Blade of Kumori ?

[spider2004]

Hey Ron. I'm guessing people have already asked you this, but I haven't heard anything lately. So what is going on with Blade of Kumori? What did DDP have to say to you about it and will you ever be able to at least finish #6? Hope this doesn't bother you, me asking you these questions. I never really read anything of yours until Blade came out and I really did enjoy your work, so I was sad to see this end. I have though been reading Samurai and really been enjoying it. Well can't wait to read more of your work, either by DDP or anybody else :D .

[Ron Marz]

Happy to answer, Spider. Thanks for the interest, and glad you're liking my stuff (especially Samurai!).

DDP cut me a check for the work I'd completed on Kumori #6, and that's the last I've heard from them. I'd truthfully be quite surprised if we ever got back to it, as DDP seems to have moved on with its publishing plan. It's a shame, as I feel bad for the readers, like you, who invested time and money into the series, and are unlikely to get a satisfying conclusion to the story.

In DDP's defense, they were up front and honest about the situation with the creative teams, and paid what they owed. A lot of publishers aren't honest enough to do the same.

[Captain Jim]

I'm glad he asked because I've been meaning to inquire as to whether anything new had happened here. I'm sorry to hear that it has not. I'm more than a bit irked about this. I can understand if sales didn't warrant doing further arcs, but darn it, there was only one more issue to complete the arc--and you even had it partway written! Would it really be too much to ask to publish one more issue for the folks who had stayed with this all the way?

That's a rhetorical question, Ron; I know this is out of your hands.

[NormanB]

Hmmmm.

Why don't they let you guys finish the issue, and then publish all six issues in a value-priced $10 digest.

Guarantee people would buy the crap out of it, and they'd recap a little more money on the franchise.

[Ron Marz]

I know a Kumori trade of the first six issues -- and I'm fairly certain it was supposed to be digest size -- was solicited a while ago. However, that's obviously unlikely to happen at this point. I had agreed to a six-issue commitment for Kumori, but we didn't even make that before the plug was pulled.

Starting up a "universe" -- superhero or otherwise -- is exceedingly tough. Damn near impossible, if you ask me. If people want integrated universes, they're reading Marvel and DC already. Ingrained buying patterns and the cost of comics make it a tall order for a publisher to get readers buying an entire line of new comics.

[spider2004]

Thanks for answering my questions Ron, I appreciate it very much. :D Well it's good to know that DDP at least payed you what they said they would.

[Lester C.]

I know a Kumori trade of the first six issues -- and I'm fairly certain it was supposed to be digest size -- was solicited a while ago. However, that's obviously unlikely to happen at this point. I had agreed to a six-issue commitment for Kumori, but we didn't even make that before the plug was pulled.

Starting up a "universe" -- superhero or otherwise -- is exceedingly tough. Damn near impossible, if you ask me. If people want integrated universes, they're reading Marvel and DC already. Ingrained buying patterns and the cost of comics make it a tall order for a publisher to get readers buying an entire line of new comics.

What really gets me is that the same people who complain about the big two are the same ones that refuse to buy anything outside of Marvel and DC.

[Captain Jim]

Starting up a "universe" -- superhero or otherwise -- is exceedingly tough. Damn near impossible, if you ask me. If people want integrated universes, they're reading Marvel and DC already. Ingrained buying patterns and the cost of comics make it a tall order for a publisher to get readers buying an entire line of new comics.

There's certainly been ample evidence of that lately. :(

Given your relatively recent experience with CrossGen, I have to admit to having been a bit surprised when you signed on with Aftermath.

[Lester C.]

There's certainly been ample evidence of that lately. :(

Given your relatively recent experience with CrossGen, I have to admit to having been a bit surprised when you signed on with Aftermath.

Just a guess but Ron probably had a story in him he just had to tell and the only place to tell it was in the Aftermath universe.

[Ron Marz]

Devil's Due approached me with an offer to pick whatever Aftermath property I favored. The very broad concepts were in place, but really not much more than a few paragraphs for each. Initially, they'd hoped that I would take on Defex (was that the name of it?), but my interest in super-powered teens was nil.

The attraction was the chance to build a book from the ground up, which to me is always more of an allure than taking on something established. It was also relatively short-term commitment: I signed on for six issues, and was to have received creator partiticpation (in other words, a percentage). So I picked Kumori, and made it into a samurai story rather than a ninja story, which was how it was originally conceived.

I was truthfully didn't officially commit until the art team was nailed down. Once I saw the stuff that Dub and Pierre-Andre Dery of Grafiksismik had produced, I really wanted to work with them. If nothing else, meeting those guys made the Kumori experience worthwhile. We'll definitely be doing work together elsewhere. Pierre-Andre is helping out his brother Christian, who puchased the old Dreamwave properties and intends to publish them. And Dub and Pierre-Andre contributed a VERY cool pin-up for the gallery in the Samurai TPB.

So even though I never got to complete the sixth issue of Kumori, I look at the whole thing as a positive experience.

[Strannik]

It's too bad. I hoped against hope that they might be able to include the sixth issue in a digest, but obviously, that's not possible.

On my part, I liked Blade of Kumori. It has a very samurai-movie-meets-pulp-adventure which grabbed me right off the bat. Out of all Aftermath titles, this was the only one that I followed all the way to the end. I found plotting and pacing to be questionable at times, but, overall, I enjoyed it.


Starting up a "universe" -- superhero or otherwise -- is exceedingly tough. Damn near impossible, if you ask me. If people want integrated universes, they're reading Marvel and DC already. Ingrained buying patterns and the cost of comics make it a tall order for a publisher to get readers buying an entire line of new comics.

When Aftermath was still active, I used to complain that the universe suffered from internal inconsistancy. Defex didn't really fit with the world depicted in Blade of Kumori and Infantry. Breakdown. was problematic in relation to what seemed like an overarching premise - that Aftermath superheroes and supervillains were just starting to emerge. I mean, in Breakdown, the title character had several years worth of history behind him, some of which involved dealing with established super-villanous threats. I love shared universes, but when the premise of the books refused to jibe and details were inconsistant, it became, quite frankly, frusterating.

Perhaps if Aftermath started out as a single title, with books spinning off it on case-by-case bases, things would have been different. As it is, the line had potential while it lasted.