UDON: A FULL ON UPDATE

**MattBrady** · 05-23-2008, 07:10 AM

by Benjamin Ong Pang Kean

With the recent announcement that Devil's Due had secured several Capcom licenses, fans have been wondering about UDON and their Street Fighter comics.

In an interview with Germaine Giola, Senior V.P. of Capcom’s licensing department said that “UDON is certainly synonymous with Capcom and Street Fighter; More news to come soon on that subject, by the way!”

UDON is indeed synonymous with Capcom’s properties, especially Street Fighter, with the former having obtained the license to develop and create Street Fighter comics since 2003. Back then, UDON were partnered with Image Comics. A total of seven issues (including an #0 issue) were published under the Image banner and featured short stories from Joe Madureira (issue #1), Adam Warren (#2), Kevin Lau (#3), Kaare Andrews (#4) and Korean sensation Hyung Tae-Kim (#5).

UDON then entered into another publishing relationship with Devil’s Due when the latter set up its own publishing business in 2004. This time around, Salvador Larroca, Ale Garza, LeSean Thomas, Keron Grant, Andy Seto and Yasuhiro Nightow all contributed to the new Street Fighter comics.

An expansion of the Capcom line of comics was announced in 2004 with Darkstalkers and Rival Schools making their comic book appearances in a special 32-page, full-color Capcom Summer Special 2004 at Comic-Con International in San Diego.

In October 2005, UDON reorganized its operations and became a full-fledged and self-managing publisher of Street Fighter and Exalted comics.

With the 20th anniversary of the hugely popular Street Fighter video game series fast approaching and a new Street Fighter film, entitled Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li and will star Smallville’s Kristin Kreuk as Chun-Li and Michael Clarke Duncan as Balrog, Neal McDonough as M. Bison, Black Eyed Peas singer Taboo as Vega, in development and is scheduled for a 2009 release, we thought that it’s best to sit down with UDON’s Project Manager Jim Zubkavich for an update on their Capcom line of comics. We also touched on other plans and projects that the guys at UDON are currently working on.

Newsarama: Hi, Jim. Let’s set things straight, shall we? UDON still has the Street Fighter comic book license, right?

Jim Zubkavich: We still have the Street Fighter, Darkstalkers and Rival Schools licenses here at UDON. Although the license originally encompassed just original comic material and posters, we've been able to expand that to translated manga and artbook releases as well, slowly building a strong line up of related material.

One of the things we've done for the past three years is have a larger "tent pole" summer release, a deluxe volume of material for the fans.

In 2005 that was the Street Fighter: Eternal Challenge artbook, translated from the original Japanese version.

In 2006 we released the Street Fighter Ultimate Edition, collecting our first comic series and extra material in an oversized trade.

In 2007 we compiled a ton of our Capcom licensing artwork with never before released illustrations and tutorials into a deluxe artbook called UDON's Art of Capcom.

NRAMA: What plans have you guys got for the franchise? I know that there's this SF Tribute artbook coming up…

JZ: With the 20th anniversary of Street Fighter this year and the announcement of Street Fighter IV, we wanted to make sure our big summer release book was extra special. If this was an anniversary, we wanted to have a party and make sure as many people as possible were invited. So, from that came the idea for Street Fighter Tribute, a lush artbook featuring hundreds of artists illustrating the Street Fighter cast and reminiscing about their youth playing the game.

We cast the net wide and invited artists from all different creative circles - comics, video games, concept design and fine arts - to contribute to the book. We have a fantastic selection of pros that everyone will recognize - Adam Hughes, J. Scott Campbell, Sean 'Cheeks' Galloway, Mark Brooks, as well as a horde of artists who you may never have seen before this but who will definitely impress with their skill and creativity.

Then, to open up the floodgates even more, we had an open submission art contest where artists from all over the world submitted their illustrations for possible inclusion in the book. The response we received from online art communities was unbelievable, with more than 1300 submissions from all around the globe slamming our inbox in one month. Working with Capcom to narrow down the submissions and compiling illustrations from our invited artists gave us a wonderfully diverse and inspiring selection of art. In turn, Street Fighter Tribute, which will be available as a limited edition hardcover at conventions starting with San Diego Comic-Con and as a softcover in stores in September, is now a whopping 320 lush pages.

