Studio Proteus
Encyclopedia
Studio Proteus is a Japanese manga
import, translation and lettering company, founded in 1986 by Toren Smith
and based in San Francisco. Other staff included translators Dana Lewis
and Frederik Schodt, letterer Tom Orzechowski
and translator/letterer Tomoko Saito. The company worked with many different publishers, including Viz Media
, Innovation Publishing
and Eclipse Comics
, but its main outlets were Dark Horse
for mainstream titles and Fantagraphics' imprint Eros Comix
for adult (hentai
) titles.
and manga
after being introduced to it by James D. Hudnall
in 1982. Smith had been involved in the comics business as a writer for several years, doing stories for Marvel's Epic magazine and Eclipse Comics
. He felt that there was a market for Japanese comics (manga) in the United States, and with Hudnall, approached Eclipse Comics with the idea of obtaining rights to various titles including Akira
. The unknowns and difficulties of dealing with Japanese publishers led that first attempt to fail. Smith then decided that the only solution was for him to go to Japan and arrange things directly. At about this time, noted manga expert Frederik Schodt introduced Smith to Seiji Horibuchi, who was then planning the foundation of the company that would be called Viz Media. Schodt felt that Smith's knowledge of the American comics industry and Horibuchi's connections to Japanese publishing giant Shogakkukan would make an ideal team. However, a falling-out between Smith and Horibuchi after a year of working together to start Viz led Smith to found his own company, Studio Proteus, although Smith co-translated several manga for Viz, including Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind
(at the express request of the creator, Hayao Miyazaki
).
In 1986, Smith moved to Japan to try to license manga for publication in America, having previously made arrangements with Eclipse Comics to provide the publication support. Studio Proteus was designed to be a "packager", delivering completed materials to an existing publisher. Studio Proteus would be responsible for choice (with approval of the American publisher), acquisition (contracts and negotiations with the licensor), and production of the translation and lettering, delivering completed pages to the publisher. The publisher would be responsible for advertising and soliciting sales, arranging for distribution, plus collection and disbursement of income. While the industry term "packager" is more accurate, to avoid confusion the relationship was generally referred to as "co-publishing". Smith preferred to work on a profit-sharing basis, believing it led to a greater sense of responsibility on both sides. Smith also insisted on shared ownership of the derivative copyright in the translations, which was to save his company in the future. By the early nineties, Studio Proteus was working with three publishers: Eclipse Comics, Innovation Publishing
and Dark Horse
. Work with Eclipse had begun within a few months of Smith's first trip to Japan. When Eclipse did not want to open any more publishing slots for manga, Smith went to the San Diego Comic Con in 1988 and licensed Johji Manabe
's Outlanders to the fledgling Dark Horse Comics. Smith originally was unable to sell the comic to Dark Horse, but met fantasy writer Raymond E. Feist
for dinner that evening. Feist gave Smith the advice he considers the most valuable business advice of his career: "Don't tell them how good it is; tell them how much money they are going to make." The following day Smith sold Outlanders to Dark Horse and Yuzo Takada
's 3x3 Eyes to Innovation.
Studio Proteus was, from the beginning, quality oriented. Smith refused to work from photocopies of published books, instead shooting directly from the original art. The techniques for retouching the sound effects were developed by award-winning comics letterer Thomas Orzechowski, and later refined by Japanese manga artist Tomoko Saito. All translators had over a decade of experience and had written books, magazine articles, and fiction outside of their translation work. To encourage quality production, page rates for Studio Proteus letterers and translators were the highest in the industry, and they were also paid royalties—a practice unique to Studio Proteus. In some cases, original covers were commissioned from the manga artists themselves.
The early years of publishing manga in America were surprisingly successful, buoyed by the new popularity of black and white comics in the direct sales market, and Marvel's bestselling colorized version of Akira
. This grace period came to an end when the black and white comics boom imploded in 1988. Both Viz and Studio Proteus had been experimenting with a wide variety of manga genres, but when the market tightened only those which appealed to the core "comic book store" market survived. It was not to be until the early 21st century that manga would again cover so large a range of subjects.
Studio Proteus was heavily involved in the promotion of manga and anime during the early years, and Smith gave numerous interviews, appeared on television and radio (including MTV
and Canada's Basic Black
), and spoke at Georgetown University and the Smithsonian as well as writing dozens of articles for magazines. Working together with anime company Gainax
, Studio Proteus also organized the first large anime and manga convention, AnimeCon
'91. However, Smith publicly admitted that, as a very private person, he was not fond of these promotional activities. As soon as other spokespeople for manga and anime appeared (such as Trish Ledoux of Animag), he retired from the public eye and rarely gave interviews after approximately 1993.
In 1994, due to Eclipse Comics' failure to pay owed profit share monies, Studio Proteus legally acquired all shared translation rights and production materials for all of their co-published manga. These were re-licensed to Dark Horse Comics and immediately made Dark Horse the second largest manga publisher in America. When Eclipse declared bankruptcy, Smith paid all outstanding royalties due to his Japanese licensors out of existing Studio Proteus funds.
All Studio Proteus titles were Toren Smith's personal picks, which were then accepted and approved by the publishers. If it was rejected by the first publisher, it was offered to another. If rejected by all, it was abandoned. Smith's instincts turned out to almost always be right, even when his thinking was highly unconventional. In 1994 Smith convinced Dark Horse to publish Oh My Goddess!
