Interview: Dark Horse Manga Licensing Director Michael Gombos

Dark Horse Comics was, as Licensing Director Michael Gombos likes to say, publishing manga “before manga could sell.” It’s true: long before TokyoPop and Viz’s current domination of the manga landscape and the allowances of millions of teenagers, Dark Horse was publishing manga for English speaking audiences.

Recently, the company has published a large number of horror manga titles, including works from masters like Kazuo Umezu and Junji Ito, bringing many of these works to English for the first time.

I recently spoke with Gombos about Dark Horse’s history with manga, its present, its philosophy, and its future.

Without getting into specific numbers, how are Dark Horse’s horror manga titles performing? Has their been anything unexpected about their performance?

Quite well, actually. There are some titles that are performing really well, and some that are performing unexpectedly well. We released Rei Mikamoto’s Reiko the Zombie Shop alongside Hideshi Hino’s Lullabies from Hell, and as both titles did well, Reiko the Zombie Shop hit a nerve (in a good way) with the readers; it’s basically a comedy, but as gore-spattered as any manga you’ll find. In this respect, I suppose it’s not horror, but more splatter-core — and I can’t help but look at ‘Dark, but shining’ and not think that this is the perfect way to describe this title. Honestly, I think that a lot of these titles have a comedic element, and sometimes, it isn’t a dark or sardonic comedic element — but one that anyone could laugh at.

Reiko Vol. 5:
(After subconciously butchering the evil owner of a time-share campground, but not realizing anything happened the next day. The prior 6 pages literally had the girls waist-deep in viscera tearing entrails from the woman. This scene features them sitting and chatting happily, on the train home, as sun shines in):
Reiko: Didn’t that owner lady remind you of the woman from the movie Misery?
Azusa: What’s Misery? I’ve never seen it.
Reiko: It’s about a woman who spends the entire movie running for her life from a cyborg named ‘Misery’.

I think that for mainstream audiences, ‘comedy with horror sprinkles’ will resonate. However, extremely genuine horror titles always have a hint of comedy in them. I have heard that laughter and horror stem from the same part of the brain, so perhaps they enhance eachother? Reading the story “My deformed Fetus” by Hideshi Hino in Lullabies From Hell — I was sitting there reading it and laughing at the story while the art was disturbing — something you’d want in a horror title. Junji Ito’s work, on the other hand, is more likely to be enjoyed by people who might like The Ring or Saw, while Reiko the Zombie Shop or Lullabies from Hell would appeal to fans of anything George Romero does, or movies like Nightmare on Elm Street (any installment after the first).

Dark Horse has made a pretty aggressive move into horror manga over the past year or so with Scary Book, Museum of Terror, Ju-On, Octopus Girl, School Zone, etc. What convinced the company to make this push?

Part of this was the traditional success we had with titles like ‘The Ring’ and the Vampire Hunter ‘D’ novels (which I am classifying as horror, because there is Gothic Horror within these novels — and are included as ‘manga’, since they’re racked with manga in the stores). In the scheme of Japanese horror, both of these pieces are fairly recent, and we wanted to trace back and show English-speaking audiences where things started, and their linear progression up to and through the releases of the modern horror. Hideshi Hino’s Lullabies From Hell, Kazuo Umezu’s Scary Book and Junji Ito’s Museum of Terror are all perfect examples of this. Octopus Girl is famous because the creator, Toru Yamazaki, is an openly gay TV celebrity that has to be the most all-around talented person I could imagine — from writing books to acting to creating manga, this guy can do anything. School Zone was written by the Queen of Horror, Kanako Inuki, who started doing horror when there weren’t many female horror manga-ka on the scene. Since we did The Ring, Ju-on (both the manga and the novels) seemed like a natural move. We didn’t aim to just get horror titles, as that is a tactic sans any deeper thinking; we wanted to bring titles to English-speaking audiences that had something special about them — be it a renowned creator, something that was intrinsically comedy but iced with horror, etc. In a way, we weren’t trying to introduce a ‘true horror’ genre to English-speaking audiences, but doing what we have been doing all along… introducing the biggest talents of Japan. This time around, we happened to pick horror. So, think of it less as, “We’re doing a horror line,” and more of, “We’re introducing the greatest manga-ka, as we always have, and here is a look at the ones associated with Horror.”

