Digital Manga Mixes Things Up
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on Nov. 15, 2005 Sign up now!
By Kai-Ming Cha -- Publishers Weekly, 11/15/2005
Best known for yaoi manga like Only the Ring Finger Knows and 'the How to Draw Manga series, Digital Manga Publishing's unusual list offers cutting-edge illustrators as well as a series of biographical manga—the company even has plans to release prose. It's a multifaceted media firm that also runs the Manga Academy, a popular online how-to manga course, and Pop Japan Travel, a travel agency specializing in bringing American otaku to visit Japan.
Despite a U.S. market dominated by commercial manga, DMP experiments, bringing over new genres of manga. Hiroshi Takahashi's works are yanki manga—yanki being the term for young gangsters or yakuzas in training. In Worst, country boy Hana Tsukishima comes to town for high school and ends up rooming with four of the most notorious yanki in the city. DMP has also licensed the not-quite-shonen, not-quite-shojo alternative comic Bambi and Her Pink Gun, an outrageous take on aging gangsters, featuring a tough, diet-conscious, pink-haired chick, that has been compared to the work of Quentin Tarantino.
The latest project to come from DMP is Range Murata's Robot, an anthology of inventive Japanese illustrators handpicked by Murata. A full-color, oversized book, Robot includes artwork and storylines from Murata himself and Yoshitoshi Abe, whose Lain Illustrations will also be published by DM. In Japan, Robot is up to volume 4. Volume one was released in the U.S. this past summer and volume 2 is set for March 2006. "Range did this to do something different for the industry," says Lew. "His guidelines were, 'Draw what you want to draw, make what you want to make, just make sure it's hot and that you believe in it.' "
Another DMP project set to launch is a series of edumanga, biographical manga licensed from Kodansha about historical figures such as Helen Keller "Our tagline: good for the brain," says Lew. "We'd like the series to find its place in libraries, schools, stores. It's something that parents can give their kids as a stocking stuffer."
But the company doesn't only publish books. DMP has an affiliate Web site that offers tours of Japan. Pop Japan Travel takes groups of 20-25 to visit districts like Akibahara and Shibuya and go behind the scenes at places like Studio Gonzo for a hands-on viewing and to meet creators. Pop Japan offers three to four tours per year; once in the winter, and twice in spring and once over the summer. When PWCW spoke to Lew, he had just returned from the 10th trip. "Some people will cosplay every day of the tour," Lew says describing the fans the tour attracts. "There's nothing more interesting than gaijin [foreigners] wearing purple and blue wigs. We've been on Japanese TV three or four times."
DM also runs the Manga Academy, a free online course that teaches students how to draw manga. MA is 10,000 students strong and has had faculty like Rivka (Steady Beat) and students such as Felipe Smith (MBQ), both of whom publish with Tokyopop. Digital Manga will also begin publishing How to Read Manga books that will help readers understand Japanese cultural nuances in manga.
Gloom Party, which is planned for February, contains hardcore sexual material; and next summer, DMP is releasing My Husband Is a Foreigner, a story about a Japanese manga artist living with her foreign husband in Japan. DM will also continue its line of yaoi (boys' love manga) with the prose novelization of Only the Ring Finger Knows, which picks up where volume one of the manga left off.
"We're trying to do unique things." Lew says of the company. "We're only seeing a small percent of what's available in Japan [here in the American market]. We're crowded by shojo titles and magical schoolgirl ideals. There are other stories out there that people can attach themselves to."
