Dark Horse Releases

ok it was pushed back even on the Dark Horse website. i checked and one of the comic shops i called said it should be out today 5/11/05. once again I'm going to try and pick it up and let you guys know how it is.
 
Hey guys. I'm new here. :)

I can't believe they pushed the release date back again! It won't be at Borders for a while. For some reason, it takes about 3-4 weeks for me.
Does anyone happen to know the reason for volume 7's delay? Chris Warner posts every now and then on the Dark Horse forums, so I asked him in one of the threads, but he ignored me. ;D

The bi-monthly release would be a great thing, but Warner gave some valid and good reasons why he feels it shouldn't happen...yet.
Some of his reasons were:
If Berserk were to change to a bi-monthly or even a monthly release, we would catch up to Japan in a short amount of time, and their release schedule would be thrown off considering Kentarou Miura puts out two volumes a year.
Also, DH wants Berserk to last a long, long time. I don't blame them. Berserk is doing remarkably well, as it should be.

DarthVenom, be sure to tell us how Volume 7 is, and I really hope there aren't too many cut off words this time. My copy of 6 had a lot.

Although this is a totally unrelated topic,"Japan" has been licensed.
http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku=10-701
Same deal as King Of Wolves; Miura did the art and Buronson created the story.
 

Rhombaad

Video Game Time Traveler
Mormegil said:
Hey guys. I'm new here.  :)

I can't believe they pushed the release date back again! It won't be at Borders for a while. For some reason, it takes about 3-4 weeks for me.
Does anyone happen to know the reason for volume 7's delay? Chris Warner posts every now and then on the Dark Horse forums, so I asked him in one of the threads, but he ignored me.  ;D

The bi-monthly release would be a great thing, but Warner gave some valid and good reasons why he feels it shouldn't happen...yet.
Some of his reasons were:
If Berserk were to change to a bi-monthly or even a monthly release, we would catch up to Japan in a short amount of time, and their release schedule would be thrown off considering Kentarou Miura puts out two volumes a year.
Also, DH wants Berserk to last a long, long time. I don't blame them. Berserk is doing remarkably well, as it should be.

DarthVenom, be sure to tell us how Volume 7 is, and I really hope there aren't too many cut off words this time. My copy of 6 had a lot.

Although this is a totally unrelated topic,"Japan" has been licensed.
http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku=10-701
Same deal as King Of Wolves; Miura did the art and Buronson created the story.

Greetings Mormegil, welcome to SK.net! I can understand their reasoning behind wanting Berserk to last a long, long time but at the rate it's going now, I'll be an old man by the time they're finished here in the States. :-\
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Mormegil said:
Hey guys. I'm new here.

Hey, welcome to SK.net. :)

Mormegil said:
The bi-monthly release would be a great thing, but Warner gave some valid and good reasons why he feels it shouldn't happen...yet.

Yeah, I think some member talked about that already, or maybe posted a link. The guy's point is debatable but understandable, as you said.

Mormegil said:
Although this is a totally unrelated topic,"Japan" has been licensed.
http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku=10-701
Same deal as King Of Wolves; Miura did the art and Buronson created the story.

The crappy story. ;D
 
Thanks for the welcome!

Rhombaad said:
I can understand their reasoning behind wanting Berserk to last a long, long time but at the rate it's going now, I'll be an old man by the time they're finished here in the States. :-\
Heh. I do agree with you.
I'm sure we'll still continue to read Berserk, even in our old age. I just hope it's appropriate reading material for the Nursing Homes. ;D

Aazealh said:
Yeah, I think some member talked about that already, or maybe posted a link. The guy's point is debatable but understandable, as you said.
Yeah, it's honestly the only thing I agree with him about. He gave excuses for all the printing problems throughout the volumes. (We all remember Volume 5)
I'm not sure if this has been posted before but this is what he had to say on the situation:

The trim on berserk has always been a difficult issue. The occasional bad trim on artwork is often out of our hands, due to the files we receive, which have very little margin for trim. When combined with the limitations of printing presses and binderies and the number of bleed images (images that go right to the edge of the page) in the books, bad trims are inevitable. Printing is an inexact science, since paper moves very quickly through presses and the printed area isn't always exactly where it should be on individual sheets or groups of sheets. If the image is offset by even an eighth of an inch, you can get a bad trim. Then you have the binding and trimming process itrself, and that too can cause pages to shift. You can look at a set of pages laid out in a graphics program, and you'll see every page number and bottom panel line lining up straight as an arrow throughout the book--but when you then examine the printed book, you'll see quite a bit of variance, more on some presses and formats than on others. There's nothing we can do about that varaince.

