Over at Tiamat’s Manga Reviews, Tiamat has gotten word direct from creator Jason Tkruse that his full-colour comic series, World of Quest, is being cut by Yen Press due to lack of sales. While this has yet to be confirmed by Yen Press themselves, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise to me if it is the case.
World of Quest is a full colour, all-ages comic about a young prince named Nector who teams up with a banished knight to find a legendary sword and defeat the monsters who get in their way. Yen Press has released two books, the first in November 2007 and the second more recently in December 2008.
This series always seemed an odd fit for Yen Press, whose fair-sized catelouge of books consist of mangas and manhwas. Where did World of Quest fit in? Honestly, I don’t feel it ever really did, and because of this, I never saw it get the kind of promotion that I thought it would need to create sales. This is a book that should’ve been targeted at kids, been in the children’s section of book stores (here I’ve only seen it stocked with the manga) and taken more advantage of the currently running animated television show.
Would this series have been better suited to another of Hachette Book Group’s imprints? They have other imprints specially made for children’s books that seem they’d be a better match.
That said, even as a Yen Press book, World of Quest likely suffered also from the full year wait between volume releases which is a long while for most to wait, let alone this book’s apparent target audience.
Truth be told though, I don’t know all the factors behind the publishing choices of this book, or its apparent cancellation, but I do know that this was a pretty fun little series (granted one with a cartoon that I didn’t find nearly as amusing) and it’ll be sad to see it go. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from years of excellent company, it’ss that there’s a market for every comic if you know where to look and I’m sure World of Quest could’ve found one for itself if given the right push.
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I agree it did feel as though it was in the wrong place, but i think it was Yen trying to cover as broad a spectrum as possible. I put the long wait aspect to Jason, and from what he said it seems to have been a bit of a issues for both Yen and him, he had this to say:
"I get what you're saying about the long wait between volumes. I tried really hard to get it out sooner but it took me around 7 months to pump out 144 fully-inked pages and then it took forever for Yen to find a colorist and finish things up."
As i said in my reviews of the series, the long wait for releases, to a target audience with such a short attention span isn't going to last long. That said i do hope he finds a new publisher, cause volume two was hilarious, child abuse taken to all new levels hehe
[…] The next one is sure to be quite the read! (Editor’s Note: As of February 2009, World of Quest has been cancelled.) […]
Awwww, thanks guys n' gals! I'm glad you liked the book(s) I just wanted to inform you that right now I'm leaning towards putting Book 3 online; maybe 3 pages or so a week and then do a print-on-demand-thing. I'll probably have a more formal announcement after Comicon. Don't worry though, I refuse to let it die!
Best,
Jason Kruse