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Forum - View topicNEWS: Fantagraphics Offers Wandering Son #7 in Kickstarter
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PingSoni
 Posts: 195 Location: Lansing MI |
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Although Wandering Son is one of the 39 books, there is unfortunately not a specific pledge for it. (I looked before I made my pledge.)
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AilisKnil
Posts: 87 |
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I might put up a bit of money for this in the coming weeks. Kind of assumed Wandering Son would be stuck in limbo at some point anyway, though. The market for comics - especially manga - aimed at older audiences is already small in the west; yet Fantagraphics went all out with these releases: huge, hardcover books of great quality but a list price that makes even me hesitant.
Hopefully they can get back on track, though. These guys are clearly serious about comics, and that's always a refreshing thing to see. |
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Utsuro no Hako
Posts: 1052 |
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If I'm going to pledge thirty-five or fifty dollars, I'd rather the gift be something I can't get from Amazon for twenty bucks -- and I doubt they could get any original art or signed copies from Japan without making the pledge level super expensive. I would've gone with the signed Eightball collection, but it's already sold out, so I opted for Uncle Scrooge collection signed by Don Rosa. |
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partially
Posts: 702 Location: Oz |
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Hmmm only interested in a couple of other things. And unfortunately one of those also had no pledge level, and the other was sold out.
Given all their pledges are primarily book specific, makes it difficult to pledge. You would think they could just make it a preorder for each book and have a fun little token for people who participate. Or even just make the book available on its own. I would prefer to give them $20 than Amazon $20. |
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TsunaReborn!
 Posts: 4713 Location: Cheltenham UK |
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If there was a pledge for a signed copy of Wandering Son or something along those lines I'd be straight there but I'm going to do some investigating into a couple of the others. I really hope WS isn't too effected by their unfortunate loss.
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Mr. sickVisionz
 Posts: 2175 |
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I'm leery of using Kickstarter not to fund a product, but to basically fund a company.
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Sailor S
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If they're already needing to fund Wandering Son via Kickstarter and it's only at the halfway point (7 of 15) then I don't hold high hopes for its future.
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partially
Posts: 702 Location: Oz |
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Well it isn't really a Kickstarter in a true sense, nor is it funding the company. It is as they explain an adaptation of the system they have used in the past where they go on bookselling drives when times are tight. In affect this is simply a bookselling drive on the Kickstarter platform. The company won't collapse if the KS fails, nor will these books not get published; but there would be significant delays to some titles, as they don't have the money to afford to print them all at once. For reasons well spelled out on the KS page. This is simply a natural consequence for a company running on as narrow a margin as FG does. They simply do not have reserve cash in the bank. Which means occasionally they need to tighten the wallet and look for other cash sources or delay titles. So basically all the KS is asking for is money so that you will get all the titles sooner, rather than delaying some till later.
I don't really see a problem with them using KS for this purpose. Especially as the pledge levels are well thought out, they aren't asking you to chop an arm and a leg for some dinky little specialty item. In fact I would say a lot of their offerings are for less than the items are worth. All in all I am rather impressed with their setup, with the exception that they don't allow preorder of the books on their own. They simply aren't trying to exploit their fanbase for extra cash, as so often seems to be the case with these KSs. Maybe I will get some face stickers. 
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dm
 Subscriber Posts: 1471 |
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Last year about this time they asked people to "subscribe", to volumes 4-6 of Wandering Son (I did, each volume has been delayed, but as has been noted here, they go all-out on the production quality). I'm pretty confident that they'll get pretty far into the series this way --- Fantagraphics is in it for the long haul (so am I --- I think I had the first volume of their Collected Pogo pre-ordered through a couple of years of publishing delays).
Do the Fantagraphics volumes of Wandering Son correspond to the Japanese volumes? They seem pretty thick for tankubon. (Checking, I guess they do --- the V7 cover on the Kickstarter page matches the cover of the Japanese v7 shown on amazon.co.jp, and the page counts are similar.) |
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zawa113
 Posts: 7358 |
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^Well the books are actually about 200 pages, so normal length. My assumption is that it probably follows the Japanese. I rather wish they had done omnibuses though, seeing how they release it at a snails pace (even 1.5 Japanese volumes per US volume would be fine), and unlike Bride's Story, I don't think it's really a series where glorified oversized pages and hardcover really add to it (hell, the mangaka admits she has a hard time drawing characters to look different). I'd rather they put them out a bit faster in slightly smaller (but still oversized, like the VizSig size) paperback honestly. Of course, they can't change now, then it's look weird, lol.
Anyway, I'll see how close they get, keep an eye on it. If they had a specific Wandering Son pledge, I'd have already gone for it. |
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sepherest
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I think this is actually a pretty cool way to use Kickstarter. Not only is Fantagraphics using it as a means to support themselves for the next season without disrupting their publishing schedule, it's also an opportunity for many fans to support or receive items from artists they like.
And for anyone wary of their ability to publish manga, many of the comic titles Fantagraphics releases are not only niche but much, much longer than any of the manga series they have licensed. |
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partially
Posts: 702 Location: Oz |
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I think it is more a case of how far over they go. Given they are just about to jump over $100k after 2 days, with plenty of time left. I don't think WS will be in any trouble for at least another couple of volumes. 
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Kosaka
Posts: 239 |
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At the moment, they are at $154,644 (over their goal by $4,644) with 22 days to go. They have added Wandering Son Vol. 7 (unsigned) as a reward option for a $40 pledge.
Kickstarter, Fantagraphics 2014 Spring Season, Update #1: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fantagraphicsbooks/fantagraphics-2014-spring-season-39-graphic-novels/posts/658350
Kickstarter, Fantagraphics 2014 Spring Season, Update #2: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fantagraphicsbooks/fantagraphics-2014-spring-season-39-graphic-novels/posts/660601 |
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