, although Dark Horse had so little faith in this manga (despite cross promotion with the AnimEigo
OAV release), Smith had to guarantee them against losses. Oh My Goddess! became a surprise hit, and for years was one of Dark Horse's bestselling manga titles. In addition, it was one of the first translated manga to attract a large female audience, along with Ranma ½
.
and Studio Proteus was one of the two largest manga publishers in the U.S., competing with Viz. The crash of the direct sales market in the middle nineties had a tremendous impact on the manga business, another blow after the previous bust in 1988. By the time the market had reorganized, there was only one distributor left (Diamond Distributors) and over half of the comic stores in America were out of business. Manga's growing popularity saved it from the worst, but nearly one third of all manga titles were canceled due to lack of sales, and continuing difficulty in getting the trade paperback collections (graphic novels) into bookstores left manga stalled in the marketplace for several years. Studio Proteus responded by streamlining the production process and working with smaller bookstore distributors to whom manga represented a valuable percentage of their sales.
The slump in the comics market in the late 1990s affected the sales of all manga published in America. None of the attempts by American manga publishers to create a manga anthology magazine such as Tokyopop Magazine
and Viz's Animerica Extra
with several stories running simultaneously were very successful at this time, and were mostly viewed as loss-leaders for future sales of the collections. The Dark Horse/Studio Proteus magazine, Super Manga Blast gave Smith an opportunity to bring readers in via titles of known popularity, such as Oh My Goddess!, and get them to try something different, such as Club 9
.
manga became increasingly popular, fans berated Studio Proteus and Dark Horse for not releasing any shōjo, despite Smith's repeated explanation that since he did not enjoy shōjo manga, and knew little about it, he had no interest in releasing any. Studio Proteus' initial output was predominantly science fiction and action; this may have reflected Smith's tastes as a writer and member of SFWA
, but also reflected the tastes of the American comics direct market
(who were the primary purchasers of manga at that time) and manga fandom of the 1980s and 1990s. However, Studio Proteus also released non–science fiction manga such as Makoto Kobayashi's relationship comedy Club 9 and the pet manga What's Michael?
)
However, Toren Smith continued to vocally defend "flopped" manga up until 2002, at a time when it was growing unpopular even among mainstream manga fandom. He became perceived as a conservative force in manga publishing, despite his publication of non-mainstream manga such as the transhumanist
manga Version, and The Rebel Sword, a manga about Kurdish revolutionaries, and his decades of effort in popularizing manga and dedication to quality production. However, by the end of 2002, Smith was convinced that his belief that readers would have difficulty adapting to read manga "backwards" (also known as "unflopped", reading right to left as in the original Japanese publication) was incorrect, citing the fact that an entire generation of new manga readers have grown up since he had started Studio Proteus and they did not have the mindset of early manga readers, most of whom came to manga from regular comics. However, he maintained that as long as the distributors were reluctant to buy unflopped manga, there was little anyone could do to try to change the industry.
At that time, the comic book direct market
was still shrinking, while manga sales in bookstores were growing, although not very quickly. Smith had pointed out for many years that the problem with the bookstore market was a lack of support from the buyers at the chains, and lack of designated shelf space (comics were often racked with art books or science fiction and fantasy). Smith often cited Tokyopop
's poor sales of their first experiments with unflopped manga as proof the problem was very real. In 2002, Dark Horse's graphic novel distributor LPC Group went bankrupt, hurting the presence of Dark Horse (and thus Studio Proteus) manga in bookstores. The fortunes of manga in America were changed forever that year when Kurt Hassler of Borders (who has been called "The Most Powerful Person in Manga" by ICV2, a designation Smith has publicly agreed with, adding that he considers him "[T]he most important person in the history of American manga") successfully persuaded Waldenbooks to commit to racking a large quantity of unflopped manga titles, even placing them in "dump bins" near the cash registers. This was the turning point for manga sales in America, and the resulting success of what is now considered a "standard" manga (small, unflopped paperbacks at approximately $9.99) more than doubled the size of established manga publishers such as Viz, and raised Tokyopop (Waldenbooks' partner in the venture) to prominence. However, the upheaval in the manga market caused by Hassler's opening of the door to bulk sales of unflopped manga spelled the end for Super Manga Blast and in the chaos surrounding the conversion of most of Dark Horse's manga to the prevailing unflopped standard, almost none of the series running in the magazine were continued as graphic novels, even though some (such as Club 9) had already been completed.)
While Smith had finally become comfortable with the idea of unflopped manga now that bookstores were willing to buy it, it had become clear that the industry was becoming big business, with publishers such as Del Rey and DC getting involved in manga, and Japanese companies such as Shogakkukan beginning to treat their American operations as serious businesses instead of sidelines. "I'm just a manga fan who started my company because no one else was [publishing manga in English]," he commented on the Studio Proteus website http://www.studioproteus.com. "To move ahead now would require me to become more of a corporate type, and I know that's not for me."
In February 2004, Dark Horse Comics announced that it had purchased the publication rights to Studio Proteus translations (not, as was widely and erroneously reported, the company itself). Toren Smith stayed on as an adviser and translator for selected titles, but by 2006 he had left completely. In a 2004 interview with The Comics Journal
, he expressed his reasons for essentially selling the company he had founded: "I was burning out. Over 15 years I had put out 70,000 pages of manga. I had no life...Tokyopop puts out more in a month than I've put out in my entire career. The manga business kind of moved out of my league. But if anyone believes that expansion can continue indefinitely, they're incorrect. Booms are always followed by a bust...My opinion is that what has occurred is the commodification of the product. All [bookstore retailers] care about is how it's formatted and what it costs...For a long time, America has seen nothing but the best of the Japanese comics, but there's lots of crap over there. There may be some smart bookstore buyers out there who can distinguish between them, but I've never met them." His controversial predictions—informed by his experience with the comics crashes of the 80s and 90s—were borne out and the manga industry has weathered a severe boom-and-bust cycle since then, with publishers such as Tokyopop cutting their releases by over 40% in June 2008, and laying off 36 employees, and laying off 15 more employees in December 2008 and others (e.g. Broccoli Books) pulling out of the market entirely. The trend has continued with Viz cutting 60 personnel and DC shutting down their CMX manga imprint and Tokyopop finally shuttering their U.S. publishing operations in May 2011. However, Smith also predicted the market would eventually stabilize at a sustainable level and not disappear completely.