Actually, if you look at the original volumes, you also see quite a few bad trims. I haven't seen Berserk serialized, and I don't know if there are some slight differences in trim proportions from those volumes to the smaller collected editions or if it's just a matter of Miura not paying enough attention to trim when he's creating his pages. As a guy who's drawn and edited a lot of comics pages, I can say that it's easy to make those kind of mistakes, especially when you produce such a large volume of pages.

One of the other logistical problems is that we have very little time to look over proofs from the printer before the books are printed. Usually, we have to turn those around same day, and those proofs have to cycle though several different departments. Again, it's just one of those things. We try to go back and fix all the stuff that slips through before we go back for new printings, but that's little consolation to those who've already bought the book. If you notice an error in one of the books, feel free to email me and let me know (chrisw@darkhorse.com). If we can, we'll fix the problem on the next printing.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't noticed any trims on the original volumes, or anything nearly as noticeable in DH's copies. I just feel they should treat Berserk with more respect and pay better attention to the printing.
A change to bi-monthly would make up for the errors. :p

Aazealh said:
The crappy story. ;D
Oh, you've read it before, Aazealh? It really doesn't sound too impressive; nonetheless, I'll still probably pick it up.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Mormegil said:
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't noticed any trims on the original volumes, or anything nearly as noticeable in DH's copies. I just feel they should treat Berserk with more respect and pay better attention to the printing.

Yeah, it's just an easy excuse, and the average reader wouldn't know better. Here's an anecdote, please don't cry: when Berserk was released in Korea, volumes came out almost every week at first, and the quality was nearly perfect compared to the original. Of course, Korea is very close to Japan, but still, it makes you wonder. Since I'm at it, here are the Korean release dates (Day/Month/year):

Volume 01: 06/09/1999
Volume 02: 15/09/1999
Volume 03: 20/09/1999
Volume 04: 30/09/1999
Volume 05: 05/10/1999
Volume 06: 20/10/1999
Volume 07: 15/11/1999
Volume 08: 06/12/1999
Volume 09: 10/02/2000
Volume 10: 23/03/2000
Volume 11: 07/04/2000
Volume 12: 03/05/2000
Volume 13: 06/06/2000
Volume 14: 10/07/2000
Volume 15: 26/07/2000
Volume 16: 19/08/2000
Volume 17: 26/09/2000
Volume 18: 28/10/2000
Volume 19: 29/11/2000
Volume 20: 27/12/2000
Volume 21: 20/09/2001
Volume 22: 26/03/2002
Volume 23: 26/08/2002
Volume 24: 24/02/2003
Volume 25: 31/07/2003
Volume 26: 28/02/2004
Volume 27: 28/10/2004
Volume 28: 18/04/2005

Sorry for the place it takes, but otherwise it's hard to read. Another fun fact: years before Berserk was officially published in Korea, it was available in "pirated" illegal volumes (made from the Young Animal episodes). And I don't mean scanlations or anything, but real printed and bound volumes. Of course, that stopped when official releasing started, but these guys had a volume 13 with the Lost Episode in it (well, I'm not 100% sure about this last part). ;)

Mormegil said:
Oh, you've read it before, Aazealh?

Yeah, although not thoroughly since I don't have the book (I'll get it someday). I have Oh-roh and Oh-roh den however (thanks to my wife), and they suck plot-wise, especially Oh-Roh den (well, Oh-roh is "OK" I guess, but nothing more, and can't be compared to Berserk of course). I wouldn't say that Japan is bad (I was exaggerating), but it's certainly not a masterpiece. At best it's an entertaining read that can be interesting to compare to Berserk art-wise, but nothing more IMHO.
 