The second wave of titles in the horror manga line - Mail, Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, etc. - are from creators who are perhaps less well-known in the U.S. than people like Ito and Umezu. Does this indicate that there’s a sufficiently developed market for horror manga to support titles that aren’t by marquee names?

Perhaps they are less well known, but to move onto to MPD Psycho, one of the yet-released but best-known horror manga ever created, we find that Shou-u Tajima is the aritst, with Eiji Otsuka doing the writing. Kurosagi CDS also has Otsuka writing, with Housui Yamazaki doing the art. Housui Yamazaki does the art and writing for MAIL, so I suppose that even if they’re not as well-known, there is a natural trackback from a pinnacle property.

If there is solid success in the market, to what do you attribute this success?

The quality of the actual property, and the quality of the English edition. Dark Horse doesn’t dump their manga into a mixing vat and then cookie-cut the manga out when they’re done, so no two titles look alike. You won’t find obtrusive Dark Horse logos covering a quarter of the book, because while we want to sell Dark Horse products, we’re trying to sell a quality manga, not just ’sell Dark Horse’.

Does the success of the line come more from the bookstore market or the Direct Market?

Both. Horror is one that sits pretty well with the direct market, given our success with the American Horror Comics (The Goon, Hellboy) that do so well there. Most manga is sold in bookstores, however, so there were lots of sales there; it’s an even mix.

Readers in the U.S. have been getting to know creators like Ito, Umezu, and Hino for a few years now. Are there many other major horror manga talents in Japan whose work isn’t available here yet?

Shou-u Tajima, who wrote MPD Psycho, which Dark Horse will be releasing next year. This title is the staple Horror Manga, against which other titles are defined, and many thought there’d never be an English release (Incidentally, Eiji Otuska, who wrote Coprse Delivery Service, also wrote this). There are thousands of horror manga and hundreds of creators — it’s just a shame that given our finite lifetimes, we won’t have a chance to expose English-language audiences to everthing that’s out there!

How do you determine what titles to license? What work do you do to help you project expected sales, etc.? How much is gut instinct?

Dark Horse is a privately held company, and the president, Mike Richardson, still has in active hand in all facets of what Dark Horse is doing. Mike and I head to Japan several times a year to meet with our partners and look for books. We have a manga committee, comprising of all of our manga editors, and the foremost expert in Manga/Anime in the English-speaking world, Carl Horn (who is also an editor) and we talk about what we’d like to do with Mike. If someone has an idea we’ll talk it out, but all OKs/NGs all come down to Mike R. That said, Dark Horse has a special position with Manga and, in fact, all of its books. We’re not owned by another company in Japan, nor do we license titles just for market share, nor are we worried about investors. As Mike has said in the past, “Sometimes it doesn’t matter if what people think. I’m the publisher, and I will publish what I want.” Mike means, however, that it doesn’t matter if some people say, “Why’d you publish that?” because many times he’ll respond, “Because it deserves to be published.”

Is bidding to license the titles that Dark Horse wants more competitive these days than 2 or 3 years ago? Moreso than 10 years ago?

Absolutely. In both cases. 10 years ago there wasn’t any competition. Mind you, we have a joke around here that, “Dark Horse has been publishing manga since before it could sell.” Incidentally, next year Oh My Goddess will become the longest currently-running manga series in English, as Ranma 1/2 comes to a close.

How does it happen that different books by a single creator end up with different publishers, like Umezu’s Scary Book going to Dark Horse, but his Drifting Classroom ending up at Viz. Presumably there are a lot of factors - the U.S. publishers, the Japanese license holder, the creator - but can you outline the mechanics of how these things work?

Here Gombos and I take the discussion to the phone. Manga licensing, it turns out, is pretty complicated and probably more involved than the casual reader wants to get. So, rather than bringing you through all the ins and outs, here are the highlights of our phone call:

Publishers generally control the titles in Asia, and thus Dark Horse will license manga from them. Much like in North American comics, manga creators often assign copyrights to publishers in exchange for publishing, upfront money, etc.