Smith has stated that he is "regretful" that the flopped/non-flopped controversy of the last few years of his career seem to have overshadowed his twenty years of fighting to promote and publish quality manga.
The last manga produced by Studio Proteus staff in the flipped, left-to-right, American comic format was the Blade of the Immortal
#131 in November 2007, making it the longest-running manga ever published in the American format. The series then moved to graphic-novel-only format.
Toren Smith has also done manga work outside of Studio Proteus, such as editing Tori Miki's Anywhere But Here, writing afterwords for various manga collections in Japan such as the hardcover reissue of Masahiko Kikuni's Gekko no Sasayaki, Kenji Tsuruta
's Suiso - Hydrogen, consulting on English for anime companies, and other manga and anime-related activities in the United States and Japan.
Awards won by Studio Proteus Manga:
Award Nominations:
Titles co-published by Studio Proteus, and their initial U.S. publication dates, include:
(See Eros Comix
for hentai
titles)
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
import, translation and lettering company, founded in 1986 by Toren Smith
Toren Smith
Toren Smith is a manga translator and founder of Studio Proteus. He was born in Alberta, Canada, learned to read by the age of four, and by the age of 12 had won his first award for writing from the Calgary Stampede and Exhibition. By thirteen he had sold his first magazine article, an...
and based in San Francisco. Other staff included translators Dana Lewis
Dana Lewis
Dana Lewis, born April 23, 1959 in Toronto, Canada, is a TV News Correspondent freelance based out of London. He was formerly with Fox News, NBC News, and various Canadian TV outlets....
and Frederik Schodt, letterer Tom Orzechowski
Tom Orzechowski
Tom Orzechowski is an award-winning comic book letterer, primarily known for his work on Uncanny X-Men. Over the course of Orzechowski's career, he has lettered something on the order of 6,000 pages of Chris Claremont's scripts.-Early career:In 1968, when Orzechowski was 15, he met a group of...
and translator/letterer Tomoko Saito. The company worked with many different publishers, including Viz Media
VIZ Media
VIZ Media, LLC, headquartered in San Francisco, is an anime, manga, and Japanese entertainment company. It was founded in 1986 as VIZ LLC. In 2005, VIZ LLC and ShoPro Entertainment merged to form the current VIZ Media LLC, which is jointly owned by Japanese publishers Shogakukan and Shueisha, and...
, Innovation Publishing
Innovation Publishing
Innovation Publishing was an American comic book company based in Wheeling, West Virginia. It was co-founded by David Campiti in 1988 after writing a business proposal and raising US$400,000 to finance its launch...
and Eclipse Comics
Eclipse Comics
Eclipse Comics was an American comic book publisher, one of several independent publishers during the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1978, it published the first graphic novel intended for the newly created comic book specialty store market...
, but its main outlets were Dark Horse
Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book...
for mainstream titles and Fantagraphics' imprint Eros Comix
Eros Comix
Eros Comix is an adult-oriented imprint of Fantagraphics Books, established in 1990 to publish pornographic comic books. Eros Comix sells anime videos, DVDs, adult comic books, and books of erotic art and photography...
for adult (hentai
Hentai
is a Japanese word that, in the West, is used when referring to sexually explicit or pornographic comics and animation, particularly those of Japanese origin such as anime, manga, and computer games. The word hentai is a kanji compound of 変 and 態...
) titles.
Early years (1986–1994)
Smith first became interested in animeAnime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
and manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
after being introduced to it by James D. Hudnall
James D. Hudnall
James David Hudnall is an American writer who began his career in the comic book field in 1986 with the series Espers, published by Eclipse Comics. He later worked for Marvel and DC on such titles as Alpha Flight, Strikeforce: Morituri, and his own creation Interface, which was a sequel to Espers...
in 1982. Smith had been involved in the comics business as a writer for several years, doing stories for Marvel's Epic magazine and Eclipse Comics
Eclipse Comics
Eclipse Comics was an American comic book publisher, one of several independent publishers during the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1978, it published the first graphic novel intended for the newly created comic book specialty store market...
. He felt that there was a market for Japanese comics (manga) in the United States, and with Hudnall, approached Eclipse Comics with the idea of obtaining rights to various titles including Akira
Akira
Akira may refer to:*Akira , a 1980s cyberpunk manga by Katsuhiro Otomo**Akira , a 1988 anime film adaptation of the manga...
. The unknowns and difficulties of dealing with Japanese publishers led that first attempt to fail. Smith then decided that the only solution was for him to go to Japan and arrange things directly. At about this time, noted manga expert Frederik Schodt introduced Smith to Seiji Horibuchi, who was then planning the foundation of the company that would be called Viz Media. Schodt felt that Smith's knowledge of the American comics industry and Horibuchi's connections to Japanese publishing giant Shogakkukan would make an ideal team. However, a falling-out between Smith and Horibuchi after a year of working together to start Viz led Smith to found his own company, Studio Proteus, although Smith co-translated several manga for Viz, including Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (manga)
is a post-apocalyptic manga written and illustrated by acclaimed anime director Hayao Miyazaki. It was serialised intermittently from 1982 to 1994 in Japan...
