Manga, graphic novels, art books, video games, book marketing and packaging: Udon Entertainment does it all. And the Toronto-based company will add to this list, launching its own line of Korean manhwa in the fall of this year.
Taking its name from the Japanese noodles that appear in many manga titles, Udon is a publisher and an artists’ collective that provides art for video and role-playing games as well as American-style comics. The company launched in 2000 and has been most visible for its work in comics, releasing original titles inspired by Japan's Capcom video games—including the popular Street Fighter series—along with providing art for Marvel Comics (Hulk, Sentinel, Spider-Man and X-Men) and for other publishers, including Wildstorm's Robotech.
The collective comprises roughly 35 members scattered around the world, receiving editorial direction from their central office in Toronto. Udon has also collaborated with top industry talents including Joe Madureira (known for a run on X-Men and recently tapped as the artist for Marvel’s upcoming Ultimates volume), Adam Warren (original manga artist and creator of the American version of the Dirty Pair series and Image’s Empowered), Hyung-Tae Kim (a Korean character designer for video games) and Corey Lewis (best known for Sharknife).
These days the company’s attention is focused on providing high resolution art for the Street Fighter high-definition video games, and Udon is leveraging that experience to create comics using characters from Capcom's video games. Udon has published its own original Street Fighter and Street Fighter Legends comics and has begun publishing Capcom's own Japanese manga. Onimusha: Night of Genesis is available now, and Udon launched Street Fighter II in June with volumes two and three set for release in fall and winter of this year. The company has also licensed three Street Fighter series by popular manga-ka Masahiko Nakahira: Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter: Sakura Ganbaru!, and Street Fighter III: Ryu Final. The company has plans to release about 15 different Capcom titles for the rest of this year.
Udon plans to release 30-40 titles in 2008, and its books will be distributed to the bookstore market by Diamond Book Distributors. The company will launch a line of Korean manhwa (manhwa reads left to right like English-language comics) this fall. In 2005, the company began providing marketing services to ICE Kunion, a now defunct copublishing venture between three of Korea’s biggest publishers. The experience Udon gained working in that partnership led the house to license such manhwa titles as Star Project Chiro, Dorothy of Oz and Magical JxR, with plans to release the titles this fall in the U.S.
Star Project Chiro is by Bring It On manhwa-ga Baek Hye-Kyung (manhwa-ga is the Korean equivalent of manga-ka, or comics artist or writer). It is the story of a young girl, Eun-Yo Song, who is thrown into the world of pop stars after a chance meeting with a teen idol. Dorothy of Oz is a manga take on the Wizard of Oz, with heroine Mara Shin lost in Oz and trying to find her dog, Toto. Finally, in Magical JxR beautiful teen wizards Jay and Aru have to complete a yearlong contract with a human master to become full-fledged wizards and are stuck with lucky girl Cho-Ah.
Erik Ko, Udon's chief of operations, said Korean manhwa is “just like Japanese manga when it first started blooming. You can feel the heart in a lot of it and the content is not as repetitive and commercial” as material coming from the big Japanese manga publishers. And Ko explained that South Korea shares some cultural similarities with the U.S. "[South Koreans are] mostly Catholic and the overall community is more conservative,” Ko said, “so the content in manhwa books is much cleaner and more suitable for the American audience in general.”
Udon also publishes art books that focus on the behind-the-scene creation of its wildly popular video games. Art books include Mega Man, which Udon calls Capcom's "classic franchise"; Okami, covering a new video game with graphics inspired by traditional Japanese watercolor painting; and Onimusha. And Udon has high expectations for its massive Art of Capcom , which will contain all of the art ever created for Capcom licensors.
These books offer extras like those found on DVDs and also allow the fans to see how their favorite titles are made. "This generation is more interested in how things are done,” Ko explained. "They want to get involved and see just how Capcom does it."
