Publisher

Publisher Information
NameArboris
AddressBoldijk 2, 7021 ZA, Zelhem (NL)
EditionCyrrus (1987, Arboris)
EditionMil (1987, Arboris)
EditionDe rode driehoek (1995, Arboris)
EditionDas rote dreieck (1995, Arboris)
Comments
from the article "Publisher's ways are unfathomable (1996)":
Just after publication of Le triangle rouge and Le retour de Cromwell Stone, Le Lombard published the album Styx by Philippe Foerster and, again, Andreas. Foerster wrote the scenario and made pencil drawings. Andreas was responsible for the inking of the pencilwork.
--- part of article left out here ---
The appearance of Styx (1995, Le Lombard) means that there have been published three albums of Andreas by three diverse publishers in a short period of time. This is confusing to the customer, who will likely not buy all three books, but will make a choice, because of financial restrictions. Publishers, too, will not be pleased with this situation: their author appears to be distributed over several publisher's lists, and the excess of Andreas has probably a negative effect on sales figures.
I asked representatives of Arboris, Sherpa, and Le Lombard for a reaction.
According to Herman Jonas of Arboris such a situation can occur when a draftsman is not bound to a publisher.
Herman Jonas: Often his rights are represented by an agent or a publisher. This person will determine with which foreign publisher to do business. The company that offers most money, or that will be prepared to share in the costs of a new project, will be chosen. It's a liberated gang, for example, one can never be certain of the rights of an entire series. If another publisher offers more, you've lost the series.
Concerning Andreas, his books are published in France mostly by Delcourt. Le Lombard also does some strips, but it keeps the translations into its own hand. At a certain moment we heard that Delcourt wanted to publish Le triangle rouge. Accordingly we have expressed our interest for a Dutch translation. This was short-wired then fairly quickly with Delcourt. We took part of the total printing costs for our account. The Dutch version thus was printed at the same time as the French version - this cuts printing costs - and published simultaneously too.
Has there been any consultation of other Andreas-publishers like Le Lombard, Oranje/Blitz and Sherpa?
Herman Jonas: No, publishers don't correspond a lot with each other. There is no consulting-culture, there is a kind of competition, an aversion to telling a colleague what you are working on. Actually this is not good. There should be more communication in the strips publishing world, for example to determine if we as publishers are not saturating the market. Or that we inform each other if one of us attracts a foreign author that is also enlisted with another publisher. But I fear that publishers are to much individualists to have a structural contact with each other.