Pedro Bouca, who understands the French market better than I do, drops in at the Newsarama blog to explain the significance of Hachette’s purchase of the French manga publisher PIKA: It was the last large independent manga publisher left in France.
Pika was the third largest french manga publisher (the other two being Kana, a subsidiary of giant comics publisher Dargaud, and the manga division of Glénat), one of the few that still publish manga from the Big Three japanese publishers (Kodansha, Shueisha and Shogakukan, all currently very demanding of its international partners) and so a coveted prize.
All this is a bit like if Tokyopop and Viz were being bought out by Marvel and DC. Worrying, to say the least.
>All this is a bit like if Tokyopop and Viz were being bought out
> by Marvel and DC. Worrying, to say the least.
I don’t get this comment—how are Marve/DC like Hachette?… *curious*
Well actually to me this is bigger than DC/Marvel. I would compare this to Random House buying Viz or TOKYOPOP.
Hachette Livre is the largest publisher in France. Publisher, not largest comic publisher, the largest pub period. When Yen Press launched I went through Hachettes holdings to see who they were connected to so I could see what channels Yen could get their manga through but they weren’t any clear outlets. But with this acquistion of PIKA the only indy manga pub left in France, with connections to Kodansha, Shogakukan, Kadokawa Shoten and Shueisha (among others), this could in theory help Hachette’s manga business tremendously. Obviously the clear advantage is for their European market but Hachette could parley that into deals for their American line (as TP, Viz and Del Rey have done also with Euro Zone properties.)