Thursday, March 18, 2010

Udon Talks Mega Man Manga, Artbooks

Over the past couple months, UDON's managing editor Matt Moyaln has been answering user submitted questions at the Ask UDON forum of The Mega Man Network. Topics covered all sorts of bases like when is UDON distributing the Star Force/ Battle Network artbooks in the U.S, and the company's stance on as-of-yet untranslated Rockman manga (Mega Missions, Remix, etc.). Read up on the answers after the break...





On the subject of translating more Rockman manga the Mega Missions, etc. Matt Moylan had this to say...
"Would be nice to do something with the Mega Mission story, though the other stories in Remix are already part of our Megamix series. 'Orders to Destroy' is in volume 1(albeit an updated version), as is 'Metal Heart'.

But I wouldn't mind collection Mega Mission along with other Ariga misc items in a new volume. Things like his Mega Man 9 story, or other bits. Something to think about down the road."

Furthermore, Matt also spoke a little about Shigeto Ikehara's classic series manga...

"While this is also a very retro looking series, I find the Shigeto books look a little more polished than the Iwamoto X mangas, more like the work of an old master like Osamu Tezuka. But that is just a personal opinion, to the many readers they probably both look like 'old manga'.

It might sell better than the x mangas, I'm not sure. But with this series would come new hurdles. We'd have to really reasearch who owns the rights these days. I'm not sure it has ever been republished since it's original run, so those coudl still lie with Kodansha. There's also the problem of finding usable files, the original manga was probably printed with film output not digital. Some of the artwork is getting close to 20 years old, and it's very likely the original art is no longer in scanable condition(if it still exists). Our most likely choice we be to have to scan the artwork from the original books, which means finding 20 year old copies in good enough condition to scan. We have done this before but, it's a lot of work. The Rockman X and Megamix series are pretty old too, but they have both been reprinted over the years (both within the last 2 years even) so those files are readily available.

So, no plans on this one right now, but I am a fan of the art. Let's see how the Ariga books do first heh..."

Moving on, here's a little hint as to when we can expect the Battle Network, Star Force Official Complete Works artbooks...

"We're still working on the details of the Star Force & Battle Network art books. I am hoping to have both book ready before X-mas this year, but I can't confirm anything yet."


Speaking of Official Complete Works, Matt discussed a little about the diminishing availability of Zero Official Complete Works:
"Actually, we recently sold out completely of Mega Man Zero Official Complete Works, and amazon seems to be out of stock. Currently the only place I notice still has copies is the official Capcom store:


http://shop.capcom.c...s=1266035401814


Otherwise, with MM Zero Collection coming out this summer(I never had a GBA myself, so I know I'm getting it!), we are planning a new printing of the Mega Man Zero art book, but that probably won't be in stock until May 2010."

So, to recap...
  • There's an interest in compiling other Rockman manga from Mega Missions to Ariga's Rockman 9 adaption.
  • Would like to do something with Ikehara's classic series manga, but there's a few hurdles to overcome.
  • No specific date set for the BN/SF art books; hoping for a release before Christmas 2010.
  • Zero Official Complete Works is getting a repint to coincide with Zero Collection.

If you've got a question for UDON, feel free to shoot them a message over at the Ask Udon forum!

13 comments:

  1. I like the idea of compiling Mega Mission and other works by Ariga (I was actually wondering what they were going to do with the Mega Mission story since it was in Remix). I really hope they end up doing it. I'd really like to see the way Ariga draws X.

    Speaking of X, I hope Udon never publishes Iwamoto's X manga. I read a couple chapters over on manga fox. I think the story/art is terrible. Which is sad since X is my favorite series.

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  2. Yeah, I was shocked when I saw the Zero Complete Works's price on Amazon... Nearly 100 smackers for a used one! Heh... Pretty good, considering I got this one for free...

    I'd love to see the X mangas get over here, as well as learn more about that "Megamissions" thing...

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  3. Hmm...seems like a promising new bunch of material and ideas coming down the pike. Udon is a worthy ally with Capcom, I must say. Although now I wonder if I should purchase the current Zero Works. It would be nice if the re-print had a matching cover style of the Classic and X series books. :3

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  4. Dont forget that he has also commented that if Ariga's mangas do well, they might consider the Iwamoto mangas.
    (I sure hope they DO come this way eventually)

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  5. Mega Mission and the Rockman 9 manga could be with his Maniax comics. Dr. Auto is fun.

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  6. Any plans to a English MegaMan Battle Network OCW?

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  7. @anon: Did you not read the post?

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  8. I don't know about a Starforce OCW, but I certainly might buy MMBNOCW.

    Early MMBN ranks up there with MM and MMX. Starforce should have, too, but you couldn't do as much concept-to-reality translation (i.e. Viruses as enemies, Home Pages as hubworlds, Data Compression as shrinking Megaman, etc.) with radio wave ideas AND that the story already took the same DARKNESS turn in 2 as MMBN4 did which ruined all interest in it.

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  9. There was no real "darkness" in SSR. If you were talking about Noise, that was really a more similar concept to Bugs as opposed to Dark Power, since Noise wasn't really inherently evil. Then again, I guess you can consider it a composite of the two.

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  10. I'm especially excited about getting to work on the Battle Network and Star Force OCWs. :) Both are wonderful series that too often get unfairly and stupidly overlooked by "real" Mega Man fans (who really aren't, since they aren't able to appreciate Mega Man in all his incarnations).

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  11. I hope they also consider Ariga's upcoming Rockman 10 manga, which will be included in the R10 Image Soundtrack.

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  12. Anon 1, maybe you dont like it, but dont ill wish it for everyone else, WTF do you care if it comes here or not? if you dont like it, dont pay attention to it.

    Many of us DO want to read them. (considering Dr. Neko and Ayame Zero's X manga Scanlation, has been on hold since chapter 12 for God knows how long.)

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  13. Well as of now, from the research I've done, Shigeto Ikehara's Rockman 1, Rockman 2, and Rockman 7 mangas have been reprinted from 2011 to now, so maybe UDON can use those reprints to bring them over?

    Haven't seen the other Mega Man or Mega Man X mangas by Shigeto Ikehara reprinted and it appears that UDON is primarily focused on reprinting Hitoshi Ariga's material right now, but I seriously hope Shigeto Ikehara is localized sometime in the future! I've always considered it to be the closest we'll ever get to an Archie Comics adaption of Mega Man 4-Mega Man 7, and I really like how the artwork in the mangas look just like the Japanese artwork from the games Japanese releases!

    Anyways, I just hope UDON brings these over in some way or form!

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