Aazealh said:
when Berserk was released in Korea, volumes came out almost every week at first, and the quality was nearly perfect compared to the original. Of course, Korea is very close to Japan, but still, it makes you wonder.
Wow! I really can't believe that. It took Korea about 2-3 months to release volumes 1-7 while DH took a nice snail pace of about 2 years with printing problems included.
I am beginning to wonder.

Aazealh said:
Here's an anecdote, please don't cry
Haha. Too late. :'(

Aazealh said:
Another fun fact: years before Berserk was officially published in Korea, it was available in "pirated" illegal volumes (made from the Young Animal episodes). And I don't mean scanlations or anything, but real printed and bound volumes. Of course, that stopped when official releasing started, but these guys had a volume 13 with the Lost Episode in it
Lucky them. It would be nice of DH to include the Lost Episode in volume 13, but they would probably need Miura's consent.
Anyway, thanks for these very cool facts.
 

Vaxillus

The one and only severed head
Mormegil said:
Wow! I really can't believe that. It took Korea about 2-3 months to release volumes 1-7 while DH took a nice snail pace of about 2 years with printing problems included.
Look at it this way, the volumes are being translated slightly faster tha Miura takes to write them, so in about five years or so, we may have caught up. ::)
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Mormegil said:
Wow! I really can't believe that. It took Korea about 2-3 months to release volumes 1-7 while DH took a nice snail pace of about 2 years with printing problems included.

Well, if it makes you feel any better, it's the same in most countries. Actually it's worse in France. :-\

Mormegil said:
Lucky them. It would be nice of DH to include the Lost Episode in volume 13, but they would probably need Miura's consent.

Yeah, I doubt it to ever happen. No other edition has it, so why the US one would? Maybe they'll release it when the series end, as some kind of appendix, like for the Berserk Prototype.

Mormegil said:
Anyway, thanks for these very cool facts.

No problemo. :)

PS: Ah yeah, just to add to the fun, the volumes are cheaper in Korea than in Japan (same thing for the PS2 game), so each volume is approximately $3 or so.
 

TheSkyTraveller

Monster adventures on the high seas!
Quote from Chris Warner:
"The trim on berserk has always been a difficult issue. The occasional bad trim on artwork is often out of our hands, due to the files we receive, which have very little margin for trim. When combined with the limitations of printing presses and binderies and the number of bleed images (images that go right to the edge of the page) in the books, bad trims are inevitable. Printing is an inexact science blah blah blah..."

Oh, boo hoo hoo!  My job is sooo hard! Feh.  Dark Horse isn't even doing the translating; Digital Manga is.  Dark Horse's only job is to print and release the volumes, and here the editor is complaining about it.  He talks about how little time they have to check out the proofs...well, I realize everyone has a schedule, but considering printing is the most important job they have to do, I think they should put a little more time and effort into it.  I know printing can be tough when it comes to matching color and value.  Hell, I've had some work print like crap, occassionally.  You never get the same thing printed the same way twice.  But it seems like DH has had so many problems with the trim, and that just seems weird to me.  I don't have any other domestic release manga with that problem, not even other DH releases. I just wish they could get it right for Berserk.  It's a shame.

Mormegil said:
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't noticed any trims on the original volumes, or anything nearly as noticeable in DH's copies. I just feel they should treat Berserk with more respect and pay better attention to the printing.

I've never noticed bad trim on the Japanese volumes either, Mormegil.  But he's just shifting the blame anyway, look what he said about Miura:
"I haven't seen Berserk serialized, and I don't know if there are some slight differences in trim proportions from those volumes to the smaller collected editions or if it's just a matter of Miura not paying enough attention to trim when he's creating his pages."
Way to show respect for the creator, man. 
::)
 
Aazealh said:
PS: Ah yeah, just to add to the fun, the volumes are cheaper in Korea than in Japan (same thing for the PS2 game), so each volume is approximately $3 or so.
$3 a volume?! Again, lucky them. ;D
I was pleasantly surprised by the prices of the Japanese volumes. $7.49 at yesasia, for each volume. A great deal in contrast to DH's overpriced editions.