(at the express request of the creator, Hayao Miyazaki
Hayao Miyazaki
is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...
).
In 1986, Smith moved to Japan to try to license manga for publication in America, having previously made arrangements with Eclipse Comics to provide the publication support. Studio Proteus was designed to be a "packager", delivering completed materials to an existing publisher. Studio Proteus would be responsible for choice (with approval of the American publisher), acquisition (contracts and negotiations with the licensor), and production of the translation and lettering, delivering completed pages to the publisher. The publisher would be responsible for advertising and soliciting sales, arranging for distribution, plus collection and disbursement of income. While the industry term "packager" is more accurate, to avoid confusion the relationship was generally referred to as "co-publishing". Smith preferred to work on a profit-sharing basis, believing it led to a greater sense of responsibility on both sides. Smith also insisted on shared ownership of the derivative copyright in the translations, which was to save his company in the future. By the early nineties, Studio Proteus was working with three publishers: Eclipse Comics, Innovation Publishing
Innovation Publishing
Innovation Publishing was an American comic book company based in Wheeling, West Virginia. It was co-founded by David Campiti in 1988 after writing a business proposal and raising US$400,000 to finance its launch...
and Dark Horse
Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book...
. Work with Eclipse had begun within a few months of Smith's first trip to Japan. When Eclipse did not want to open any more publishing slots for manga, Smith went to the San Diego Comic Con in 1988 and licensed Johji Manabe
Johji Manabe
is a Japanese manga artist.He is not to be confused with an animator of the same name , who worked mainly in the 1970s for Oh! Production: A Dog of Flanders, Genshi Shōnen Ryû, Marco, Dokonjō Gaeru, King Arthur, Galaxy Express 999, Lupin the 3rd: Season 1, Lupin the 3rd: The Castle of Cagliostro,...
's Outlanders to the fledgling Dark Horse Comics. Smith originally was unable to sell the comic to Dark Horse, but met fantasy writer Raymond E. Feist
Raymond E. Feist
Raymond Elias Feist is an American author who primarily writes fantasy fiction. He is best known for The Riftwar Cycle series of novels and short stories. His books have been translated into multiple languages and have sold over 15 million copies.- Biography :Raymond E...
for dinner that evening. Feist gave Smith the advice he considers the most valuable business advice of his career: "Don't tell them how good it is; tell them how much money they are going to make." The following day Smith sold Outlanders to Dark Horse and Yuzo Takada
Yuzo Takada
is the pseudonym of , a popular Japanese manga artist. He worked as an assistant for manga artist Fujihiko Hosono before starting his career as an original author...
's 3x3 Eyes to Innovation.
Studio Proteus was, from the beginning, quality oriented. Smith refused to work from photocopies of published books, instead shooting directly from the original art. The techniques for retouching the sound effects were developed by award-winning comics letterer Thomas Orzechowski, and later refined by Japanese manga artist Tomoko Saito. All translators had over a decade of experience and had written books, magazine articles, and fiction outside of their translation work. To encourage quality production, page rates for Studio Proteus letterers and translators were the highest in the industry, and they were also paid royalties—a practice unique to Studio Proteus. In some cases, original covers were commissioned from the manga artists themselves.
The early years of publishing manga in America were surprisingly successful, buoyed by the new popularity of black and white comics in the direct sales market, and Marvel's bestselling colorized version of Akira
Akira (manga)
is a manga series by Katsuhiro Otomo. Set in a post-apocalyptic Neo-Tokyo, the work uses conventions of the cyberpunk genre to detail a saga of turmoil. Initially serialized in the pages of Young Magazine from 1982 until 1990, the work was collected in six volumes by Japanese publisher Kodansha...
. This grace period came to an end when the black and white comics boom imploded in 1988. Both Viz and Studio Proteus had been experimenting with a wide variety of manga genres, but when the market tightened only those which appealed to the core "comic book store" market survived. It was not to be until the early 21st century that manga would again cover so large a range of subjects.
Studio Proteus was heavily involved in the promotion of manga and anime during the early years, and Smith gave numerous interviews, appeared on television and radio (including MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
and Canada's Basic Black
Basic Black (CBC program)
Basic Black was a long-running radio on CBC Radio hosted by Arthur Black. It was an eclectic show that mixed quirky tunes along with often humorous interviews with Canadians from all walks of life....
), and spoke at Georgetown University and the Smithsonian as well as writing dozens of articles for magazines. Working together with anime company Gainax
Gainax
is a Japanese anime studio famous for productions such as Gunbuster, The Wings of Honneamise, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, Neon Genesis Evangelion, FLCL and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann which have gone on to critical acclaim and commercial success, as well as for their association with...
, Studio Proteus also organized the first large anime and manga convention, AnimeCon
AnimeCon
- Notability :AnimeCon was the fourth anime convention created in the United States, the first convention to have major backing from the anime industry, the first anime-specific convention within the state of California , and the first anime-specific convention in the US to break 1,000 attendees...
'91. However, Smith publicly admitted that, as a very private person, he was not fond of these promotional activities. As soon as other spokespeople for manga and anime appeared (such as Trish Ledoux of Animag), he retired from the public eye and rarely gave interviews after approximately 1993.