If fans want to pick up the limited edition hardcover version of Tribute and they're not heading to San Diego Comic-Con, Otakon, Toronto Fan Expo or PAX, they can pre-order it online (and see more samples at the same time) at: http://www.udonentertainment.com/streetfightertribute/

NRAMA: Moving on now, what can you tell us about Street Fighter II Turbo (12-issue maxi-series), Street Fighter Legends: Chun-Li (4-issue mini-series), and Street Fighter III (6-issue mini-series)?

JZ: We're finally back on track with our Street Fighter comic series, carefully building up a buffer so that the comic is as high quality as ever and comes out on time. We know how frustrating it can be for fans and retailers when product doesn't ship when it's supposed to and it's something we want to change about our release schedule. Having our creative teams get material in the can far ahead will keep us on track.

Street Fighter II Turbo picks up where our Street Fighter II series left off, but also allows new readers to easily jump on board. This is the big tournament battle arc, with more action and intensity than any of the Street Fighter comics we've done before. The plot lines we've been building up slam together in this series with dramatic effect. Newcomer Jeff 'Chamba' Cruz had the daunting task of following Alvin Lee on our flagship Street Fighter series but I can say with confidence that he's done a fantastic job of taking the reigns and blowing us away. Jeff's sense of dynamic energy is going to rock our readers.

Street Fighter Legends: Chun-Li continues our focus on a single character, this time putting Chun-Li in Hong Kong doing what she does best - kicking butt with style and grace. With the upcoming Street Fighter live-action movie focusing on Chun-Li, this is sort of a "what if UDON was making the Chun-Li movie" as a mini-series. As with our popular Sakura mini-series, Omar Dogan is at the art helm on this one, bringing his incredible detail and sharp rendering to the forefront.

Street Fighter III moves ahead to the next generation of fighters and finally gives fans of the SF3 cast a book to call their own. As we did with our Street Fighter II series, Ken Siu-Chong will be pulling together the many diverse story threads from the video game into a cohesive whole and expanding upon all of it to fill in the nooks and crannies. UDON mainstay Joe Ng is our penciller on this series and I can't wait until people see Joe kick this into high gear.

All three of these series (and a few other surprises) will be previewed in our Street Fighter Remix one-shot comic coming out this summer, with a jam piece cover by all three of our UDON Street Fighter art teams.

NRAMA: Any plans for more Rival Schools comic book projects?

JZ: At this point, unfortunately, no. The Rival Schools comic missed its mark and we're still deciding what we want to do next with it. We love the franchise and the characters, but at this point it's not the kind of comic/book market that's responding to a lesser known property like Rival Schools.

NRAMA: Will you guys be completing the Darkstalkers series at long last?

JZ: Darkstalkers is the property that will not die, which is appropriate considering its horror backdrop. Darkstalkers fans have come out of the woodwork, bought the trade paperback in surprising numbers through multiple printings and clamor for us to continue. We've heard them and hope to have something special to announce soon to keep the beasts at bay. We haven't forgotten about Darkstalkers, honest!

NRAMA: You guys are doing the Megaman Zero Official Complete Works as well? Are you pursuing the comic book rights for Megaman too?

JZ: The translated Megaman Zero Official Complete Works artbook was substantially delayed and actually should be in stores as people are reading this, or extremely soon after. It's a beautiful book with a shimmering cover that's going to 'zing' people from across a store. The Okami Official Complete Works artbook glimmering beside it that we're releasing at the same time won't hurt either.

At this point we want to keep focus on the licenses we do have, so no original Megaman comics are planned at this time. We love the property and would love to do something with it down the road, but we've got to get the rest of our publishing plans underway. That doesn't mean other translated Megaman products aren't a possibility though... hopefully we'll have more to announce soon on that front.

NRAMA: What about other comic projects that UDON has in the works? What have you guys been up to with the new manhwa line? What else is being planned for the coming months?

