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Frankly, I'm worried about the future of the (now former) ICE Kunion manhwa titles. While I am certainly grateful that Yen Press of the Hachette Group will be continuing all of these series, I am really worried about the quality of the volumes themselves.
One title of theirs I follow is the gorgeous and captivating One Thousand and One Nights. I shell out every time a new volume is published. During the interim in which nothing was available from either ICE or Yen, I was really worried that the series had been sucked into a black hole. I was wonderfully excited when the fourth volume became available through Yen Press...but when it arrived, I felt totally disappointed.
Although the new and old volumes are the same dimensions, they are certainly not the same. The new volumes have stiffer bindings, which means the illustrations become irretrievably lost in the gutter. I honestly worry I'm going to crack the spine trying to get a look at the entire page. The covers are super glossy, which is nice, but they're not on as heavy stock as the ICE version. The paper of the body of the volume is a brighter white but, again, it is flimsier than its previous incarnation. I shouldn't be able to see the outlines of the third page's illustrations from the first page. Also--and this is purely nit-picky--it's not as toothy as the old paper. It makes it that much harder for me to grasp and turn a single page. At eleven bucks plus tax, I'd really rather not risk ripping a page every time I try to turn one.
But for me, the biggest disappointment is the lack of color illustrations. ICE Kunion did an amazing job giving us full color pages at the beginnings of volumes one and three. Not just one illustration, but two, count them, two two pages of gorgeous color. (That makes four pages in total: one side of a page, a two-page spread, and another one-page at the end.) Volume two had no color at all, which puzzles me a bit, but I can understand not printing in color. It's expensive.
When the fourth volume arrived, I eagerly opened it, anticipating a continuation of the quality I expected. To my dismay, there was a single sided "color" drawing. It's on the same weight glossy paper as the Kunion colors, but this illustration was absolutely lacking. It is a very simple line drawing...in a single shade of red. There is nothing on the back side of the paper, but you can see the printing from the other side where the ink is heavier. Plus, the glossy paper isn't bright enough to support the red: the background "white" space looks positively blue, especially compared to the rest of the paper used in the body.
I'm really not happy. I honestly don't think the publisher should be charging the same price for an inferior product. If this is typical of Yen Press, I fear for the quality of all their publications, not just the ones I follow. It's not fair to the fans and it's definitely not fair to the creators. I mean, yeah, I'm glad that they didn't completely ignore the ICE Kunion titles, but they're doing a tremendous disservice to everyone involved by putting out a so-so product like this. It makes me wonder if, down the line, they're going to do other corner-cutting, like, say, leaving out the author and artist notes or cutting out "boring" or "irrelevant" panels or pages. I sincerely hope that never happens.
What bothers me the most? The average fan isn't necessarily going to be aware that they're not getting what they deserve. (I have a degree in this sort of thing. I know that doesn't make me an expert, but I am well informed and it does make me aware of what good craftsmanship is.) No one deserves something that's going to fall apart in a week or a month or a year from bad materials or workmanship. It should be able to hold up under multiple, multiple rereads and/or sharing with friends, and I worry that Yen Press's editions just won't last.
~ciao
One title of theirs I follow is the gorgeous and captivating One Thousand and One Nights. I shell out every time a new volume is published. During the interim in which nothing was available from either ICE or Yen, I was really worried that the series had been sucked into a black hole. I was wonderfully excited when the fourth volume became available through Yen Press...but when it arrived, I felt totally disappointed.
Although the new and old volumes are the same dimensions, they are certainly not the same. The new volumes have stiffer bindings, which means the illustrations become irretrievably lost in the gutter. I honestly worry I'm going to crack the spine trying to get a look at the entire page. The covers are super glossy, which is nice, but they're not on as heavy stock as the ICE version. The paper of the body of the volume is a brighter white but, again, it is flimsier than its previous incarnation. I shouldn't be able to see the outlines of the third page's illustrations from the first page. Also--and this is purely nit-picky--it's not as toothy as the old paper. It makes it that much harder for me to grasp and turn a single page. At eleven bucks plus tax, I'd really rather not risk ripping a page every time I try to turn one.
But for me, the biggest disappointment is the lack of color illustrations. ICE Kunion did an amazing job giving us full color pages at the beginnings of volumes one and three. Not just one illustration, but two, count them, two two pages of gorgeous color. (That makes four pages in total: one side of a page, a two-page spread, and another one-page at the end.) Volume two had no color at all, which puzzles me a bit, but I can understand not printing in color. It's expensive.
When the fourth volume arrived, I eagerly opened it, anticipating a continuation of the quality I expected. To my dismay, there was a single sided "color" drawing. It's on the same weight glossy paper as the Kunion colors, but this illustration was absolutely lacking. It is a very simple line drawing...in a single shade of red. There is nothing on the back side of the paper, but you can see the printing from the other side where the ink is heavier. Plus, the glossy paper isn't bright enough to support the red: the background "white" space looks positively blue, especially compared to the rest of the paper used in the body.
I'm really not happy. I honestly don't think the publisher should be charging the same price for an inferior product. If this is typical of Yen Press, I fear for the quality of all their publications, not just the ones I follow. It's not fair to the fans and it's definitely not fair to the creators. I mean, yeah, I'm glad that they didn't completely ignore the ICE Kunion titles, but they're doing a tremendous disservice to everyone involved by putting out a so-so product like this. It makes me wonder if, down the line, they're going to do other corner-cutting, like, say, leaving out the author and artist notes or cutting out "boring" or "irrelevant" panels or pages. I sincerely hope that never happens.
What bothers me the most? The average fan isn't necessarily going to be aware that they're not getting what they deserve. (I have a degree in this sort of thing. I know that doesn't make me an expert, but I am well informed and it does make me aware of what good craftsmanship is.) No one deserves something that's going to fall apart in a week or a month or a year from bad materials or workmanship. It should be able to hold up under multiple, multiple rereads and/or sharing with friends, and I worry that Yen Press's editions just won't last.
~ciao
