Barbara by DMP

[strobe_z]

Check out the news story on the front page - http://tezukainenglish.com/bm/news/dmp- ... er-c.shtml

DMP was successful in reprinting Swallwing the Earth through Kickstarter, so they've decided to try it again with an all-new work, Barbara.

It works on people pledging their support up front (basically pre-ordering it), so if you're interested (and you should be), head over and pledge right away.

I updated our Barbara page in advance, anticipating the announcement would benefit from people having a better understanding of what they're getting. Check it out here http://tezukainenglish.com/bm/series/ba ... ndex.shtml

Personally, I think this is a great way to get niche Tezuka titles published. Hopefully this is the first of many.

[AstroBBoy]

This is extremely exciting. Fingers crossed it gets full backing and they continue with some more 'new to english' titles!

[strobe_z]

Well, that was fast. The project got funded in 2 days flat.

Still I was a little surprised to see people uneasy about DMP using the Kickstarter model. Took me a while to figure out the problem, but I believe their worried about professionals muscling in on an amateur arena. The strange thing about that is it's a non-rival process. It's not like only the top ten projects at Kickstarter get funded... any project that enough people care about will get funded. So if companies are using the model for something other than it's originally intended consequence... I say more power to them.

[AstroBBoy]

I was actually surprised at how little they needed to get the project underway. $6000 didn't sound like enough to me to cover the hours in translations, adding the text to the images and printing, etc.
I'm not complaining, I am actually impressed they can do it so cheaply.

[strobe_z]

Oh, the $6500 doesn't cover much of any of that. I'd be surprised if it even covers the licensing fee alone. I'm not sure what the exact formula DMP used to come up with that number, but that's what they decided they needed to move forward with it. They will still have to recoup costs or (gasp) even turn a small profit through the regular sales channels.

[AprilSeven]

THANK YOU so much for posting this - I certainly would have missed it! I just created a thread about it over on ABO and linked it to the page here.

I became a supporter - and I'm hoping a lot of ABO members will follow suit. I do wish they could complete the translation of Astro Boy and other well known titles by Tezuka, too. In short . . . there is a LOT of work to be done, and a lot of people interested in reading (and later watching) his creations. If we all pull together, hopefully we can get the process in motion!

[strobe_z]

I'm gad to see you and (hopefully the rest of the gang over at ABO) supporting this project. It is a new way of doing this, and one I'm quite excited about.

I am curious about the Astro Boy comment. AFAIK (and I think that's a lot) there are only two Astro Boy stories that haven't been translated. I'm currently working on the Astro Boy series page for TiE, so I'm actually quite interested to hear if you know different.

[F-Man]

[Bigdog]

I forwarded 60 bucks to it so I could get the Swallowing of the Earth and the Speed Racer manga also.

I'm glad it has made $14,599 PLEDGED OF $6,500 GOAL. It seems like a very interesting story to read. Now.... how about we get KIMBA THE WHITE LION over here? I don't care if there are black people who look like aliens in them (I'm looking at you Black Jack) , I just want to read the story that inspired the famous anime.

[Jeffbert]

Whatever they publish, I will buy.