There’s been a plenty talk of anthologies ever since Tania Del Rio wondered if that could help manga series establish their identity.

While I have my thoughts about anthologies, I thought it might be more interesting (especially since there’s already been some smart commentary and conversation on the topic) to take a look at various comic/manga anthologies from the past decade and see what trends I notice in my reactions:

Negative Burn — By the time I started picking up comics again, this anthology series had ended but I picked up the occasional back issue to see work by creators I had recently discovered like Sean McKeever and Nat Gertler. From what I could tell, the series consisted of unrelated short stories
Positives: Gave us the first appearances of creators that would deliver some solid work later.
Negatives: Because it consisted entirely of short stories, the series lacked a strong brand identity so that readers would know what to expect out of a random issue found on the shelf and a guideline for retailers to know how to predict interest… a problem that’s killed many an anthology series in the direct market.

Showcase — Another series that ended by the time I started picking up comics, this was a DC Universe anthology with various short stories, usually by lesser-known creators. In its final incarnation (it was described as several 12-issue limited series) there were occasional cross-overs with regular titles, which was what primarily how I started pulling this title out of the back issue bin.
Positives: Showcase offered a chance for C and D list characters to get some screen time and worked as a trial space for untested talent.
Negatives: Without established creators, the series become perceived as low quality, with stories by underexperienced creators. Additionally, the short space and lack of continuity made it feel like a title one was free to pass.

Pulp — Pulp was, essentially, what one would get if Vertigo published a manga anthology magazine. It featured series like Banana Fish, Uzumaki, Junko Mizuno’s Cinderella and Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga, along with articles about Japanese pop culture.
Positives: Pulp had a strong, unique voice at the time. It lasted for several years (suggesting that it met expectations for a while) and might be worth reviving if Viz ever goes back to more mature genres of manga.
Negatives: I suspect Pulp’s eventual doom was the manga boom and the younger, audience it brought to the marketplace. Quite simply, there was suddenly a lot more money to be made by focusing on different demographics.

Raijin Magazine — Another manga anthology magazine that disappeared when its publisher went bankrupt.
Positives: I’d love to hear more about this one from people that read it.
Negatives: Unfortunately, Raijin lacked a buzz series to draw readers. Without a strong identity, it was hard to figure out if this was of interest to anyone.

CrossGen Compendium — CrossGen tried to take a lesson from the Japanese model by offering two series that collected an issue from several different CrossGen series.
Positives: The Compendiums were packaged nicely, with series that read well together. High quality printing made the Compendiums feel equal to the comics, but at a lower price per issue.
Negatives: Packaging was a little too nice, with glue binding and thick covers typically found in comic TPBs. That caused confusion with retailers who confused it for a TPB and shelved it accordingly. The two Compendiums’ names also didn’t help, the company had been criticized in the past for giving its series generic sounding names and it was hard to remember if you read Forge or Edge. Being a unique product at its time, many potential customers still didn’t understand the compendiums were.

Shonen Jump — Viz’s shounen manga magazine has grown quite nicely, now seeing distribution in smaller newsstands like supermarkets and leading readers to other Viz series.
Positives: Starting out with Dragon Ball Z, the magazine launched on the strength of a franchise that was peaking in popularity and has been smart in turning popular anime series into Shonen Jump readers.
Negatives: It’s Japanese counterpart (a major source for material) has been struggling in the past few years, raising the question if Viz may have to worry about a drought of compelling series to import in the future.

Ultimate Marvel Magazine — Marvel’s first attempt at turning their Ultimate titles into a magazine anthology featured two issues of an Ultimate comic (usually Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate X-Men) along with a few articles.
Positives: The Ultimate titles have proven themselves a popular entry to Marvel’s characters, so there was strong material.
Negatives: With only two comics in each issue, the magazine felt rather insignificant for the price, especially since readers could find out what happened next by picking up a TPB already available in bookstores. It was also hard to find at newsstands — probably harder to find than TPB collections of Ultimate titles.

