UDONKO plz tell us what is going on

Media Outlet Comic Book Forum
1

udonko we are all fans of this series and with each comic we love it even more but we also with each late comic our fear that the series wont last grows more and more
the first 2 arcs were a monthly comic now it looks every three months we get one isue tht we finish reading after 2 min
dont get me wrong i love the story i love the art and it is the best street fighter adaptation but believe me, you guys will loose alot of fans like that
in the begining you (udenko) told us whats going on and when to expect the comic now you disappeared and left us sinking in our worries.
plz udonko tell us what is wrong? why is the comic delayed with every issue?

guys if any of you here in the forum know what is going on tell me

2

Udon should go back to Image or an other publishing company, cause the way they are doing buisiness is awfull!

3

yep since they started doing the publishing we start getting a comic each 3-4 month, i love the comic but my interest in it is getting lower and lower with all the delay

and i hope we can get an explaination what is going on.

4

Theres a lot of factor to the slowing down of the SF book.

One is being we are very very anal on the quality. For the first SF series, we have Arnold, Alvin, Andrew, Omar, Long, & Noi all ganging on 14 issues, with 4 inkers and more than 10 colorist doing coloring. We are kinda happy on the outcome in terms of scheduling, but there were quite a big inconsistency in the look and quality of the pages thru out the 14 issue run. A lot has change after issue 14. A few of the guys decide to go and pursue other career, and with our decision to restart SF with SFII we feel that we gotta just establish one team and one team only to do at least a 6 issue run. If you notice, the new credit page has constantly been only ALVIN LEE, M3TH, and ESPEN GRUNDETJERN. We are much happier on how the book is looking and how it is very consistent in style and coloring. But of coz, we are talking about 3 person VS like 20 people doing it before.

Then, Con season starts. We flew Alvin back from Thailand (YES, Alvin has moved to Thailand for about a year now. He is in search of Sagat…) to NY Con so that fans of the east coast can meet with the team. That costs 2 weeks in total of the production time to prep for that convention, and back and forth. And when Alvin went back to Thailand, he got a very terrible stomach fleu that he was hospitalized for a week. Thus, the delay of issue 4 for about a 3 week schedule.

It is always a juggle between going to cons and doing the books. A lot of you has been asking “Are you going to LA?” “Will UDON be at Philly?”. Honestly, we would LOVE to be at all the cons to meet all of you! However, that would mean no books will ever come out.

Why can’t we put more people on the SF book? Some might ask. The plain truth is that the SF comic is not making as much as it used to. The SF book is not going to keep everyone at UDON alive. As much as we LOVE the SF book, it is still a job. Exchange rate between CDN and US dollars has been at a 14 year low, thus the printing cost of our bookand our operation cost is at a 14 year high! Even sales has been consistant at around 20K copies, our book does not have any ad sales or anything else to sponsor the production and printing cost. We have to take on other things so that we can feed the rest of the crew.

And if you think Image or other publishing companies can help, then, you go and try. One of the reasons we go independent is to eliminate the middle man so that we can be afloat longer.

Indeed, I am not proud of how our publishing schedule has been. But at least holding the 4 issues (0-3) of SF II on hand, I never regret our decision to quality over quantity.

And never has the book become 4 months each. I know waiting for a good stuff is a painful process and it aways seems longer than it seem. Look at the actual on shelf dates -

SFII #0 = Oct 12
SFII #1 = Dec 7
SFII #2 = Jan 25
SFII #3 = April 3

There is a one month break between issue 2 and 3 in solicitations (becoz we have to factor in X-Mas delaying production). Right now, it is at a 1.5 to 2 month turn around.

Thanks for the support.

EK

5

thank you eric for explaining what happens, i understand now.
but i was thinking maybe the delay is the factor that the street fighter books dont sell as much as they used to? cause i cant see the its the quality, the quality is getting better and bettr which each issue as well as the story.
I cant think of anything bringing back the lost sf comics fan except a new anime or a new game or maybe more advertisment.
i hope you guys will do better and make the comics on schedule, believe me the delays cause a lot of people to give up the comic, i knew personaly about two people who just said “forget it” just because of the delays. But again i uderstand what is going on and hopefully you guys will find good artists to help you out, and if there is anything you need from us, fans, to help you out let us know we really love your comics.

last questions : when can we expect issue #4 cause as you might have noticed I cant waaiiiiiiiit :smiley:

-nabil-

6

what happened to rival schools and dark stalkers??

7

I think if you guys did a different production team on each series, you could run all 3 at the same time, and thus triple your profits. Since, as you said, your income is all from comic sales and not ads, it makes sense to put out more issues, as a 2 month break between issues just means less money coming in.

We all love the comic, and we love the quality, and we all want to see you guys succeed!

8

Hey Udon,

why don’t you put advertisement into the books and don’t go to the conventions so often? Cause i suppose more people would like more comics (along with DS & RS) at their hands rather than your appearances at the cons. You can always communicate with the fans online as well as sell things. Further do not need to spend time planning and paying for a guys trip from Thailand and back. Think about it…

Do you earn money on the cons?

