Dark Horse Releases

Grail

Feel the funk blast
I think the spine thing is more disturbing to me in that it's just another symptom of the ongoing condition that is Dark Horse's seeming lack of investment in its own publication.

Don't get me wrong, supporting the official English release is the right thing to do, but damn if they don't make it seem easier to just learn Japanese and go with the untranslated volumes. :troll:

In summary: most un-groovy. :azan:
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Walter said:
I'm "over" it. It's not like this will stop me from buying future volumes. But the sudden, arbitrary change of the spines is naturally upsetting to those of us who care about such things. In an ideal world, these things would match up. They won't anymore, and that's unfortunate, hence the growing chorus of piercing whines from the thread. It's a small concern, but a concern nonetheless.

KGJ6d3Z.jpg


Sorry can't hear ya. :troll:

Walter said:
Maybe DH had a problem with advertising a third party (Digital Manga Publishing). Which makes me wonder... Sareth, could you thumb through one of those new reissued prints and see if DMP is mentioned anywhere in the first few pages or the end? Anything different about the companies listed?

Yeah, more seriously, this is the first thing I checked and it struck me as the answer for this change. They probably dropped DMP and therefore purged their logo from the spines. That being said, it shouldn't excuse the shit job they did in replacing it. But then again, their covers were hideous to begin with, so...
 
Aazealh said:
Unpopular opinion: you guys care too much about those spines. It's shitty, sure, but get over it... It's not the end of the world.

Well, of course in the end it's not that big of a deal, as long as the content is quality stuff. But still... if you think of how little effort would have take to substitute the area of the DMP logo to an equal proportioned one, it leaves a bit of a bitter taste. Hell, i think that even i, who have zero experience with digital graphics software, would have managed to make it consistent with the other volumes, all they had to do was make a smaller logo using the same Dark Horse fonts, i doubt it'd require so much time to an experienced graphic designer.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Sancho said:
Well, of course in the end it's not that big of a deal, as long as the content is quality stuff. But still... if you think of how little effort would have take to substitute the area of the DMP logo to an equal proportioned one, it leaves a bit of a bitter taste. Hell, i think that even i, who have zero experience with digital graphics software, would have managed to make it consistent with the other volumes, all they had to do was make a smaller logo using the same Dark Horse fonts, i doubt it'd require so much time to an experienced graphic designer.

I think it's pretty obvious that they just didn't care.
 
Walter said:
Sareth, could you thumb through one of those new reissued prints and see if DMP is mentioned anywhere in the first few pages or the end? Anything different about the companies listed?

They still have English-language version produced by Dark Horse Comics and Digital Manga Publishing at the beginning but about everything else related to DMP has been removed.
 

Walter

Administrator
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Wow! Everything else? Is Duane Johnson still listed as the translator? Among the editors and publishers, does it now only show DH people? If so that's a big shift for them. The biggest since it started back in 2003.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Sareth said:
Duane Johnson and other people are still credited but DMP's logos and address are gone.

Ah, okay. Then it sounds to me like they're doing the bare minimum to acknowledge DMP's involvement. Wonder why it changed..?
 
Griffith said:
Unfortunately, that's the worst part of the Dark Horse editions. Spine uniformity was a relative strength before! :ganishka:

Grail said:
Don't get me wrong, supporting the official English release is the right thing to do, but damn if they don't make it seem easier to just learn Japanese and go with the untranslated volumes. :troll:

In summary: most un-groovy. :azan:

Lol very true, like both of you said. I never realized how incorrect some of the spellings and translations were until I found Skullknight back then. One thing I've noticed in a few of my manga volumes is that a couple of pages are also cut off, like a slice of the dialogue and some of the picture, like a bad print. Thankfully most are okay but it's unfortunate.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Dark Horse just confirmed on Twitter the reason for the spine change: DMP are no longer the co-publishers of Berserk with Dark Horse.

Unsure whether this means there will be a different translator for Berserk moving forward. Duane Johnson, who has been the series' translator since 2004, was a DMP contractor. DMP was originally also the licensee for the Berserk manga. If that's the case, then perhaps DH worked something out with Hakusensha to retain it?

It's the second company to sever relations with DMP in the past few months too, according to Anime News Network.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Walter said:
Dark Horse just confirmed on Twitter the reason for the spine change: DMP are no longer the co-publishers of Berserk with Dark Horse.

As expected.

Walter said:
Unsure whether this means there will be a different translator for Berserk moving forward. Duane Johnson, who has been the series' translator since 2004, was a DMP contractor. DMP was originally also the licensee for the Berserk manga. If that's the case, then perhaps DH worked something out with Hakusensha to retain it?

I would imagine they'd sign Duane Johnson themselves. He's been doing it for so long, would be weird to change now. Wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing to get a new (better) guy though. Also, the very fact they're reprinting it with only their logo implies to me that they've worked out a deal with the licensor (Hakusensha). That might be why the official message first was "no reprinting in the foreseeable future" before the quick turnaround of "reprinting coming next week!"
 

DANGERDOOOOM

Rest In Peace, Kentaro Miura. We will miss you.
According to Amazon.com, looks like our current date is set for July 18th, 2017.

Don't know how reliable that date is, since Dark Horse doesn't have any information on their website. But from past experiences Amazon holds true.
 

Natt_Himmel

"Just a guy who reads Berserk for fun."
DANGERDOOOOM said:
According to Amazon.com, looks like our current date is set for July 18th, 2017.

Don't know how reliable that date is, since Dark Horse doesn't have any information on their website. But from past experiences Amazon holds true.


It feels good to finally have a date for the release. Although it surprised me it took so long to translate. But I don't doubt there is a good reason.
 

DANGERDOOOOM

Rest In Peace, Kentaro Miura. We will miss you.
It makes me upset that certain countries already have the translation, but the English release is being held back because Dark Horse wants to be responsible for the English translations :schierke:
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
DANGERDOOOOM said:
It makes me upset that certain countries already have the translation, but the English release is being held back because Dark Horse wants to be responsible for the English translations :schierke:

Well many countries had Berserk before Dark Horse even picked it up, so don't be too upset about it. The USA really aren't the premier country for manga. That aside, I really, highly doubt this has anything to do with translating the text. It's a business decision. Either to space the volumes out or to release them when it makes the most sense for them, or just to do it when they have nothing better to do.
 

jackson_hurley

even the horses are cut in half!
Aazealh said:
Well many countries had Berserk before Dark Horse even picked it up, so don't be too upset about it. The USA really aren't the premier country for manga. That aside, I really, highly doubt this has anything to do with translating the text. It's a business decision. Either to space the volumes out or to release them when it makes the most sense for them, or just to do it when they have nothing better to do.

From what I've observed from them, since they caught up with the Japanese volumes they tend to release the English version approximately 1 year after the Japanese one. Well at least with last few we got. I'd say they just space the volumes..
 
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