Disney Adventures — A fixture at supermarket checkout stands, Disney Adventures mixes comics with entertainment articles and activities aimed at younger readers.
Positives: A strong brand identity with strong franchises (with new franchises frequently being added). By buying placement at supermarkets, its hard to miss a chance to buy this magazine.
Negatives: Sometimes the magazine feels like an extended ad for Disney entertainment properties.

Shojo Beat — Following the success of Shonen Jump, Viz started a second anthology magazine focused on shoujo manga. (It’s second attempt at a shoujo anthology, though its prior shoujo magazine, Animerica Extra wasn’t easily identified as a source for shoujo manga.. or manga at all).
Positives: The magazine has a strong identity with some solid articles supporting a hip and edgy teen voice.
Negatives: While successful, the line falls far behind its sibling publication/imprint in sales, though Shonen Jump has had more time to find its audience and benefits several series popular as anime programming. How long until we find the next Sailor Moon?

Tokyopop Takuhai — Launched around the same time as Shojo Beat, Takuhai (later renamed) mixed excerpts from Tokyopop titles with short articles.
Positives: Free home delivery ensures this series reaches a large audience.
Negatives: Excerpts are always dangerous since they’re not usually meant to be read separately so readers are at the mercy of the editor selecting a good sampling of the series. The free home delivery must be very costly.

I’m going to state the obvious a few times, so forgive me if I sound condescending, but better to say the obvious than to leave things unsaid on the presumption that it’s already known. I think there are three key factors to a successful anthology:

1. A popular known quality can help launch a franchise, especially if its not available elsewhere or known outside of print. Shojo Beat, however, shows that an already-popular franchise isn’t a requirement if you can promise other known qualities like Absolute Boyfriend creator Yuu Watase.
2. With or without a known franchise, a strong identity is necessary. A consistent tone tells customers this is a product they want to buy month after month. If a series is rotated out of the anthology, it will be replaced by another series that will work well for that magazine’s readers.
3. Distribution is important. The harder it is to find an anthology magazine, the more your audience has to work to get it — if they feel like your anthology is worth that work.

With this in mind, could an anthology help Tokyopop lose some of its problems of too many series being unfamiliar to readers? Maybe. At the moment, the publisher’s three strongest franchises are probably Fruits Baskets, Samurai Champloo and GTO — though the online presence of Rivkah and Queenie Chan could help grant an OEL anthology an identity. One potential problem, however, is that reprints of material already available in a better format has yet to succeed, so the best bet to lead an anthology would be to find a new license that is known to American audiences or comes from a popular creator. Since Tokyopop series tend to have shorter runs, an anthology magazine would also have to rotate series in and out more quickly, but I think that could add excitement as long as the series all fit well with the rest of the magazine.

So, to sum, it would be an uphill climb, one I’m not sure I have enough faith anymore to expect Tokyopop to succeed. Still, the company needs to take some sort of step to make customers better aware of what Tokyopop is publishing.

I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts on how comic anthologies (and keep in mind the broad definition I’ve used here, encompassing any periodical that used a variety of short comics) have performed in the American marketplace. I’d especially like to hear more about titles I didn’t mention (like Animerica Extra, Super Manga Blast or the Marvel flipbooks) because I didn’t know enough about them or titles I couldn’t say much about (like Raijin or Showcase) but wanted to include the common wisdom’s lesson of these efforts.

UPDATE: I wanted to highlight Nat Gertler’s comment which points out something that was staring me in the face but I missed — that anthologies sell very differently in the Direct Market and outside of it. That’s a major factor since, in the Direct Market, publishers are selling their anthology to retailers who are taking a gamble with every order since they cannot return unsold issues. In the Direct Market, predictable sales are desired because an over-ordered book means lost money and an under-ordered book means lost sales — if one cannot predict the sales of an anthology, then each month’s sales are unpredictable and, therefore a great risk.

Supplemental tags: Crossgen,