JZ: Our manhwa line is doing well! These translated Korean books are targeting a younger audience we've never had before and expanding our relationship with book stores all over North America. Beyond our original launch titles (Dorothy of Oz, Magical JxR and Chiro), we have new titles like Daring Students' Association, Chronicles of the Grim Peddler, Evyione and Reading Club coming out soon. We're committed to releasing great translated titles here in North America. Previews and much more are available at our www.koreanmanhwa.com website.

NRAMA: Outside of comics, you guys did work on the SF Alpha DVD cover, DC Direct's Ame-Comi line, Speed Racer video game, Konami UK Christmas card, Konami's New International Track & Field for Nintendo DS and more. Did I miss anything?

JZ: Although we haven't put out a new issue of our Capcom comic series in a while, things have been rolling behind the scenes and the company has been extremely busy. Comic people always ask us if the company is okay considering that we haven't put out new issues in so long. The answer is "Yes, we're doing great"! We're busier than ever.

UDON has two major "parts" - publishing and creative services. Before we ever started publishing our own books, we were a studio creating artwork almost exclusively for Marvel (Sentinel, Deadpool, Agent-X, Taskmaster, Marvel Mangaverse) and Wildstorm (Robotech, Thundercats). In a market as volatile as comics can be, collaborating with other companies on the creative services end keeps us healthy and builds up valuable business relationships. We love comics and want to create as many of them as possible but we also want to stay "in the black" and minimize our risk. Creative services projects - design and production artwork for video games, animation, magazines, RPGs and toys - are a way for us to broaden and diversify our output and keep our artists very busy. It's sad to think that comics alone doesn't "cut it", but that's the reality of independent publishing in this market sometimes. Juggling both is both a chore and a joy as we get to dabble in all kinds of different areas and broaden our fanbase at the same time.

We have a website set up specifically to show potential clients what we can do: www.udoncreative.com

If you check out the client list there, it's kind of crazy. While we were compiling it I was surprised at how many different companies we've had the honor of working with.

Admittedly, the video game thing doesn't really surprise anyone. It's obvious that we wear our video game hearts on our sleeve, so being able to contribute artwork to actual game releases is a natural fit. Video game developers, Capcom and many others, love our comics and want us involved with their productions.

Creating artwork and designs for Capcom's Super Street Fighter II HD game coming out on Xbox Live and the Playstation network is a dream come true for many of our artists. Designing New International Track & Field for Konami came out of a quick conversation at a trade show that blossomed into many months of design and development art for Omar Dogan. The Street Fighter Alpha movie DVD covers that Jeff Cruz illustrated came after we did a small insert comic for Manga Entertainment when they re-released the Street Fighter II anime movie on DVD. The Ame-Comi statuette designs by Noi Sackda for DC Direct grew out of other merchandising projects we've done for DC in the past. Covers for TokyoPop's upcoming Starcraft Frontline and Warcraft Legends manga series by UDON newcomer Saejin Oh came from an out-of-the-blue e-mail sent to our Creative Services department. At any one time we have quite a few different art assignments on the go. These kinds of projects are a good fit for who we are and what we do.

NRAMA: Will you be keeping to this business model in the near future?

JZ: Yes, although we want to make both aspects run smoother as we grow. We now have a better sense of scheduling our comic product and want to make regularity and dependability our chief publishing goal for the rest of 2008 and continuing through 2009. All of us here at UDON have learned a lot over the past couple of years and I think that's going to be clear as our comic line and other publishing plans unfold over the next year.

Having a job where we get to interact with so many different companies and play in their sandbox while also publishing our own books is an absolute roller coaster. It's never easy, but that's what makes it so fulfilling when the work is well received.

NRAMA: Finally, are there plans for your own creator-owned line of comics? Say, an in-house comic book imprint?

JZ: Well, we're honored to be publishing the highly regarded comic anthology Robot from Japan, as well as Apple, the new Korean anthology that's taking the Asian comic world by storm. Both of these beautiful comic anthologies reflect a wonderful blend of art and creativity, with original creations by top-notch artists. Both Wanimagazine (publisher of Robot in Japan) and Seoul Visualworks (publisher of Apple in Korea) have asked us when UDON would be jumping in to the fray with our own lush anthology book of original material, which is funny because... well, you get the idea. We'll have more to announce on that front, hopefully soon.