In 1994, due to Eclipse Comics' failure to pay owed profit share monies, Studio Proteus legally acquired all shared translation rights and production materials for all of their co-published manga. These were re-licensed to Dark Horse Comics and immediately made Dark Horse the second largest manga publisher in America. When Eclipse declared bankruptcy, Smith paid all outstanding royalties due to his Japanese licensors out of existing Studio Proteus funds.
All Studio Proteus titles were Toren Smith's personal picks, which were then accepted and approved by the publishers. If it was rejected by the first publisher, it was offered to another. If rejected by all, it was abandoned. Smith's instincts turned out to almost always be right, even when his thinking was highly unconventional. In 1994 Smith convinced Dark Horse to publish Oh My Goddess!
Oh My Goddess!
, also known as Ah! My Goddess!, is a Japanese seinen manga series written and illustrated by Kōsuke Fujishima. It premiered in the November 1988 issue of Afternoon where it is still being serialized. Every few months, the most recent chapters are published in tankōbon volumes by Kodansha...
, although Dark Horse had so little faith in this manga (despite cross promotion with the AnimEigo
AnimEigo
AnimEigo is an American entertainment company that licenses and distributes anime, samurai films and Japanese cinema. The company was founded in 1988 in Ithaca, New York by Robert Woodhead and Roe R. Adams, III. It is now based in Wilmington, North Carolina, and run by Natsumi Ueki, Robert's wife...
OAV release), Smith had to guarantee them against losses. Oh My Goddess! became a surprise hit, and for years was one of Dark Horse's bestselling manga titles. In addition, it was one of the first translated manga to attract a large female audience, along with Ranma ½
Ranma ½
is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Rumiko Takahashi with an anime adaptation. The story revolves around a 16-year old boy named Ranma Saotome who was trained from early childhood in martial arts...
.
Middle Years (1995-2001)
Throughout the 1990s, the team of Dark HorseDark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book...
and Studio Proteus was one of the two largest manga publishers in the U.S., competing with Viz. The crash of the direct sales market in the middle nineties had a tremendous impact on the manga business, another blow after the previous bust in 1988. By the time the market had reorganized, there was only one distributor left (Diamond Distributors) and over half of the comic stores in America were out of business. Manga's growing popularity saved it from the worst, but nearly one third of all manga titles were canceled due to lack of sales, and continuing difficulty in getting the trade paperback collections (graphic novels) into bookstores left manga stalled in the marketplace for several years. Studio Proteus responded by streamlining the production process and working with smaller bookstore distributors to whom manga represented a valuable percentage of their sales.
The slump in the comics market in the late 1990s affected the sales of all manga published in America. None of the attempts by American manga publishers to create a manga anthology magazine such as Tokyopop Magazine
TOKYOPOP (magazine)
Tokyopop magazine, originally named MixxZine, was a manga anthology published in North America by Tokyopop .MixxZine at the start published four series, two of which were shōjo and two of which were seinen:...
and Viz's Animerica Extra
Animerica Extra
Animerica Extra is a monthly shōjo manga magazine that was published in North America by Viz Media from 1998 until 2004. Established as a complement to its monthly review magazine Animerica, Animerica Extra was the first manga anthology to be published by Viz.The titles published in Animerica Extra...
with several stories running simultaneously were very successful at this time, and were mostly viewed as loss-leaders for future sales of the collections. The Dark Horse/Studio Proteus magazine, Super Manga Blast gave Smith an opportunity to bring readers in via titles of known popularity, such as Oh My Goddess!, and get them to try something different, such as Club 9
Club 9
is a Japanese comedy manga series written and illustrated by Makoto Kobayashi. It was licensed in the USA by Dark Horse Comics. It has 42 chapters. The series is currently out of print, and the company has no plans to renew the license or reprint the series...
.
Later years, criticism and buyout (2002–2004)
As times changed, however, Toren Smith developed an acrimonious relationship with the more hardcore parts of manga fandom. As shōjoShojo
The term refers to manga marketed to a female audience roughly between the ages of 10-18. The name romanizes the Japanese 少女 , literally: "little female". Shōjo manga covers many subjects in a variety of narrative and graphic styles, from historical drama to science fiction — often with a strong...
manga became increasingly popular, fans berated Studio Proteus and Dark Horse for not releasing any shōjo, despite Smith's repeated explanation that since he did not enjoy shōjo manga, and knew little about it, he had no interest in releasing any. Studio Proteus' initial output was predominantly science fiction and action; this may have reflected Smith's tastes as a writer and member of SFWA
SFWA
SFWA may refer to:*Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America*Scottish Football Writers' Association...
, but also reflected the tastes of the American comics direct market
Direct market
The direct market is the dominant distribution and retail network for North American comic books. It consists of one dominant distributor and the majority of comics specialty stores, as well as other retailers of comic books and related merchandise...
(who were the primary purchasers of manga at that time) and manga fandom of the 1980s and 1990s. However, Studio Proteus also released non–science fiction manga such as Makoto Kobayashi's relationship comedy Club 9 and the pet manga What's Michael?
What's Michael?
is a Japanese manga series created by Makoto Kobayashi. In 1984, it began its serialization in the Weekly Morning magazine. The comic shows Michael, an orange American Shorthair tabby cat, his feline friends, and other domesticated pets in a series of humorous episodes.The manga was adapted into...
