Les editeurs des mangas, or "Who publishes this stuff?"

It appears that BD Erogène closed up shop around March, 2004: they closed their web site, and cancelled all of the work they had previously scheduled to come out. Many of their previous works have now gone out of print.

Casterman seems to lean toward one-shots or very short series (2 or 3 volumes), from authors we tend not to hear about too much in the West. A very interesting and unique catalog. Widely sold in Europe and Québec. Even U.S. bookstores have been known to carry some Casterman titles.

Casterman obviously took my (well-meaning) criticisms to heart, since in Fall, 2004, they started a new manga line with new editing standards and much faster production, Sakka (q.v.).

Now that they're publishing a broader range, Dargaud has started differentiating their line a bit - "Dark Kana" for what they considers their more "intense" titles (the Ghost in the Shell anime comic, and the manhwa title Angel Dick); "Big Kana" (inspired by Shougakukan's "Big Comics" line of magazines, I think) for more "mature" seinen titles like Monster; and "Pink Kana" (not my idea!) for shoujo works like Basara.

Recently they've started a new line, "Made in Japan," for somewhat quirkier works.

In 2002, however, Delcourt revived their manga business, in partnership with Akata, the new company founded by the ex-Tonkam founders. They now have a fairly broad line of fairly unusual titles out now. They seem to specialize in darker, more violent works. All I have seen are unflipped, reasonable in quality.

In fact, the delays are now tending toward infinity. Dybex seems to have lost its affiliation with Dynamic, and has published almost nothing in over a year now. It's unclear what will happen to the titles it had - I've heard variously that other publishers might get them, or that Dybex is working to reacquire licenses individually. My best guess is that they are only pursuing video licenses nowadays, and have pretty much given up on the manga business.

The latest news is that Dybex definitively lost their license for Berserk. This has been picked up by Glénat, which has already redone the first couple of volumes and promises to have new volumes out on a monthly basis. Dybex also says they've lost interest in Golden Boy and will not be doing any more of it, but claim they are still going to do more volumes in other series "by the end of the year." It's not clear to me which series those might be, though, since so far as I know, they actually finished the few other series they were doing. Dynit (Dynamic Italia) has done many other titles, but it seems dubious that Dybex is much inspired by their example.

The main complaint against Génération Comics is that they have a tendency to let things go out of print rapidly and then never reissue them. Unless you collect their volumes as they come out, it can be hard to get a complete set.

Most of Glénat's titles earlier titles were flipped, though some series such as Dr. Slump and Kenshin le Vagabond (Rurouni Kenshin) are unflipped. Currently, just like everyone else, most of their titles are unflipped - with, however, shoujo teen soap operas like Mint na Bokura a curious exception.

Glénat publishes in both smaller (tankoubon) and larger size; the longer series are all the smaller size, I believe. Glénat used an odd sort of "integral" slipcover on its older tankoubon-sized books. The paper used, though, seems good. Glénat's translation quality was a little variable in the past, though recent titles have for the most part been good.

Glénat publishes a lot of titles, but perhaps in consequence tends to be a bit slower in bringing out new volumes, with three or four month waits not uncommon. The most frequent knocks against Glénat is that they have been known to drop series halfway through; and that their editions can be lacking a bit esthetically (ugly covers, and occasionally sloppy touchup work, like massive sound effects covering up all the art). Widely sold in Europe and Québec.

Glénat has recently begun a number of moves to increase the quality and faithfulness of their editions. Touchup should be improved, and all new series will be brought out unflipped.

The books of theirs which I have seen are unflipped, with the katakana sound effects preserved. Some of their editions have a good reputation, but those translated by "Roger Marti" (apparently a pseudonym) such as Fly and Orange Road have more than their share of inaccuracies (some of which were real howlers...) J'ai lu's paper quality seems a step down from what I have seen. The ones I have are tankoubon sized, with separate slipcovers, and are quite inexpensive. While perhaps not the best quality around, J'ai lu's editions have to rank among the fastest: typically, they only do two titles at once, but bring out new volumes at a steady monthly rate. Widely sold in Europe and Québec.

With the dissolution of Média Systèmes, Manga Player suspended publication around the end of 1999. Since then, almost all of their catalog was picked up by a newly-formed entity, Pika Édition (q.v.)

Unfortunately, it looks like enthusiasm did not win out over lack of experience - after bringing out exactly five volumes in two series, Muteki seems to have bitten the dust. The web site is dead, and no new books have come out in months.

Pika titles are distributed through Hachette Livre, so are already widely available in Europe and Québec. In fact, U.S. bookstores ought to be able to obtain them, too, if you can convince the staff to order them.

Just as a curious aside, the word senpai/sempai, which of course just means "senior, elder" (as contrasted with kohai, "junior"), and is commonly used at school and at work in Japan, seems to have somehow attracted sexual connotations in pop French usage.

I guess they decided "Punch" sounded a little too British, and are changing their name to Taifu Comics.

By the way, there is a website for a wholesaler named Samurai Anime which seems to have some sort of vague connection with the old Samourai that I haven't quite figured out. However, they seem at least half-dead as well...

The Manga X line was mostly what might be considered "lighter" or more story-oriented than the average translated hentai title. Some of them were actually kind of cute, in a way.

Le Téméraire started their Manga X line with the big rush at the end of 1996, but they stopped abruptly a couple of years later and have now dropped out of the manga business completely. Some of their earlier volumes at least got caught up in the manga censorship craze, but I don't know if this influenced their demise.

Since the Manga X line is out of print now, you will have to scrounge around if you want to buy any of them. (BTW, the name "Le Téméraire" means "the headstrong.")

Most of their series are published in tankoubon size, with separate slipcovers, though Asatte Dance, for one, was in a larger format with fixed cover. Print and paper quality are usually at least OK, sometimes very good. Found in European B.D. shops, but only starting to show up in general bookstores. Tonkam's publishing schedule is all over the map, with anywhere from a couple of months to a year between volumes, depending on the series. Prices are also all over the map, with some of the cheapest and most expensive titles coming from Tonkam.

Availability in Canada of Tonkam titles used to be pretty bad, but this has much improved recently. In fact, it's a lot easier to find them in, say, Montreal than in most of France.

The books I have of theirs aren't bad (unflipped, OK paper), though the first couple of them would have benefitted from another editorial pass. I found their lettering kind of ugly, too. However, recent titles have improved considerably on both these scores; I think they're now one of the better publishers.

Availability at first was quite limited (European comics stores only), though this has also improved greatly of late, since they've entered into a partnership with Soleil, a (relatively) big French B.D. publisher.

Starting in 2004, Soleil/Végétal has begun branching out into manwha (Korean comics), still again with the shoujo emphasis.

Unfortunately, Végétal's website, which was sort of interesting in a quirky way, seems to have vanished, so we're only left with Soleil's "professional" (but in my opinion, kind of boring and ugly) one.