Do you think that Dark Horse Comics will release Leo manga?

[Metropolisforever]

Since they released the Astro Boy manga, maybe they should release the Kimba, Unico, and other characters familiar to American audiences manga.

[Red]

If they've published Astro, then certainly it wouldn't hurt to do the other 'cutesy' characters.
I'd love to see Leo...it's my second fave Tezuka creation. T3T

[Kevin]

hrm

you know what?

I would prefer it for Tokyo Pop or Udon Publishing to publish tezuka's works ^_^

They are a bit better with trying to keep things in order and stuff !:D!

[putrocca]

I doubt Viz would do Kimba because it's not very long and they prefer long series so they can profit from the gradual popularity buildup long series have. I'd say Dark Horse is more likely, since they do more small-press-ish stuff.

[Metropolisforever]

Tokyopop is known for publishing useless crap, like Love Horror.

[Huscheli]

Tokyopop publishes some of my favourite manga even if they don't have old stuff. Nobody cares if you don't like it...

[Metropolisforever]

I never said ALL the manga they published was useless crap.

[Huscheli]

You said "is known for publishing crap"
This implies "all" or "most", which isn't true. A lot of Tokyopop manga are great (at least for me). So, who cares.

[Ash]

[strobe_z]

[Metropolisforever]

What is "SF"?

I'm glad Tokyopop doesn't have any Tezuka series.

They might give them the usual hackjob.

That is bringing horrible thoughts into my mind...

"HOLY CRAP!!! This "Phoenix: Karma" book is way too Japanese-ish and artsy!"

"You're right. We need to localize it, modernize it, edit it, and add lots of vulgar american slang and excessive swearing."

[UnluckyLukeGR]

SF is science fiction. He's referring to Lost World, Next World, and Metropolis. But I would like to see a one-volume release, as it's a great series.

[Metropolisforever]

The other science-fiction books bombed, but the Astro Boy books did pretty well.

I can imagine the Kimba books might also do pretty well...

[cmoon]

Of all the presses mentioned, dark horse is probably the only likely choice, and I think even that is unlikely.

Astro probably DID NOT do well for Dark Horse. I copies of it laying around everywhere. One local store marked them to under half price just to get rid of them.

This of course won't change Dark Horse's desire to release Tezuka, though they certainly must now understand that it will probably be a money-losing venture unless they either find some different marketing strategies -or- do a really small run size.

It also still faces the delimma of how Africans are depicted in the comic, which would certainly be considered derogatory by today's standards and even back in the 60's caused Tezuka to omit showing any Africans in the original Kimba series (it is OK to have goofy looking white people, but goofy looking black people...ah, I'm sure Tezuka didn't get this at all, especially given that he was just copying the way Disney had drawn Africans.)

It seems to me that however publication of Jungle Emperor happens, it will only happen as a labor of love. So we might see it from some unexpected pressing plant. Perhaps even one of those presses that does underground comics.

For myself, I am amazed how things that were once mainstream fall out of popularity to a point of belonging more to avant-garde circles. We live in an age where smithsonian's anthology of american folk music is praised among weirdo-music collectors/outsiders (like myself), but entirely absense from any modern collective consciousness. Tezuka (and especially Leo) is like that too. Because it doesn't fit a pre-existing niche, it goes into the stratosphere.

[Metropolisforever]

A lot of stores don't have the Astro Boy books...