TheSkyTraveller said:
Oh, boo hoo hoo! My job is sooo hard! Feh. Dark Horse isn't even doing the translating; Digital Manga is. Dark Horse's only job is to print and release the volumes, and here the editor is complaining about it. He talks about how little time they have to check out the proofs...well, I realize everyone has a schedule, but considering printing is the most important job they have to do, I think they should put a little more time and effort into it. I know printing can be tough when it comes to matching color and value. Hell, I've had some work print like crap, occassionally. You never get the same thing printed the same way twice. But it seems like DH has had so many problems with the trim, and that just seems weird to me. I don't have any other domestic release manga with that problem, not even other DH releases. I just wish they could get it right for Berserk. It's a shame.
It's almost like he's trying to say printing is equivalent in difficulty to rocket science. ::)
You're right about other manga not having the same problem. I purchase Trigun Maximum(also, DH) and there are no trims whatsoever. It really is a shame. They need to take better care with Berserk.

TheSkyTraveller said:
I've never noticed bad trim on the Japanese volumes either, Mormegil. But he's just shifting the blame anyway, look what he said about Miura:
"I haven't seen Berserk serialized, and I don't know if there are some slight differences in trim proportions from those volumes to the smaller collected editions or if it's just a matter of Miura not paying enough attention to trim when he's creating his pages."
Way to show respect for the creator, man.
::)
Exactly. His statement is rude and disrespectful but like Aazealh said, the average reader wouldn't know any better and assume it's true. Chris Warner is just throwing excuses around.
 

Vaxillus

The one and only severed head
Aazealh said:
PS: Ah yeah, just to add to the fun, the volumes are cheaper in Korea than in Japan (same thing for the PS2 game), so each volume is approximately $3 or so.
Sounds like what my Econ teacher said. He bought a baseball cap in Mexico for 7 pesos. It was a good quality cap, and would easily sell for $20 in the US. Not sure why they're cheaper in Korea, but everything costs way more than it should in the US, since we're the world's #1 consumers. Makes me want to move to Canada.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
TheSkyTraveller said:
Dark Horse's only job is to print and release the volumes, and here the editor is complaining about it. He talks about how little time they have to check out the proofs...well, I realize everyone has a schedule, but considering printing is the most important job they have to do, I think they should put a little more time and effort into it.

Yeah, definitely. I know a bit about professional printing, and it just sounds like lame excuses for trying to get the maximum cost/earnings ratio on people's back. Basically they don't care and then whine about it like they were doing their best.

TheSkyTraveller said:
Way to show respect for the creator, man. ::)

Ugh, I didn't see that. What a moron.

Mormegil said:
It's almost like he's trying to say printing is equivalent in difficulty to rocket science. ::)

Well, the printers' calibration is a difficult job, but it's not like they do it themselves, they have techies to take care of that. Now if they give it the lowest of budget and print it at 3 o'clock in the morning, in between local newspapers, it sure won't look good...

Vaxillus said:
everything costs way more than it should in the US, since we're the world's #1 consumers. Makes me want to move to Canada.

Haha, funny you say that, because everything costs way more in France than in the USA. ;) We have roughly 20% of added taxes on everything.
 
K

KuroiKenshin

Guest
Hey Skullnight.net friends!

How's it going? I'm new to the boards, and I've been a HUGE Berserk fan since the anime was being released in Japan. After watching the first 5-6 eps I was just hooked and found out later that it had a manga. I had to purchase all the japanese manga to see what happened after the Eclipse!! I kept up until Volume 23 (I still have to get up to whatever they have out now.. what is it, 28?) Of course I read the scanslations as well, though I didn't get to read the newest chapter as of yet. I can't believe I never saw Skullnight.net online before. This is by far the best Manga/Anime series out there, and I know this isn't the proper place to introduce myself, but.. "Hi!"... anyway, on to my actual post. . . . . . . . Dark Horse Berserk Manga. I'm (sadly) quite the "originialist"? if you will. I have always hated US manga and even more so despised dubs. When I see a quality manga in the US, (which I admit they are getting a good hand on now), I usually pick it up. But even my love for Berserk can't bring me to buy the pile of junk that they (DH) portray it as. Honestly, the original manga covers are amazing and the US ones look like they are photocopies of some Faxed color picture. Is the translation worth getting it for? Because I really don't mind having the Japanese manga's and the Fan Scanslations. All in all, my real question is: Is the Dark Horse version of Berserk worth spending the ?13.95? on? I mean, the Imports are only averaged at $6.50 a pop. Having that and a scanslation is far superior in my eyes. But to each his own! And for everyone who does love the DH version, I'm not ragging on you, I'm just asking your opinions. Thanks for your time guys!
 
