Dark Horse CEO Talks Shojo Manga, CLAMP and Scanlations

Dark Horse CEO Mike Richardson talked with ICV2 about the comics biz, declining sales for shojo manga, Dark Horse's upcoming Japan / Korea / US publishing project with manga superstars CLAMP, webcomics and scanlations in 4-part interview.

In Part 1, Richardson talks about slowing sales for shojo manga, and how he hopes to keep teen shojo manga fans reading graphic novels well through their twenties, thirties and beyond:

"I think that much of the best material has been released. I think the overall level of quality has probably dropped somewhat...."

"Also, so many people entered that market, and for real fans of shojo -- their pocketbooks are strained in the attempt to keep up with all the assorted series. A number of companies jumped into that market and crowded it."

"I think that shojo is an interesting test of whether we can keep those readers, because they came to the market for specific material.... I think the trend toward what some call "comics lit" might be one direction those readers can go to as they mature, because there’s a variety of subject matter, a variety of graphic novel material that might be of interest to an older female reader."

Richardson also tackles other noteworthy topics for manga fans, including his take on webcomics in Part 2, Dark Horse's tough stance on scanlations and protecting its artists online rights, and he touches a bit on their upcoming collaboration with CLAMP in Part 3. Richardson ties things up in Part 4 as he chats about Dark Horses' various TV and movie projects, plus drops a hint about a "gigantic project working with another company," that they'll unveil sometime in the near future.

Image credit: © Dark Horse