)
However, Toren Smith continued to vocally defend "flopped" manga up until 2002, at a time when it was growing unpopular even among mainstream manga fandom. He became perceived as a conservative force in manga publishing, despite his publication of non-mainstream manga such as the transhumanist
Transhumanism
Transhumanism, often abbreviated as H+ or h+, is an international intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human...
manga Version, and The Rebel Sword, a manga about Kurdish revolutionaries, and his decades of effort in popularizing manga and dedication to quality production. However, by the end of 2002, Smith was convinced that his belief that readers would have difficulty adapting to read manga "backwards" (also known as "unflopped", reading right to left as in the original Japanese publication) was incorrect, citing the fact that an entire generation of new manga readers have grown up since he had started Studio Proteus and they did not have the mindset of early manga readers, most of whom came to manga from regular comics. However, he maintained that as long as the distributors were reluctant to buy unflopped manga, there was little anyone could do to try to change the industry.
At that time, the comic book direct market
Direct market
The direct market is the dominant distribution and retail network for North American comic books. It consists of one dominant distributor and the majority of comics specialty stores, as well as other retailers of comic books and related merchandise...
was still shrinking, while manga sales in bookstores were growing, although not very quickly. Smith had pointed out for many years that the problem with the bookstore market was a lack of support from the buyers at the chains, and lack of designated shelf space (comics were often racked with art books or science fiction and fantasy). Smith often cited Tokyopop
Tokyopop
Tokyopop, styled TOKYOPOP, and formerly known as Mixx, is a distributor, licensor, and publisher of anime, manga, manhwa, and Western manga-style works. The existing German publishing division produces German translations of licensed Japanese properties and original English-language manga, as well...
's poor sales of their first experiments with unflopped manga as proof the problem was very real. In 2002, Dark Horse's graphic novel distributor LPC Group went bankrupt, hurting the presence of Dark Horse (and thus Studio Proteus) manga in bookstores. The fortunes of manga in America were changed forever that year when Kurt Hassler of Borders (who has been called "The Most Powerful Person in Manga" by ICV2, a designation Smith has publicly agreed with, adding that he considers him "[T]he most important person in the history of American manga") successfully persuaded Waldenbooks to commit to racking a large quantity of unflopped manga titles, even placing them in "dump bins" near the cash registers. This was the turning point for manga sales in America, and the resulting success of what is now considered a "standard" manga (small, unflopped paperbacks at approximately $9.99) more than doubled the size of established manga publishers such as Viz, and raised Tokyopop (Waldenbooks' partner in the venture) to prominence. However, the upheaval in the manga market caused by Hassler's opening of the door to bulk sales of unflopped manga spelled the end for Super Manga Blast and in the chaos surrounding the conversion of most of Dark Horse's manga to the prevailing unflopped standard, almost none of the series running in the magazine were continued as graphic novels, even though some (such as Club 9) had already been completed.)
While Smith had finally become comfortable with the idea of unflopped manga now that bookstores were willing to buy it, it had become clear that the industry was becoming big business, with publishers such as Del Rey and DC getting involved in manga, and Japanese companies such as Shogakkukan beginning to treat their American operations as serious businesses instead of sidelines. "I'm just a manga fan who started my company because no one else was [publishing manga in English]," he commented on the Studio Proteus website http://www.studioproteus.com. "To move ahead now would require me to become more of a corporate type, and I know that's not for me."
In February 2004, Dark Horse Comics announced that it had purchased the publication rights to Studio Proteus translations (not, as was widely and erroneously reported, the company itself). Toren Smith stayed on as an adviser and translator for selected titles, but by 2006 he had left completely. In a 2004 interview with The Comics Journal
The Comics Journal
The Comics Journal, often abbreviated TCJ, is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels...
, he expressed his reasons for essentially selling the company he had founded: "I was burning out. Over 15 years I had put out 70,000 pages of manga. I had no life...Tokyopop puts out more in a month than I've put out in my entire career. The manga business kind of moved out of my league. But if anyone believes that expansion can continue indefinitely, they're incorrect. Booms are always followed by a bust...My opinion is that what has occurred is the commodification of the product. All [bookstore retailers] care about is how it's formatted and what it costs...For a long time, America has seen nothing but the best of the Japanese comics, but there's lots of crap over there. There may be some smart bookstore buyers out there who can distinguish between them, but I've never met them." His controversial predictions—informed by his experience with the comics crashes of the 80s and 90s—were borne out and the manga industry has weathered a severe boom-and-bust cycle since then, with publishers such as Tokyopop cutting their releases by over 40% in June 2008, and laying off 36 employees, and laying off 15 more employees in December 2008 and others (e.g. Broccoli Books) pulling out of the market entirely. The trend has continued with Viz cutting 60 personnel and DC shutting down their CMX manga imprint and Tokyopop finally shuttering their U.S. publishing operations in May 2011. However, Smith also predicted the market would eventually stabilize at a sustainable level and not disappear completely.
Smith has stated that he is "regretful" that the flopped/non-flopped controversy of the last few years of his career seem to have overshadowed his twenty years of fighting to promote and publish quality manga.
The last manga produced by Studio Proteus staff in the flipped, left-to-right, American comic format was the Blade of the Immortal
Blade of the Immortal
is a Japanese manga series by Hiroaki Samura. The series won an Excellence Prize at the 1997 Japan Media Arts Festival and the Will Eisner Comic Industry Award in 2000 for Best U.S. Edition of Foreign Material...
#131 in November 2007, making it the longest-running manga ever published in the American format. The series then moved to graphic-novel-only format.
Toren Smith has also done manga work outside of Studio Proteus, such as editing Tori Miki's Anywhere But Here, writing afterwords for various manga collections in Japan such as the hardcover reissue of Masahiko Kikuni's Gekko no Sasayaki, Kenji Tsuruta
Kenji Tsuruta
is a Japanese manga artist. Among his most famous works is the science fiction series Spirit of Wonder, which has been adapted into an anime series and brought him much acclaim.-Profile:...
