading digitally), but it seemed to happen frequently. Though I suppose larger publishers that don't have this problem like Viz and Kodansha can better justify the cost of reprints (although, Yen Press is co-owned by Kadokawa...). |
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Triltaison
 Posts: 722 |
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I also had half of those unfinished series, and will add 3x3 Eyes, Reiko the Zombie Shop, Shadow Star, You're Under Arrest, and Venus Wars. Not gonna lie... I'm still rather salty about all those. But I do think they've done better about that in later years and seem to have been being decent at their digital catalog, even if they aren't picking up as much lately. I was glad to hear they were reprinting Vampire Hunter D's novels instead of leaving them out behind the shed, so to speak. It shows some interest in maintaining a back catalog at least. |
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 4365 Location: New York |
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Honest, no sarcasm question -
Realistically, what would one get from a Dark Horse purchase besides a printing press and maybe Hellboy? Looking at their homepage, besides BRPD, most of it is licensed materials or stuff that has been licensed out to other companies for adaptation, like Usagi Yojimbo. It's not what I would call a huge IP chest. |
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Casval Rem Deikun
 Posts: 266 |
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If they sold what would happen with the manga they have. The Berserk Deluxe manga has been fantastic, so I hope that finishes at least.
I can only speak on the manga front of things. They have left a ton of series (excluding Helling, Berserk, Immortal) to just rot. Trigun, Blood Blockade, Drifters, King of Wolves, Japan, and so many other series just either die after one print or just don't finish. If another company or they do something else to treat the manga series a little better that would be awesome. Just have to wait and see though. |
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ZelosZoidberg
 Posts: 635 |
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Scion Drake
Posts: 941 |
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They probably would do something with Jeff Lemire’s Black Hammer property which he has been trying to get some kind of adaptation of off the ground. |
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Crisha
Moderator
 Posts: 4290 |
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I loved their omnibus releases of CLAMP series. And I loved their selections but was always disappointed with their tendency to not finish them. *Looks over at my unfinished collections of 3x3 Eyes, Blood Blockade Battlefront, Eden: It's an Endless World, Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, and Translucent.*
If some company out there could at least continue Kurosagi, I would be satisfied. (I've long given up on 3x3 Eyes considering how long and old it is). |
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iamthevastuniverse
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I loathe when companies never finish their print manga runs so many collections that will never see their complete run here in the states finished. I've always been very aware of Dark Horse titles over the years if they go so be it can't say I have a massive attachment to them. I would prefer to see all their unfinished titles actually finish their print runs at some point in the next decade by other manga companies willing to actually stick by the titles they release in print form.
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9834 Location: Virginia |
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@iamthevastuniverse
The problem is that there are so many manga out there that publishers are very unlikely to pick up a title that failed for a rival publisher or that was abandoned when a company went out of business. The only ones I'm aware of were a couple of titles that were picked up when ADV got out of the manga business. Yen press got Yotsuba! and TokyoPop got Aria. Even there TokyoPop had to be reincarnated to complete Aria. |
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5823 Location: Virginia, United States |
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I'll give them props for getting manga out there in the early days. I enjoyed many of their titles.
But Dark Horse also, failed to complete many series, even when they were almost finished. Cannon God Exaxxion, Seraphic Feather, Shadow Star, and Drakuun: Dragon Princess Army, are the unfinished ones for me. But they did finish Outlanders and Caravan Kidd for which I am eternally grateful. Today though, they don't have anything that interests me anymore and its been like that for some time. |
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Donkey-er
Posts: 99 |
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Quite a lot of DelRey titles found a new home at Kodansha USA (which makes sense of course). But otherwise I completely concur, best you can hope for in most cases is that a new publisher picks up the series for a digital-only release. On the other hand, Yen Press and Seven Seas are picking up series that seem like odd choices once in a while, so who knows. I just really hope they will finish the Berserk Deluxe editions without ruining the spine line or quality. |
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