ICv2 has an interview up this morning with Paul Levitz, the CEO of DC, which owns CMX. I’m going to link directly to part three and part four of the interview, where he talks about CMX.
Here’s a quiz for the informed otaku: Go read the article, and tell me what’s not there. Answer at the bottom of the post!
Regarding recent acquisitions, he makes it clear that CMX is going to stay close to the middle of the road for now:
We’ve looked at some titles that were nonfiction, we’ve looked at titles that were at a wider creative range. We haven’t yet felt that we’ve had enough strength to do that in the market.
We probably have a more limited range of what would be at the far edge of R-rated to X-rated content than some publishers…. We’re probably not going to be the company that is going to push the limits to the extreme there.
Of course, TenTen comes up. Levitz gives us the company line here:
What happened on Tenjho Tenge is we did a series of changes in conjunction with the artist and the publisher of the material in Japan to give it the widest possible distribution in the U.S. The unedited material would not have been able to reach as many points of distribution. Part of what most of our partners aspire to in the manga business is they really want to affect the culture of the U.S. The U.S. is not the most lucrative market for a manga publisher or a manga artist. What they really want to do is bring their material to a larger number of people. If that requires alteration, some of them are not just happy to do that, but prefer to do that. I think we’ll always talk with our partners about how they want their material published in this country.
In other words, blame it on the manga-ka! On the other hand, the “otaku” (his word) reaction has been noted, and CMX probably won’t license anything they can’t print unedited. So he’s learning.
On trade dress and line expansion:
Right now I think CMX is a very young brand, and its identity is in formation. If we’re lucky and we build something that has real brand value, then you can start facing the challenge of what that brand means and what the boundaries are. The dominant players in the game here have had their brand expand to several different flavors. If that’s the model, that may work for CMX as well.
Then Stephanie Fierman comments on changes in the look of the books:
Fierman: We got some feedback from our distribution channels that a homogeneous approach to trade dress on CMX wasn’t doing us or the titles a service as it didn’t help the customers differentiate the titles on the shelf among a very large number of choices.
In CMX’s case, there were two other factors: After TenTen the brand name became a liability, and the initial trade dress was ugly. The last few books I’ve seen by them have been much more attractive. Now if only they could do something about the paper quality!
Part four talks about Megatokyo and manga in general, but I’m rushing to get out the door and can’t dwell on it now. But have you figured out what’s missing? Or rather, who is missing? It’s director of manga Asako Suzuki. How on earth can you have an entire interview about manga and not mention your director of manga? Especially because I believe, looking in from the outside, that Suzuki is largely responsible for the improvements we’ve seen. I can give Levitz credit for responding to the fans’ dismay over censoring, and changing the policies. But there’s no way they would win readers back without a really interesting line of titles, and that, I believe, is Suzuki’s doing. She seems to be the one who chooses the manga; she’s the one who finally spoke to the fans and took the heat; she’s the one who gives the interviews. The least he could have done is name-check her.
Overall, I think we’ve seen a marked improvement at CMX, and I’m not bothered that they don’t want to take chances as long as they bring in solid titles—and that means having an acquisitions editor who knows and loves manga.
I could not agree with you more about the lack of Suzuki drops. I got a chance to sit down with Asako at SDCC and she gave me practically everything that was mentioned above. Yet at the same time I felt she had a more personal connection to the readers as she was the person who personally picked the majority of DC’s titles over this year 2006. She is an avid reader of manga, a long time fan (I wonder if she would consider herself an otaku I don’t know). She might not be soley responsible for all of CMX’s changes but she and Jim Chadwick (manga editor) have really begun to give CMX a face.
I remember at NYCC, CMX apparently had some panel there, but it was not announced and it was hidden within a Wildstorm event. Coming off SDCC and Baltimore CC they were not looking pretty to fans. But the licenses started trickling in again from them. And as this summer’s main event approached the face of CMX emerged. Jim and Asako began doing interviews. They talked up existing titles, the new culture at CMX and some of their trials. The honesty earned my respect. And seeing them continue to develop as a publisher with their latest announcements I feel that these two, but particularly Asako, are trying to make sure people give CMX another chance.
They will have a tough of mad otaku to overcome. And I feel that announcements made in 2005 (the obscure shojo faze, which is something I feel every manga publisher that wants to be considered serious goes through) made it hard to take seriously for a while. But with some fun quirky releases (Omukae desu., Yubisaki Infinity) and some titles that really push the envelope – Emma (high quality but mature), Orfina (this style of fantasy has had trouble in this market and there is nudity here as well), Apothecaries Argentum (another high quality title that sounds like a title Fanfare might consider if they did shonen/shojo) and Canon (with its as Asako put it 80’s/early 90’s art style) – they are not sticking to the conservative play book anymore. And somehow I don’t think Paul is responsible for that. I don’t think the CEO of DC should either as its a huge business, but if CMX wants to continue to earn respect and trust (and scientific data says when people loose trust it takes 12 acts to gain it back) why not put your best face front and center. Right now for DC’s CMX its Asako more than anyone for me (no pressure if she reads this). But as a manga lover myself, I feel I can take her word on manga and that’s much more than I can say for other members of the manga industry (ouch did I say that.. ADV…. Infinity…).
You know, in retrospect I should add Chadwick as someone who should have been mentioned, because he also seems to communicate with the fans and also has a hand in the manga. When you have two people who are working to mend fences and bring in a quality product, it’s just tacky not to mention them.