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Fantagraphics Steps into Manga Publishing

Fantagraphics plans a literary manga line

Kai Ming Cha -- Publishers Weekly, 3/15/2010 7:15:50 PM

Indie comics publisher Fantagraphics Books is the latest comics house to add manga publishing to its list. The Seattle-based company known for such artists as the Hernandez Bros, creators of the acclaimed Love and Rockets series, and for historical collections like The Complete Peanuts, will roll out a new manga line starting in September. Matt Thorn, Japanese translator, manga talent scout and professor at Kyoto Seika University, will secure Japanese licenses, oversee translations and will also act as editor for the line.

To debut the new line of Fantagraphics manga, the publisher will release, Drunken Dream, a collection of short stories from 1971-2007 by mangaka and pioneer of shojo manga Moto Hagio. Fantagraphics joins such notable U.S. indie comics publishers as Top Shelf and Drawn & Quarterly that also publishing manga.

The Fantagraphics manga line will publish four releases per year, with print runs projected to fall between 6000-8000 copies. "My approach is to publish smart, artistic, but accessible work that is well translated and has high production values," Thorn said. Thorn said he has grown weary of manga's current place in the U.S. market as disposable entertainment. The manga line will follow in Fantagraphics's tradition of publishing comics with literary merit.

"There is a vast mount of [manga] material out there for intelligent adults," Thorn said, "and yes, I think there is a market. In fact, I think it will become a major market." Fantagraphics president and co-publisher, Gary Groth, is also unconcerned about catering to an established market. "Our publishing philosophy is, if we publish something good, and we market it well, it will find a readership."

Fantagraphics has published manga in the past; in 1995 they released an anthology of underground manga titled Sake Jock and roughly eight years ago they published Anywhere but Here, a collection of comic strips by Tori Miki. However, manga has been largely in Groth's peripheral vision, and both Groth and Fantagraphics were slow to warm to the c category. Groth said his reluctance to publish manga was due to his perception that commercial manga lacked "literary worth."

However, the more Groth learned of the medium and of mangaka Moto Hagio, who Thorn interviewed for The Comics Journal, Fantagraphics publication of comics criticism, the more his opinion of manga changed. In 2005, the idea of publishing manga grew into a reality. Hagio, who helped reshape the comics industry in Japan and was the beginning of Japan's current system of women creating comics for girls and women, will be the guest of Fantagraphics at this summer's San Diego Comic-Con International.

Thorn plans to publish more of Hagio's work in the future, making her a pillar in Fantgraphics's manga line. Fantagraphics will also publish the nine volume series Wandering Son by Shimura Takako, the story of two middle schoolers grappling with gender identity.

"The initial release may give the impression that we're just targeting women," Thorn said. "But we are aiming for a gender balance, as well as a balance of mainstream and more Fantagraphics-like underground work. The common thread is well-crafted stories for thinking adult readers."

(used with permission from Publisher's Weekly) http://www.publishersweekly.com/