Within the
last decade UDON Entertainment has been making of a name for
themselves. Releasing high quality comics, manga, prints, posters and
art books. The Canadian studio has built a strong fan base and a
force in publishing. CBNAH caught up with Ash Paulsen, Associate
Editor and Chris Butcher, Marketing Director of UDON to chat about
SDCC, UDON on ComiXology, Bravoman and more.
CBNAH: How
was SDCC this year for UDON? What was the best selling item at the
UDON booth?
ASH PAULSEN:
This year was an excellent one for UDON at SDCC! Our best-selling
item was definitely our core convention debut book for this year, the
holofoil hardcover edition of Mega Man 25 (hereinafter "MM25").
We were selling through our stock of MM25 so quickly within the first
hour or so of Preview Night that we had to hold some copies back for
Thursday through Sunday, just to ensure that other attendees would
have a crack at them! But even those sold within the first ten
minutes of the exhibit hall opening each morning, with hardcore Mega
Man fans lining up outside our booth for the chance to bring home
their own hardcover edition of MM25.
CHRIS
BUTCHER: MM25 was definitely our fastest seller, but our best-seller
was actually Street Fighter Origins: Akuma, the long-awaited graphic
novel by Chris Sarracini and Joe Ng! We sent a few more copies of it
to Comic-Con than MM25 because it weighed less (rush-shipping books
from overseas is expensive!), and we sold every one! Luckily we’ll
be doing online sales at UDONSTORE.com beginning August 1st, for
folks who couldn’t make it to Comic-Con to pick up our show
exclusives.
CBNAH:
Speaking of San Diego Comic Con, big news with several UDON titles
that will be available on ComiXology. How did the process come about?
CHRIS
BUTCHER: Honestly, ComiXology approached us about working together,
and since our fans had been asking us to put our comics on that
service for a while now, we accepted their lovely invitation. We’re
excited to bring our complete line of Street Fighter comics and
graphic novels to ComiXology, and we’ve been thrilled with how
clean and crisp the art looks! We’re also looking forward to
introducing fans to our original projects like Makeshift Miracle and
Random Veus, and a selection of our manga and artbook titles too!
CBNAH: Coming
out later this year will be Bravoman. Can you tell us what is
Bravoman?
ASH PAULSEN:
We're very excited to be working with ShiftyLook to release the first
volume of Bravoman later this year! Bravoman is a 25-year-old video
game that originally came out for the Turbo-Grafx 16 console. It's a
side-scrolling platfomer/action game that never really became that
well-known, but over the past year and a half or so, ShiftyLook -- a
division of video game publisher Namco Bandai that specializes in
revitalizing old and current Namco video game IPs and transforming
them into new mixed media properties -- has brought Bravoman back
stronger than ever with a popular web comic, web cartoon, and --
coming in August -- a new video game for mobile platforms.
UDON's
upcoming Bravoman Vol. 1 book focuses on the web comic, collecting
its first year of storylines as well as providing lots of bonuses for
fans in the form of tribute art, comments from the web comic's
creators, and more!
CBNAH: A few
years ago UDON release the Silent Mobius. Any chance of seeing UDON
picking up any original manga titles in the far future?
CHRIS
BUTCHER: The manga market is tough right now… We’ve actually
inquired after a few original properties over the past 12 months,
but unfortunately the rights were snapped up by other publishers
quickly! We’re always looking at all manner of new licensing and
translation opportunities, and expanding our art book line with
manga- and anime-related releases was a big move for us this past
year! I think it’s safe to say you’ll see more manga releases
from us in 2014.
CBNAH: This
year and in 2014, we'll see more artbooks coming out from UDON. What
books people should keep an eye on?
ASH PAULSEN:
We've got tons of art books coming out over the next year that we
know fans and newcomers will love - way more than I have room to talk
about here!
On the Capcom
front, we're very pleased that we've been able to answer one of our
plans' loudest pleas with the localization of Breath of Fire Official
Complete Works, which collects all the gorgeous artwork and character
designs from all five games in Capcom's classic Breath of Fire RPG
series. We're also showing fans of Falcom RPGs lots of love with a
localization of Ys: The Art Book and not one, but two art books based
on The Legend of Heroes series!
