Come December of this year, DrMaster’s director of operations, Yuki Chung, may have a chance to breathe. The small Fremont, Calif., manga publisher will release the final installment of the 26-volume cooking manga Iron Wok Jan; its own original manga, Purgatory Kabuki by Japanese illustrator and video game developer Yasushi Suzuki, will be on shelves in retail chains and comic book stores throughout the country.
By picking its manga carefully, looking for unusual series and now adding original work, DrMaster is anticipating a small, independent manga house can compete with larger publishers. But the effort has made Chung "so stressed,” she said. “We're not trying to release mainstream manga into the market. We try to be as unique as possible,” she said.
DrMaster debuted in 2005 in the wake of the shutdown of Comics One, another small manga publisher. Comics One initially brought over Hong Kong licenses like Wing Shin Ma's Storm Riders and Andy Seto and Tony Wong's comics adaptation of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, as well as Japanese titles Crayon Shin-chan (currently licensed by CMX), Tomie (now with Dark Horse) and High School Girls (which DrMaster picked up). Like its manhwa and manga publishing twin, Infinity Studios, which also opened after Comics One closed, DrMaster picked up many of Comics One's licenses—including Iron Wok Jan and the forthcoming high school vampire series Dark Edge, set for release in April 2008.
DrMaster has six full-time employees, and its books are distributed by Diamond Comics and Diamond Book Distributors. But the small company has more ambitious plans, including licenses it has acquired on its own from Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong (including Chinese Hero) in addition to publishing original work. Suzuki’s Purgatory Kabuki is the story of a samurai's efforts to escape the underworld. The three-volume series debuts this December, and DrMaster also plans to publish Suzuki's one-shot manga, Phantom, in May 2008.
While most publishers pine for long-running manga series, Chung said that DrMaster now tries to limit its Japanese licenses to series that run only 10 or 12 volumes. Iron Wok Jan, as worthwhile and entertaining as it is, was a painful educational experience for the small publisher. DrMaster picked up the contract from Comics One at volume 13 and has followed through to its completion, but in that time it's gone through a number of translators. "Each translator has to read it from the beginning [for consistency] and they have to do a lot of research for things like the names of the food,” said Chung. Iron Wok Jan is a competitive cooking manga much like the Food Network's Iron Chef—except that all the dishes are Chinese. "There's a lot of Chinese food [in the manga] and the names have to be translated,” said Chung. “After a while, our translators didn't want to work on this manga anymore."
The publisher plans to release two to three books per month with seven to 12 books planned for the first half of 2008. Chung said the company plans to launch new manga series in the later half of 2008, as well as new comics series from the three Chinas—mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Chung sees the manga market in the U.S. as "flooded. Viz and Tokyopop release 20 volumes each per month. Who can afford to buy and read all that manga?"
Her company's position is to pursue a license based on the strength of the story and the quality of the artwork. "We really pick and choose our titles,” Chung said. "Everyone in our office has to like the title. If one person doesn't like it, then that can translate into 1,000 people in the audience who won't like it."