's Suiso - Hydrogen, consulting on English for anime companies, and other manga and anime-related activities in the United States and Japan.
Awards and nominations
Despite the relatively small output of Studio Proteus compared to the major manga publishers in America, the company collected a large number of awards and nominations for their publications.Awards won by Studio Proteus Manga:
- What's Michael?, New York Library Book Award, 1991
- Blade of the Immortal, Will Eisner Comics Industry Award, 2000
- Lone Wolf and Cub, Will Eisner Comics Industry Award, 2001
- Akira, Will Eisner Comics Industry Award, 2002
- The Legend of Mother Sarah, Parent's Choice Award, 1995
- What's Michael?, Parent's Choice Award, 1997
- Lone Wolf and Cub, Harvey Awards, 2001
- Lone Wolf and Cub, (Best U.S. Edition of Foreign Material) Eisner Awards, 2001
- Lone Wolf and Cub, Harvey Awards, 2002
- Lone Wolf and Cub, Harvey Awards, 2003
- Akira (dual awards: Best Archival Collection/Project and Best U.S. Edition of Foreign Material), Eisner Awards, 2002
- Anywhere But Here, Entertainment Weekly's Top Ten #1, 2005
Award Nominations:
- What's Michael?, Eisner Award, 1998
- Blade of the Immortal, Eisner Award, 1999
- Intron Depot 2: Blades, Eisner Award (Best U.S. Edition of Foreign Material), 1999
- Intron Depot 2: Blades, Eisner Award (Best Comics-Related Book), 1999
- Nausicaa, Harvey Awards, 1990
- Appleseed, Harvey Awards, 1990
- Ghost in the Shell, Harvey Awards, 1996
- Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Harvey Awards, 1996
- Oh My Goddess!, Harvey Awards, 1997
- Gunsmith Cats, Harvey Awards, 1997
- Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Eisner Awards, 1998
- Blade of the Immortal, Harvey Awards, 1998
- Oh My Goddess!, Harvey Awards, 1998
- Blade of the Immortal, Harvey Awards, 1999
- Blade of the Immortal, Harvey Awards, 2001
- Lone Wolf and Cub, Harvey Awards, 2001
- Akira, Eisner Awards, 2001
- Lone Wolf and Cub, (Best Archival Collection/Project) Eisner Awards, 2001
- Akira, Harvey Awards, 2002
- Lone Wolf and Club, Harvey Awards, 2002
- What's Michael? (Best Writer/Artist: Humor) Eisner Awards, 2002
- Super Manga Blast, Harvey Awards, 2002
- Super Manga Blast, (Best Anthology), Eisner Awards, 2003
- What's Michael?, (Best Humor Publication) Eisner Awards, 2004
Titles co-published by Studio Proteus, and their initial U.S. publication dates, include:
Publications
- 3x3 Eyes (1991)
- AkiraAkira (manga)is a manga series by Katsuhiro Otomo. Set in a post-apocalyptic Neo-Tokyo, the work uses conventions of the cyberpunk genre to detail a saga of turmoil. Initially serialized in the pages of Young Magazine from 1982 until 1990, the work was collected in six volumes by Japanese publisher Kodansha...
(1988) - Appleseed (1988)
- Blade of the ImmortalBlade of the Immortalis a Japanese manga series by Hiroaki Samura. The series won an Excellence Prize at the 1997 Japan Media Arts Festival and the Will Eisner Comic Industry Award in 2000 for Best U.S. Edition of Foreign Material...
(1996) - Cannon God ExaxxionCannon God Exaxxionis a seven volume manga by Kenichi Sonoda that deals with Earth's fight against alien colonization with the help of giant robots and super powered battle suits.-Story:...
(2001) - Caravan KiddCaravan Kiddis a shōnen science fiction manga by Johji Manabe. It was published in the United States and Canada in English by Dark Horse Comics.-Plot:Wataru and his partner Babo, two black market merchants with no morals to speak of, get caught up in a battle between the Helgebard Empire and the mysterious...
(1992) - Chronowar (1996)
- Club 9Club 9is a Japanese comedy manga series written and illustrated by Makoto Kobayashi. It was licensed in the USA by Dark Horse Comics. It has 42 chapters. The series is currently out of print, and the company has no plans to renew the license or reprint the series...
(2001) - Cyber 7 (1989)
- The Dirty PairThe Dirty PairThe Dirty Pair is an original English-language manga written and illustrated by Adam Warren, based on the Dirty Pair characters created by Haruka Takachiho....
: Biohazards (1988) - The Dirty PairThe Dirty PairThe Dirty Pair is an original English-language manga written and illustrated by Adam Warren, based on the Dirty Pair characters created by Haruka Takachiho....
: Dangerous Acquaintances (1989) - The Dirty PairThe Dirty PairThe Dirty Pair is an original English-language manga written and illustrated by Adam Warren, based on the Dirty Pair characters created by Haruka Takachiho....
: A Plague of Angels (1990) - DominionDominion: Tank Policeis a two volume manga series written and illustrated by Masamune Shirow. Set in the fictional city of Newport, Japan, in a future in which bacterial air pollution has become so severe that people must wear gas masks when outdoors, the series follows a police squadron that uses tanks.Dominion has...
(1993) - Domu (1995)
- Drakuun (1997)
- Ghost in the ShellGhost in the Shellis a Japanese multimedia franchise composed of manga, animated films, anime series, video games and novels. It focuses on the activities of the counter-terrorist organization Public Security Section 9 in a futuristic, cyberpunk Japan ....