Of course,
we're also continuing our line of beloved Street Fighter graphic
novels with Super Street Fighter Vol. 2, as well as keeping our
legacy Street Fighter stories alive in a bigger and more beautiful
format than ever before with Street Fighter Classic Vol. 2 and the
new hardcover edition of Street Fighter IV: Wages of Sin, which
includes eight bonus stories and a new, six-page Juri story.
CHRIS
BUTCHER: For the rest of 2013 and 2014, in addition to the titles
we’ve mentioned, P4: Arena, the next book in our Persona series, is
going to blow people away. I’m also excited about our Hyperdimenson
Neptunia + Mk2 book, because the anime is airing now in Japan to
absolute rave reviews.
Oh, and
we’re happy to say that the long-delayed Eyes of Bayonetta art
book, probably our most-inquired-after project of all time, will make
its way to store shelves sometime in the next little while. I think
that one is going to make a LOT of people very happy!
CBNAH: Are
there any titles or art books that have floated under the radar that
people should check out?
ASH PAULSEN:
A personal favorite of a few of us here at UDON that has flown under
the radar a bit more than we'd like is Midori Foo's Book of Pictures,
which is just brimming with ridiculously gorgeous artwork, costume
designs, and more. The barrier of entry may be a little higher for
some because the art within is not based on an existing, well-known
IP, but don't let that deter you: this book is not to be missed and
is one of the most gorgeous, value-packed art books we've ever
localized!
CHRIS
BUTCHER: Oh I love the Midori Foo collection, it really is stunning.
The other two books that I think hardcore art book fans might not
know about are Shining Force Feather: Design Works and Atelier:
Artworks of Arland. Both of these feature the artworks of (arguably)
the most popular character designers in Japan, with Noizi Ito and
‘pako’ on SFF and Mel Kishida on Atelier. They’re beautiful
books, with special ink treatments, paper treatments, the whole nine
yards. Gorgeous stuff.
CBNAH: UDON
has been known to have a great working relationship with CAPCOM.
What's it like to work with CAPCOM?
ASH PAULSEN:
Capcom has been and is amazing to work with, and to have continuing
access to one of video gaming's deepest, most beloved well of
characters, worlds, and franchises is something we are always
thankful for. It can be said that our initial work with Capcom on
Street Fighter is what really propelled us into the public eye to
begin with, so even though we work with properties besides Capcom
ones now, our relationship with them continues to be one of our most
beneficial and rewarding professional partnerships. We're very
pleased to have been able to work so closely with Capcom and so many
of their flagship games and franchises such as Street Fighter, Mega
Man, Okami, Ace Attorney, and Darkstalkers, and we look forward to
our continuing relationship with Capcom benefiting fans over the next
year with our upcoming Breath of Fire, Devil May Cry, Dragon's Dogma,
and Asura's Wrath art books!
CHRIS
BUTCHER: I’m actually the newest hire at the company and had never
worked with licensors before, and had been warned by colleagues about
how difficult working on licensed properties can be…! But working
with Capcom has been great, there are a lot of passionate people
there that are just as excited to be working with us as we are with
them. I feel like we’re pretty lucky to have such a great
relationship.
CBNAH: Is
there anything you would like to say the fans who supported UDON and
its products throughout the years?
ASH PAULSEN:
This may sound trite, but it's so true: our fans mean everything to
us. It's you, the fans, who allow us to continue to prosper and
localize incredible Japanese and Korean art books that would
otherwise never see the light of day in the West, and we are so
thankful to each and every one of you, whether you are specifically
UDON fans, Capcom fans, Street Fighter fans, or just fans of
excellent art in general. It's precisely because we love our fans so
much that we directly listen to what you want and fulfill those
requests as much as possible -- after all, Breath of Fire Official
Complete Works and Ys: The Art Book are happening now because you,
our passionate fans, have been asking us to localize them! With that
in mind, if there are other art books you'd like to see us localize
in the future, be sure to let us know on our Facebook page or on
Twitter! The entire UDON crew is always on the lookout for new
projects to take on, and we at UDON are all about pleasing the fans
who have helped us become successful.