Welcome to SK my friend! The Dark Horse manga is definitely not the top quality, but it stills keeps Miura in business when you buy it. I would like to purchase the entire collection of the Japanese version myself. Whenever they go on sale, I always get on too late, or I just can't find them. Regardless, welcome to the board, and hope you enjoy! ;D

- C
 
Hey KuroiKenshin, welcome to Skullknight.net!

KuroiKenshin said:
Honestly, the original manga covers are amazing and the US ones look like they are photocopies of some Faxed color picture.
The original covers are amazing looking, plus, you can remove them.
In the beginning, DH wasn't doing such a great job with the covers. They were a bit faded but the covers look a lot better now, IMO.

KuroiKenshin said:
Is the translation worth getting it for?
I think so. DH seems to be doing a fine job with the translation and the names are correct thus far.
No Casca. Casca, instead. :)

KuroiKenshin said:
Because I really don't mind having the Japanese manga's and the Fan Scanslations.
You can just read along with the text translations found here.

KuroiKenshin said:
All in all, my real question is: Is the Dark Horse version of Berserk worth spending the ?13.95? on? I mean, the Imports are only averaged at $6.50 a pop. Having that and a scanslation is far superior in my eyes. But to each his own! And for everyone who does love the DH version, I'm not ragging on you, I'm just asking your opinions. Thanks for your time guys!
It's honestly up to you. Even though DH is inferior to the original, it still supports Miura, like C said.
Then again, you really can't go wrong with buying the 28 volumes that are out now and reading along with the text translations.

I didn't help, did I? Just buy both. ;D
 
K

KuroiKenshin

Guest
Thanks for the welcome and thanks for the info. I'll go buy the 5 or 6 Japanese manga's of Berserk that I'm missing just to support Miura and have the originals, because I love them (even down to the type of pages they use!). But as you recommend I might even buy the DH versions now, just to support the man if it actually helps. But I've imported all my Berserk stuff down to the DC and PS2 games and realized sometimes that it doesn't really matter if it reaches the US, I'm going to get it anyway. I'll probably end up buying the DH ones to lend out to people to get them hooked. ^_^ It's about time there's a Berserk community I find, that is excellent. Thanks to EVERYONE on here for making this place a marvelous place to share info (I'll be hanging around the boards a bunch and sharing my idea's as well).
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
KuroiKenshin said:
Hey Skullnight.net friends!

Welcome aboard. :)

KuroiKenshin said:
^_^ It's about time there's a Berserk community I find, that is excellent. Thanks to EVERYONE on here for making this place a marvelous place to share info (I'll be hanging around the boards a bunch and sharing my idea's as well).

No problemo, and don't hesitate to check older threads, some of them contain a lot of informations.
 
ok i know this is kind of late i have had issue 7 since the day it came out and i have to say its pretty damn good. i mean I'm no translator or even anything close to one, but i cant seem to find anything wrong with this issue.

i still have heard nothing about the release date for issue 9 in English. and issue 8 still has the same release date
7/13/05
 

Vaxillus

The one and only severed head
I just got vol7 recently. I was fine, until I statred noticing how at least half the people talk with a southern accent. Lots for stuff like 'cause, gonna, doin', etc. It gets irritating after a while.
 

Opie

The Sex Icon
Yeah. They should try to give the nobles, at least, a more articulate/cultured flair when they speak.
 
S

Some Guy

Guest
The best thing I noticed about this release was that there was no noticeable cutoff.

As far as translation, the thing that kind of irked my the most was that Raban was seplled "Laban" (though this seens to be the typical problem L and R translations). Aside from that, it was good.
 
I've just begun to buy the manga, English version though.... I'm hoping they start releasing monthly because that would be perfect for me, and I don't see what is taking them so long, I mean its the same thing as the Japanese version, just different words, not too hard if you have a translator, I guess they are worried about cost in making it and sales the most, which they shouldn't because it seems popular over in America, the place I bought the English version from was almost completely sold out.
 
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