Forum - View topicTokyoPop in the newspaper comic pages? BLAH.
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The Xenos
 Posts: 1519 Location: Boston |
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I've been seeing this for over a year. I open up the comics section and every time I see this pathetic bit of TokyoPop marketing. They chop up one of their graphic novels, something never formatted for the newspaper page, and just plunk down two pages into the comics page. It simply doesn't work. There is no self containted story or chapter break. It's like two random pages. This week's was particularly bad.
They didn't even bother reformatting the panels to fix the space to a maximum. They have some pathetic book opening graphic which reduces the image size. As if comics in the paper weren't already squished. The tones and text suffer greatly for it. This is one of the most horrible uses of newspapers strips I've ever seen. Check it out yourself. Isn't this a mess? 
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michellebaby
Posts: 5 |
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of course it would be a small plug for their little OEL line. Get used to seeing more Tokyopop, now that their going the media market route, we might be bombared with them.
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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In my humble opinion the advert wasn't the worst thing on that page:
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Kagemusha
 Posts: 2783 Location: Boston |
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Well the modern funny-pages are an absolute joke anyways, so I can't say that TP's thinly veiled advertisement is all that out of place.
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Patachu
Past ANN Contributor
 Posts: 1325 Location: San Diego |
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They already lost the battle trying to win over the "hardcore" such as yourself, so why NOT try to find a less discerning readership?
This is called business. It is a thing they often do in modernized capitalist countries. |
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Hon'ya-chan
 Posts: 973 |
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And let's hope that capitalism deals a blow to TOKYOPOP and they file for Chapter 7 Liquidation. |
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The Xenos
Posts: 1519 Location: Boston |
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Chapter 7/11 even.
 Though really, I don't want to see them go under. Maybe. Maybe if they can flush out the idiots steering the ship onto the rocks, the the creators can finally have their day. They need to be under new management and get rid of the con artists running the show. If they do go chapter 11, I hope their Japanese licenses find better publishers and their American and world creators find a better company too. Wow. Why do I keep thinking TokyoPop sounds like Sciento.. um.. never mind.
I still like some Sunday funnies. Foxtrot and Get Fuzzy. Though ever since amazing ones like Calvin & Hobbes, Liberty Meadows, and even Boondocks gave up on them, it has been an uphill battle. Still, I don't think the medium is lost. If anything you have web comics which are closer to the Sunday funnies than most comics and manga. I'm surprised TokyoPop never went after any web comics. I see Dark Horse sweeping them up pretty well. I know Perry Bible Fellowship was syndicated in the alternative Boston paper The Weekly Dig. Plus I don't mind them using the Sunday newspapers. That's a good idea. It's just the way they've done it. It's so ass backwards. Why not at least try to fit full stories in. Maybe use the space more wisely. Recut the story to fit into the space. Ideally take something like a Japanese 4 panel comic strip, but I don't think TokyoPop has any. At least a previous attempt like Peach Fuzz somewhat fit in the space better. They're taking an adventure comic and release two pages with large action scenes that take up half a page? That's just not going to translate into two page excepts. Good idea. Horrible execution. |
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Tamaria
 Posts: 1512 Location: De Achterhoek |
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I wouldn't worry too much about the licenses, many of the good ones are Kodansha, right? We've got Kodansha USA now. Tokyopop will probably last a while longer, but it looks as if they are getting desperate. Now that they've saturated the market they really need to find new readers to sell their stuff too. Viz carries the major shounen series, Dark Horse and Delray seem to have loyal readers and Vertical and similar publishers go for the lovers of graphics novels in general. Is this newspaper going to help them? No. They're using the wrong medium for advertisement. A good syndicated comic strip is one that is accessable for everyone. The comics Tokyopop are trying to sell are: 1. Not all that interesting for the avarage reader of the funnies 2. Not meant to be read two pages at a time Waste of time, money and space. |
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marie-antoinette
 Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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I don't know, I think it's a decently effective advertisement. It's fairly traditional, as far as book advertising goes: excerpts have been used from text-based books for years.
I think the only reason anyone has a problem with it is that people love to attack TokyoPop and their OEL stuff. But in part that also shows that add was effective, because it got your attention, didn't it? And that's the number one challenge for advertising. |
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Tamaria
Posts: 1512 Location: De Achterhoek |
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It got the attention of someone who is already familair with Tokyopop and their comics, but does it get the attention of someone who isn't?
I'm not completely against Tokyopop, they've done some good work in the past. They helped put shoujo manga on the map while other companies were more conservative. However, they marketing schemes annoy the hell out of me. I like comics, I like manga, but I don't want to be associated with DJ Milky and a company that has a fake "hip" or "cool" attitude. Fortunatelly, it's only Tokyopop USA that does this stuff, the German branch is a pretty decent manga publisher. Tokyopop Germany reeled in many good licenses the past few years. Yotsuba&!, Emma, some major Shounen Jump series (including Death Note). They're even publishing comics such as Bone. Yes, they do have many of the comics Tokyopop dubbed "OEL manga" in their manga section, but it is not something they focus on. Tokyopop DE is (seems to be?) a much healthier company than Tokyopop USA. |
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marie-antoinette
Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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You're posting in the wrong place to get any sort of answer about that. But I wouldn't be surprised, because a lot of people read the comics (often that's the only part of the newspaper I read ) and are likely to at least glance at it to see what it is.
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The Xenos
Posts: 1519 Location: Boston |
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TokyoPop... publishing... Bone? Bizzaro. Though this further goes to illustrate that it's just another import. Just another comic .This time from US to German, not Japan to Germany. TokyoPop US has Gothic Sports from Germany. Though have have to wonder, does TokyoPop DE call Bone a 'manga'?
Yes, but those are text based and in decent readable chunks. This is using a random two page except from a full graphic novel in the middle of the Sunday comics. Plus, like I said, they didn't even utilize their space well. It's hardly readable, let alone able for anyone to follow. It's like a six panel comic strip of FoxTrot, but only posting the first two panels and calling it a preview. Who wants a preview in their Sunday comics? Why not a full strip? |
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Tamaria
Posts: 1512 Location: De Achterhoek |
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It's in Tokyopop DE's comic section. Here the website: http://www.tokyopop.de/ It's almost as if Tokyopop DE is going in the opposite direction of Tokyopop USA. I was just browsing the site and it appears they lowered the retail prices of all their single DVDs to €6.99. They want to see if price really makes that much of a difference. I know they don't see much of a future in anime, but if it's possible to sell 3-4 episode DVD's for €6,99 and still make a profit, they may pick up new licenses. |
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croakinglizard
Posts: 14 |
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Pretty sure they're serializing the entirety of volume one in order. |
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Hon'ya-chan
Posts: 973 |
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At this point already, I think they need to go into Chapter 7. They've done so much irreversible damage to the industry that an outright liquidation is the only solution. That, and the thought of buying the Princess Ai IP and destroying it in a furnace is a very interesting prospect. |
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