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1st One Piece Chapter's Original Art Boards Reproduced
posted on by Egan Loo
The Japanese publisher Shueisha announced on Monday that it will reproduce the original manga art boards that Eiichiro Oda drew for the first chapter of his One Piece pirate manga. The "One Piece Chapter 1 Reproduction Art Board Box: Romance Dawn" set will replicate all 53 original manuscript pages — including 16 in full color — in their original size. (Oda and other artists draw their manga on B4-size — or 9.84x13.9-inch — sheets before printers shrink the art about 50% for the magazine pages and even more for the book volumes.)
The reproduced art boards will feature glimpses of Oda's handwritten dialogue, the typeset dialogue affixed on top of his handwriting, and even the color inks seeping through to the reverse side of the sheets.
The box celebrates the fact that 200 million copies of One Piece are now in print. Oda is supervising the design of the box, which will come with a serial-numbered certificate. The print run is limited to pre-orders, and the box will ship on August 4 for 10,000 yen (about US$120).
As part of the celebration of the 200-millionth copy, this year's ninth issue of Weekly Shonen Jump shipped on Monday with a papercraft version of the pirates' Thousand Sunny ship. For subscribers of its email newsletter, Shueisha posted the same first chapter of One Piece with spoken dialogue by Mayumi Tanaka and other voice cast members. One Piece is also "hijacking" the cover of every Shueisha magazine in February, and Shueisha is plastering Tokyo's Shibuya train station with posters for the campaign.
Source: Neowing, Comic Natalie (link 2)
