ON FIVE SETS OF RISING STARS: JEREMY ROSS ON TOKYOPOP'S RISING STARS OF MANGA

[MattBrady]

by Benjamin Ong Pang Kean

TOKYOPOP's national Rising Stars of Manga talent search contests have received thousands of entries from writers and artists of all ages who have been inspired by manga and anime. Winners from each contest have had their work published in a nationally distributed graphic novel. The fifth volume of the anthology series will be released in August.

The Rising Stars of Manga contest is an ongoing biannual (twice yearly) event and provides a unique forum for aspiring manga-ka. Who are the next generation of manga stars?

In the past three weeks, we’ve covered various Rising Stars of Manga winners and their projects such as Jess Stoncius’ Work Bites, Felipe Smith’s MBQ, M. Alice LeGrow’s Bizenghast, Amy Kim Ganter’s Sorcerers & Secretaries, Lindsay Cibos and Jared Hodges’ Peach Fuzz, Christy Lijewski’s RE:Play, Ron Kaulfersch and Mike Schwark’s Van Von Hunter, Irene Flores and Ashly Raiti’s Mark of the Succubus, Wes Abbott's Dogby Walks Alone and Shane Granger, who supplies the art for Jason Henderson and Tony Salvaggio’s Psy-Comm.

Today, we look at the past, present and future of TOKYOPOP’s Rising Stars of Manga with Jeremy Ross, Editorial Director of TOKYOPOP.

Newsarama: Let’s go back to the beginning - how did The Rising Stars of Manga originate?

Jeremy Ross: In late 2002, TOKYOPOP decided to launch The Rising Stars of Manga competition, and the result was an anthology featuring the ten winning entries published in May 2003. It was the first-ever manga competition in the U.S. —but it was not without international precedents. The Japanese manga publishing industry has traditionally relied on manga competitions to find a large percentage of the aspiring manga-ka that are capable of becoming professional artists.

NRAMA: What made TOKYOPOP decide to embark on this?

JR: The Rising Stars of Manga, or RSoM as we and our fans now call it, was part of a bold, new company plan to find, nurture and publish manga talent in the U.S. The goal was to identify great new artists who through their work would help us to expand the definition of manga and establish it as a world phenomenon. Every winner was offered a chance to pitch a graphic novel series to TOKYOPOP. We figured this was a great way to jump-start our program for publishing manga created outside of Asia.

NRAMA: How did TOKYOPOP view the manga market then and now?

JR: In 2002, the manga market was much smaller and the offerings consisted primarily of translated Japanese series. The core buyer was frequently an otaku, or hard-core manga fan, who followed the Japanese manga market closely and avidly anticipated the translated editions. Many fans had learned Japanese to be able to read the originals and often had posted their own scanlations on the Web or in IRC channels.

Between 2002 and 2005, the manga market experienced incredible growth in the U.S. unlike anything typically seen in book publishing. During this time, the audience became much broader, through word-of-mouth as well as through national media attention.

TOKYOPOP led the way in making the books available in channels outside the typical direct market, including bookstore chains, video and game stores, and even mass merchants. Librarians embraced manga. The readership established itself as more than 50% female. Graphic novels in trade paperback format experienced a major leap in popularity. Competitors publishing licensed manga emerged. More broadly, publishers of all kinds of sequential art began to release more graphic novels.

In the midst of all this, manga offerings began to become more diverse. A greater variety of manga became available—it became known for far more than just the big eyes and speed lines that had previously constituted the manga stereotype. TOKYOPOP was the first publisher to successfully sell Korean manga (known as manhwa in Korea) in the U.S. RSoM and a few other offerings from TOKYOPOP were the beginning of what has since become the largest publishing program in the world for manga created outside of Asia.

Most important, manga published for the first time in America began to find an audience who looked beyond its origins and recognized a fresh, exciting well of creativity. Sales this year have indicated a rewarding level of audience acceptance. More and more readers are now judging these manga on their own merits. Graphic novels once derided as wannabe Asian comics now can begin to stand on their own feet, and have been given a more-respectful label, OEL, for Original English Language manga. Several of them have hit the top 10 in Nielsen’s Bookscan ratings of all graphic novels sold in major book channels. Some do pretty well in the direct market, too.

NRAMA: So far, how many budding creators have participated in this?

JR: Every RSoM competition has netted hundreds of submissions. After five competitions, we have logged in more than 3,000 entries. We haven’t tallied up all the people who are repeat entrants, but our editors have noticed more than a few creators who keep stepping up to the plate. Most of them show tremendous improvement in their work each time, and some of them have eventually become winners as a result of their artistic growth.

NRAMA: Let’s name names – how about a list of RSoM winners and what projects that they're working on?