Whew, that's quite the slate of stuff. No wonder we're so busy!

Fans can keep up to date by checking out our UDON Blog at: www.udonentertainment.com/blog/
and see large jpegs of our diverse art output at our deviantArt page: http://udoncrew.deviantart.com/

Evilomar · 05-23-2008, 09:08 AM

Good to hear they are still planning to release more comics. I know most of their time has been spent doing the Street Fighter II HD game. Let's just hope of a monthly comic schedule of sorts.

NeroMan · 05-23-2008, 09:50 AM

I hope to see Udon this weekend at Anime North, if I can figureout how to get there.

The Udon guys are really great - I met Erik Ko at NYCC '06 and was all "You guys need the Fighting Evolution endings all in a book since they're the best part of the game!" and he was all "Well there's an issue with the rights.

Then in 2007 I saw Erik Ko and Matt Moylan at the Udon panel at FanExpo Canada (which was attended by, like, one other guy). And they were all "We have this book, it has arts." and I was like "But you said there were legal problems" and Erik was all "Yes, and now there aren't." So I felt obligated to buy the book.

And I saw Zub at TCAF and got a drawing of Rush because I couldn't think of a better character for him to draw which is quite lame of me but cool of him.

Because of delays, I just ordered it a bit more than a week ago and it arrived last wednesday.
And hopefully at Anime North I'll be able to get some sginatures in it. It even has these pages which are perfect for getting signatures on.

Is it true the company actually started here in Oakville?

MNM · 05-23-2008, 10:11 AM

Got to love all the open crotch shots of the women in that Streetfighter tribute cover!

ShinAkuma666 · 05-23-2008, 11:45 AM

Thanks for the much appreciated and needed update on UDON, their website is not enough up to date for my taste as comics are concerned.

It looks like they have so many projects going on at the same time, and I think in the past, it has taken a toll on their staff and schedule, hope it wont be the case in the near future.

Great to see that they are banking some of the comics before they released them, so they will ship on time when solicitated.

I.M.C. · 05-23-2008, 01:08 PM

Glad to see that I'm not the only one who has been wondering about Darkstalkers. Looking foreward to the new books. One book I'd like to see in thier Street Fighter Legends series of minis is one adapting Final Fight, sinc e the characters from that game has become so entwined in the Street Fighter mythos.

Sano · 05-23-2008, 01:28 PM

Lots of Capcom comics news on Newsarama lately. ME HAPPY!

grphxkindaguy · 05-23-2008, 01:54 PM

I have zero interest in Street Fighter, but Udon's Marvel work was a lot of fun to read.

IIRC, didn't they also do the artwork for the X-Men Evolution comic (based on the cartoon)?

santino · 05-23-2008, 02:26 PM

I really enjoyed their work on Agent X. Gail Simone + UDON? That was a fun read.

Blackthunder · 05-23-2008, 04:11 PM

I really love Udon's work ... but would actually like to see some. Sounds to me like not much is happening but atleast this corpse of a company still has a faint pulse.

What he said about Rival Schools is total bull "S" though. Eric Ko and ?(I can't remember right now ... Omar Dogan?) have said that Rival Schools is officially DEAD. D.E.A.D. They only had up to 4 issues to finish the series but killed it at 2. They were going to put out a collected works book (with all 4 issues and all backstories) but bitched out at the last minute. Eric Ko apparently says that Darkstalkers was not a good seller and that's why there isn't more of a desire to finish the very first story arc that they started how many years ago? Now this guys sings a different song. You should all really go to their http://udoncrew.deviantart.com/ page to get the real news of what they say and think and not what they want the press to see. Because what they say here seems to have some direct conflict with what they say on their own boards.

I love this company ... but they need to either finish what they start or just stop now. They're the only comic worse than "All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder".

Zubkavich · 05-23-2008, 05:33 PM

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