Sometimes Dark Horse will work directly with a creator in licensing titles, if the creator owns the copyright. Other times they go through an agent or intermediary, or in most cases, directly to the publisher of the original Japanese or Korean work.

Like in North American comics, creator rights and creator-ownership of titles is growing in Asia. Between that and rights reverting to creators after a certain period of time, many manga-ka are coming to control their work. Some of these creators go directly to Dark Horse for licensing.

The licensing landscape is competitive, and somewhat restricted, since manga publisher Viz’s parent companies, Shueisha and Shogakukan, are the two major manga publishers in Japan.

Now, back to the regular interview:

It seems that Asian horror is resonating with U.S. audiences a bit more strongly than domestic horror these days. What do you think it is about Asian horror that is so compelling?

Perhaps it’s not what is compelling about Asian horror, but what has become so un-compelling about domestic Horror?

Indeed. Do you have thoughts on that? What do you see as un-compelling in domestic horror?

This is a personal response, and doesn’t represent the views of Dark Horse or our associates, affiliates and partners. I’d like to answer this as a fan of Horror/Splatter, because I am indeed a fan.

I think that too much domestic horror is parodical. I see that SCREAM is classified as horror, but this is simply a parody of horror parodies. SCARY MOVIE does a great job of being a parody thrice-removed. However, I think that too much of current horror is ‘repurposed’ from older classic films, and will be viewed by many as parody.

I remember watching RINGU in my friend’s dorm room in college (in Japan). It was probably early 1998, and my friend worked at a video rental store, and we had advanced copies of RINGU and RASEN, the progenitors of the series (I am sure you know that RING 2 and RING BIRTHDAY, etc., only came after the commercial success of the RINGU. RASEN, which I thought was great, didn’t do as well critically. Incidentally, RINGU is what got me hooked on what Kadokawa was doing at all times). At any rate, I remember watching it and thinking: “This isn’t horror! Not by Western standards, at least… this is… this is Terror!” There wasn’t a drop of blood in the whole film, and it was still beyond frightening. I guess that compelling. Horror without blood. I thought it sparked a new genre of more-compelling horror, which could be known as ‘Terror’.

I suppose that I can watch most domestic horror films an expect to see blood at some point. However, I never feel that I know what is coming (in terms of how I will be terrified/shocked during the film) with Asian horror.

What’s coming up in the next year or 18 months for the Dark Horse horror manga line?

We’re on the verge of some big announcements, but one that can simply not be overlooked is MPD Psycho. Additionally, we’re keeping up with the on-going series, but we’re always trying to do new stuff. We recently launched a manhwa line (Korean comics), and there might be some horror-oriented titles that we’ll be announcing soon (though not strictly horror). There are about 6 or 7 titles I wish that I could announce — but hopefully I can tell you about them in the coming months!

MPD Psycho has something of a reputation among horror fans, partly thanks to the Takashi Miike miniseries, I’d bet, but also due to its scanlation, where’s it’s been available for some time. Now Dark Horse is releasing an officially licensed version. Scanlation groups are usually good about removing their work from the web once it’s been licensed, but there are bound to be files kicking around out there. What’s your view of scanlation?

Strictly speaking, I am aware that there are scanlations of MPD Psycho about, and I am happy to know that there is such a strong following to this wonderful property; it is certainly one that is devout to the property, and we appreciate their devotion.

However, Dark Horse has taken the steps to acquire the rights (as you have pointed out) to publish this in English through licensed, legal means. The only indicator that the Japanese would have about how much Americans/English-speaking audiences like the properties are by sales numbers. If scanlations would adversely affect sales numbers, how can we expect to have more great manga here for us to read? This is also the way that the creators get paid, and lets them know that English-speaking audiences love the work, and to give us more! So, if you like the series, buy the book and let everyone know! This will ensure a steady flow of fantastic manga coming in for us to enjoy for years to come.