JR: To date, we have inked deals with 16 former winners on 13 projects, with many more in the works. Even some artists who have not yet won have been approached by our editors to pitch a project or join a creative team. Most of the deals are for graphic novel series, and some are for short back-up features that run in other books. Here’s a complete list of winners—who they are and what they’re working on for TOKYOPOP, along with one (Tania del Rio) who was tapped by Archie Comics for a manga makeover of Sabrina:



NRAMA: What are the future plans for RSoM?

JR: We will be announcing the sixth RSoM competition for U.S. residents soon, and chances are that the rules and requirements will be much like those for the last competition. We also just announced RSoM UK for residents of the British Isles and hope eventually to expand RSoM to other countries.

We added online judging of the finalists and a People’s Choice Award in the fifth U.S. competition and we plan to keep it. Reaction from fans was positive and our editors liked the addition—it was interesting to see how the online results compared to the votes of our staff judges, and it was cool to be able to present the 20 finalists online for a brief period of time.

In the future, look for more online components and possibly other competitions with different themes and challenges altogether.

NRAMA: Has RSoM generated the type of response and success that TOKYOPOP initially hoped for?

JR: It’s fair to say that RSoM has outperformed our expectations in several ways.

The growth in the quality and sophistication of work has been rewarding to witness.

RSoM has provided us with a greater number of signed deals than we expected.

Many fans and creators have gotten into it heavily. We could have never predicted the online response. Most notably, there’s an excellent discussion forum that sprang up at www.pseudome.net —the website of two former RSoM winners. They have provided a gathering place where people critique each other’s entries, help each other grow as artists, cheer on the winners and debate endlessly about the results.

All of this helps our mission to nurture manga artists and help provide both a culture and careers in which they can succeed.

The entrants’ work—and the competition itself—still have room to grow. Many of our RSoM applicants are in the earliest stages of their careers and we can’t wait to see what they can do when they gain more experience. We see a lot of entries from talented artists who face challenges as visual storytellers, and either need to develop matching story and dialogue skills or team up with partners who specialize in writing.

We’d also like to broaden the reach of RSoM and find ways to attract more entrants beyond our core aspiring manga-ka with an increasingly diverse set of backgrounds, skills and sensibilities.

NRAMA: Do you face any direct competitors in the same area at all?

JR: There aren’t many other competitions like RSoM outside of Asia. Right now, the Manga University contest is the main U.S. alternative to RSoM that we know of. There’s a few in Europe as well.

NRAMA: What kind of challenges came with something like this?

JR: Getting through each competition and producing a great looking book is the biggest challenge, and thanks to a lot of dedicated and smart people, we manage to do so every time.

Every competition the editors, judges and other staff participants have to overcome the tremendous challenge of logging, sorting and judging hundreds of entries while getting the rest of their work done. The rounds of judging are thorough, intensely debated and exhausting but ultimately rewarding.

Then there’s the scramble to meet pressing deadlines, call in reproduction-quality files for all of the winners’ work and ready the stories for the Web or the printing press. Kudos to our crack team in Production who constantly amaze us by solving countless technical problems so we can make the winners look their best—and, especially, making sure to squash the eternal gremlin that hounds reproduction of screen-toned sequential art: the dreaded moiré pattern!

Related articles:
TOKYOPOP’S RISING STARS I: JESS STONCIUS ON WORK BITES

TOKYOPOP’S RISING STARS II: FELIPE SMITH ON MBQ

TOKYOPOP’S RISING STARS III: M. ALICE LeGROW ON BIZENGHAST

TOKYOPOP'S RISING STARS IV: AMY KIM GANTER ON SORCERERS & SECRETARIES

RISING STARS OF MANGA V: LINDSAY CIBOS ON PEACH FUZZ

RISING STARS of MANGA VI: CHRISTY LIJEWSKI ON RE:PLAY

RISING STARS of MANGA VII: IRENE FLORES ON MARK OF THE SUCCUBUS

RISING STARS OF MANGA VIII: RON KAULFERSCH & MIKE SCHWARK ON VAN VON HUNTER

TOKYOPOP’S RISING STARS IX: SHANE GRANGER (WITH JASON HENDERSON & TONY SALVAGGIO) ON PSY-COMM

RISING STARS OF MANGA X: WES ABBOTT ON DOGBY WALKS ALONE

BECKY CLOONAN ON EAST COAST RISING

KEITH GIFFEN & BEN ROMAN ON I LUV HALLOWEEN

RIVKAH TALKS STEADY BEAT

JEN QUICK ON TOKYOPOP'S OFF*BEAT

JUSTIN BORING & GREG HILDEBRANDT JR. ON WAR ON FLESH

TOKYOPOP'S OEL MANGA PIONEERS: RIKKI & TAVISHA SIMONS