9

No way, con appearances and sketches rule. :rock: It’s a great way to meet the fans, increase readership and hey, you try getting a sketch from Marvel or DC or Image at a con…

I think Studio Udon’s doing a fine job, meeting the fans at the con and giving us sketches and speaking to people on various forums telling us what is going on and listening to what we have to say. I too wish for the delays to stop but as you can see they are doing what they can, making the best of it and the SF book has never looked better. So I will continue to support them anyway I can.

About Darkstalkers -

http://www.shoryuken.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3026592#post3026592

Rival Schools I dunno. Didn’t Rey get sick too? I vaguely remember Udoneko saying that before.

10

thats a shame things have gone this way, yea the delays most certainly hurt the stories you have going on, thus some readers never come back, I hope aleast your get to finish this SF2 arc, not many SF fans no much about 3s anyway if you got to that it would be a bonus, well good luck on the work.

11

Getting new fans is difficult this late in the comic book series. Keeping old fans is important and as stated the sales have gone down dramatically. Consumers do not know nor care about the circumstances sorry to say (Harsh but true, I’m speaking generally here). Consistency is important and if you can’t keep up and keep throwing readers off with that you have a problem.

Should comic cons and such minus the big 3 (Toronto, Wizard World and SDCC) be a priority over this? Although showing fans that you care is important, keeping up a good quality and consistency in your comics is more-so.

I don’t mean to sound rude but it makes sense doesn’t it?

By the way who does work on the SF comics now? Did I read that Alvin Lee and Arnold Tsang have gone onto other things?

12

I are you talk about this link

http://www.shoryuken.com/forums/showthread.php?t=111850

13

Partially yeah. Cheers.

14

i dont personally mind the same art quality that we had in the first 2 arcs (issue 1-14) as long as we can get the once a month isuue,
i am a big fan of the comic but with each delay i felle like giving up, and i do agree the post above me that fans wont care about the circumstances, we may understand , but the general fan public wouldnt care and the sales that went down dramitically proove what i say, i wish udon can do something about it, im just afraid that the book will get canceled in the middle or like darkstalker which is still waiting for its second arc since last year.
i also think that udon took too many licences at once it would have been wise to just stick with SF and darkstalker until they make a lot of money out of them then they can do rival school and exhalted, thats my opinion.

15

Arnold Tsang has gone on to other things, Alvin Lee is the current penciler with m3th on inks and Espen on colours.

The book is currently on about a bi-monthy schedule. Have you thought of officially making it a bi-monthy title? The book might need to feel a bit longer to justify this though (like issue 1) and it will need to be announced somewhere (Newsarama?). This would give you some breathing room in case staff gets sick etc and can give fans a new official schedule.

Pimp Willy mentioned puting different production teams on different projects as with Exalted and I agree this would be an ideal situation for all books. However, remember that Udon the company is primarily a freelance artist group and I think the rest of the staff is needed for those jobs. As Udoneko mentioned, the group can’t live off SF book sales alone.

Martinitolove suggested more advertisements. I am not knowledgeable on how advertising works in comic books (advertisers come to you?; you go to the advertisers? Other complexities?) but this seems to be a good idea especially if it can offset some costs. SF, being a video game license appeals to gamers at some level. It seems reasonable that game companies would not mind placing ads in your book and with the upcoming next gen consoles, I’m sure Nintendo, Sony are looking to advertise as well.

I agree with the other posters that the delays are influencing sales negatively and rectifying the delays should be the main area of focus.

I am still enjoying what is out there. The quality of issues 0-3 is excellent.

16

Getting new fans past 3 issues into a comic series is NOT difficult, that’s what trades are for.

Sales are not going down, he just said they’re staying at 20K, which is “alright” for any comic not in the big 2.
It’s not enough to run a company on, though, so they farm themselves out.
This isn’t new information, it’s been the norm for quite a while now with Udon.

I knew this would happen.
Before there was whining about quality and the art being inconsistant so they nailed down a good team and set the bar even higher for their standards.
Now you’re whining about the turn around time between issues.

You can’t have it both ways.
2 months isn’t really a long time.
Relax, there’s plenty of other great books out there to read.

17

Jeez, I never knew delays made that much of an impact. I would really rather put up with delays and more ads if it means the quality is consistent. That was something that bugged me with SF. The art style just changed too much for my liking. Alvin’s SFII art is phenomenal. I want it to stay that way.

18

The license issues sounds more like biting off more than they can chew.

Another thing they should definitely consider is scrapping variants. Like I said at SFD, I’d rather they sacrifice variants if it means us getting the comics earlier. Most buyers probably don’t even buy every variant anyway.

19

If we did not do variants, we would be dead by now. And Variants do not take extra time coz Alvin is not drawing 2 covers. It is always Alvin and a guest artists.

20

So variants are the only thing saving you then eh? A bit risky don’t you think?

Can’t you guys get another bunch of people to slit the load between you? I’m sure most wont mind too much if the main story has a different artist now and then so long the comics are released normally. Other major comics do this frequently. Or then there’s Ultimate Spider-Man, where Mark Bagley does every issue…and we’re coming up to 100 now…and nowhere near as silly 2 month gaps. Mind you, the art quality is obviously different, but hey, sacrificing a bit would enhance sales, whereas what you guys are doing seems to be hurting it instead.