One of a handful of non-Japanese original manga creators who have achieved both critical and commercial success, Svetlana Chmakova is now releasing the first volume of Nightschool, a new original manga series that will be published by Yen Press in April. The series is also one of the first original graphic novels to debut in Yen Plus, a hefty, monthly magazine anthology serializing Yen Press’s OEL, Japanese and Korean manga/manhwa titles.
New York-based Yen Press, the graphic novel imprint of the Hachette Book Group, launched Yen Plus magazine last August as a slickly produced, high-profile anthology that doubles as a marketing vehicle used to show off its list of OEL (original English language), Japanese, and Korean titles. And while Viz Media’s Shonen Jump and Shojo Beat magazines feature licensed Japanese manga, Yen Plus is the first magazine in recent years to publish original content like Maximum Ride, a manga-style adaptation by NaRae Lee of James Patterson’s bestselling prose series, and Nightschool. The first volume of Maximum Ride was released in paperback form in January.
Nightschool is the story of a school that opens its doors to werewolves, witches, and other supernatural beings after normal school hours. “The genesis of Nightschool happened when I discovered urban fantasy back in my Canadian high school (I was reading Sandman by Neil Gaiman),” Chmakova said in an e-mail interview. “The idea of so casually combining the everyday world with the supernatural really hit me, so my daily daydreaming and doodling became heavily laced with that.”
Working on a monthly schedule helped Chmakova stay focused. “Doing the book one chapter at a time has also added a more freeform element to story development,” she said. “I still have a general outline for it all, but also more space to think about it and room to experiment with new story directions that occur to me.” And Chmakova said that that her technical skills—pacing, layout, and drawing—have improved since she began her first full-length work, the three-volume Dramacon. “Other than that, it's still my style of storytelling and art, just more evolved,” she said.
When the first volume of Dramacon was published by Tokyopop in 2005, many manga fans rejected works by non-Japanese creators. That has faded, Chmakova said. “I definitely feel more acceptance from the reader side,” she said. “I've seen quite a few people shed their preconceptions about OEL manga and become fans.”
One reason for the initial fan rejection of OEL manga was the weakness of some of the early properties, according Yen Press publishing director Kurt Hassler. “People who loved manga but had very little instruction were being given contracts early on, putting out full books without the kind of guidance you need on a professional level.” By contrast, he said, Japanese and Korean editors spend a lot of time working with their creators.
“The biggest reason for doing a monthly magazine in Asia is to let the artist grow,” said JuYoun Lee, the editor of Nightschool and of Yen Plus. “You get more feedback from readers, and you see how the characters get their own power—they go in a different way sometimes from the initial setup of the artist.”
Chmakova writes the rough draft for each chapter of Nightschool and sends the thumbnails to Lee to look over before doing the final art. “Every month we have an in-depth conversation about how the story is going to go on,” said Lee. “I’m the first reader, so if I have doubts or if I don't get what’s happening, it’s not going to work for the readers as well.”
“JuYoun's really encouraged me to let the story happen as it needs to, to not rush the storylines towards a conclusion, and I think the story has become better-paced and richer for it,” said Chmakova. “Also, she's really helped me with catching things that don't work or aren't explained enough—with a complex story world like that of Nightschool it's very important for an author to have that help.”
Hassler said Nightschool is one of the most popular stories in the magazine. “We get fan art from it, we get feedback from readers saying it is one of their favorite series in the magazine,” he said. “In terms of amount of feedback, it’s one of the top three, but it is really difficult to quantify. We have never done a contest or popularity poll.”
Yen is currently seeking proposals from other professional artists and will kick off the original works with a story by another successful non-Japanese original manga creater, Queenie Chan, in July. “We are not going to give everyone a book on day one,” Hassler cautioned; instead, the artist will work on a 30-page standalone story for the magazine. “It’s specifically to give them the opportunity to work with JuYoun, to give them advice they may not have heard yet,” he said.
Besides providing a vehicle for artists to develop and hone their stories, Yen Plus has an important role to play in marketing new Yen Press titles in now-crowded U.S. manga market. Hassler is more optimistic about the manga market than most observers, pointing out that reports that manga sales are shrinking ignore the fact that the 2007 numbers were inflated by Viz’s decision to publish 12 volumes of Naruto, the most popular manga on the market, in three months.
Still, he said, “We do have a situation where retailers are pulling back on initial orders of books, and that does make it more difficult to build an awareness of the title.” The magazine plays a key role by casting a wide net, he said. “There are the Dramacon fans who picked up the magazine and became fans of the other series but also people who are not fans of Dramacon who become fans of Soul Eater, Maximum Ride,—they become fans of Svetlana’s stuff. It’s building the audience of people who are not familiar with her work that lends marketing value to the magazine as a whole.”
Chmakova will be doing personal appearances to promote the book, and Yen Press has some placement programs with various retailers, Hassler said. “It’s a much tougher time to launch a book this year than two years ago,” he said. “With everything going on in the economy in general, it would be difficult to say otherwise, but I still have great confidence in the manga market as a whole, and I think Svetlana can be one of the bright spots in that market.”