(1995) - Gunsmith CatsGunsmith Catsis a Japanese seinen manga series written and illustrated by Kenichi Sonoda. It was published in Kodansha's Afternoon from 1991 to 1997 and was followed between 2004 and 2008 by a sequel series Gunsmith Cats Burst which included the same characters and situations.The series describes the adventures...
(1995) - Hellhounds: Panzer CopsKerberos Panzer CopKerberos Panzer Cop, also known as Kerberos Panzer Cops literally , is a 1988 to 2000 Kerberos saga manga written by Mamoru Oshii and illustrated by Kamui Fujiwara with mechanical design by Yutaka Izubuchi. This comic series tales events prior to those portrayed in Oshii's 1987 live-action feature...
(1994) - The Legend of Kamui (1987)
- The Legend of Mother SarahThe Legend of Mother Sarahis a manga written by Katsuhiro Otomo and illustrated by Takumi Nagayasu. The manga is published in Kodansha's Young Magazine. The English-language release of manga has been licensed in North America by Dark Horse Comics, for a French-language release in France by Delcourt, for a Spanish-language...
(1995) - Lone Wolf and CubLone Wolf and Cubis a manga created by writer Kazuo Koike and artist Goseki Kojima. First published in 1970, the story was adapted into six films starring Tomisaburo Wakayama, four plays, a television series starring Yorozuya Kinnosuke, and is widely recognized as an important and influential work.Lone Wolf and Cub...
(2000) - Lost Continent (1990)
- MetropolisMetropolis (manga), also known as Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis or Robotic Angel is a Japanese manga by Osamu Tezuka published in 1949. It has been adapted into a feature length anime, released in 2001...
(2003) - Nausicaä of the Valley of the WindNausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (manga)is a post-apocalyptic manga written and illustrated by acclaimed anime director Hayao Miyazaki. It was serialised intermittently from 1982 to 1994 in Japan...
(1988) - Oh My Goddess!Oh My Goddess!, also known as Ah! My Goddess!, is a Japanese seinen manga series written and illustrated by Kōsuke Fujishima. It premiered in the November 1988 issue of Afternoon where it is still being serialized. Every few months, the most recent chapters are published in tankōbon volumes by Kodansha...
(1994) - OutlandersOutlanders (anime)is a popular manga comic written by Johji Manabe, combining aspects of the space opera, science fantasy, fan service, magical girlfriend and harem genres.-Plot:...
(1988) - The Rebel Sword (1994)
- Seraphic Feather (2000)
- Shadow LadyShadow Ladyis a manga series written and illustrated by Masakazu Katsura. It was canceled partway through its run, resulting in the severe compression of a new story arc and a finale.- Plot Synopsis :...
(1998) - Intron Depot 1Intron Depot 1Intron Depot 1 is a collection of Masamune Shirow's full color works. The volume itself is 148 210 mm x 285 mm pages. It encompasses 226 illustrations from 1981 to 1991, 193 of which are in full color. It is a wide ranging collection, as one might expect from a work surveying 10 years...
(1992) - Intron Depot 2: Blades (1992)
- Intron Depot 3: Ballistics (1992)
- Intron Depot 4: Bullets (1992)
- Shadow StarShadow StarShadow Star, known in Japan as , which comes from the abbreviation of , is the name of a Japanese manga and of the anime series which was based on the manga. The series was created by Mohiro Kitoh and was originally serialized in the magazine Afternoon. When asked about the manga, Mohiro Kitoh...
(2000) - Spirit of WonderSpirit of Wonderis a manga series authored by Kenji Tsuruta, originally serialized from 1986 in Kodansha's Morning seinen manga magazine, and later in Afternoon, until 1996....
(1996) - The Two Faces of Tomorrow (1997)
- The Venus Wars (1991)
- Version (1992)
- What's Michael?What's Michael?is a Japanese manga series created by Makoto Kobayashi. In 1984, it began its serialization in the Weekly Morning magazine. The comic shows Michael, an orange American Shorthair tabby cat, his feline friends, and other domesticated pets in a series of humorous episodes.The manga was adapted into...
(1997) - You're Under Arrest! (1995)
- Anywhere But Here (2004)
(See Eros Comix
Eros Comix
Eros Comix is an adult-oriented imprint of Fantagraphics Books, established in 1990 to publish pornographic comic books. Eros Comix sells anime videos, DVDs, adult comic books, and books of erotic art and photography...
for hentai
Hentai
is a Japanese word that, in the West, is used when referring to sexually explicit or pornographic comics and animation, particularly those of Japanese origin such as anime, manga, and computer games. The word hentai is a kanji compound of 変 and 態...
titles)
Anime translations
- Ghost in the ShellGhost in the Shell (film)"See You Everyday" is different from the rest of the soundtrack, being a pop song sung in Cantonese by Fang Ka Wing. It can be faintly heard playing in the marketplace scene, when Batou is hunting the ghost-hacked puppet....
(script rewrite) - Venus WarsVenus Warsis a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko. It was serialized in the Gakken magazine Nora Comics from 1987 to 1990...
(subtitles)
External links
- Studio Proteus (Archive)
- Dark Horse Interview with Toren Smith
- Second Dark Horse Interview with Toren Smith
- Dark Horse announces their purchase of Studio Proteus
- The Comics Journal Interview with Toren Smith
- "Dark Horse Comics acquires manga production company Studio Proteus." Dark Horse ComicsDark Horse ComicsDark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book...
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