Releasing things in order?
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I came here because I heard you were publishing Perry Rhodan Neo and looked to see what other titles were in J-novel Pulp.
I don't know what issue your Maddrax is exactly, but 1) it clearly is a serialized series where plot elements affect later stories, and 2) the one you have is not from the start of the series.
Further researching it shows that the series began in 2000, which is not so long ago that their age makes them unreadable. (It's post-apocalyptic, not having cellphones shouldn't matter.) So why not start it from the beginning and release it in order?
Jessica Bannister isn't in order except for #1, and John Sinclair is only in order when it reprints the 2015 version, but those series don't seem to be so serialized, so it's not such a big issue.
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@arromdee I recommend you check out the Maddrax Volume 1 thread for an explanation as to why the series starts where it does. Long story short, licensing issues.
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@masterlillyclaw That topic is access denied for me.
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@arromdee Ah, sorry, didn’t realize you weren’t a member. Here, I’ll copy-paste some relevant bits:
@/mirage_gsm said in Maddrax Vol. 1 Discussion:
@/exedore Regarding Maddrax, from chapter zero it seems as if this translation skips the first five or six volumes worth of story. Is there a reason for that?
@/exedore said in Maddrax Vol. 1 Discussion:
@/mirage_gsm Licensing restrictions. The earliest stories were by a number of authors who refuse to allow digital editions and aren't even available in German unless you hunt down old issues or reprints. We went with the start of a major arc as a jumping on point.
A more complete synopsis of events (it runs around 50 pages) will be included as an extra in the premium epub for Volume 1.
@/exedore said in Maddrax Vol. 1 Discussion:
For those looking to get some more info and backstory on the series, there's now an English version of the Maddraxikon fan wiki. Updates are sparse at the moment, but the German entries are well written and detailed, and relatively easy to parse post-MTL.
If you're doing some digging, don't forget to save your update back to the site and help it grow!
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@masterlillyclaw Is that also a problem with Jessica Bannister and John Sinclair?
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@arromdee Thanks for your interest. I'll try to answer as best I can within reason.
The John Sinclair series features over 2800 stories in German, not including the spinoffs, paperbacks, TV series, etc. Releasing the entire series from the start is simply not commercially feasible or practical in any way. Ergo, the approach we took was to go for a "best-of" approach and get the most important lore-related issues (e.g. first appearances of various characters, major events) mixed in with some of the best regarded one-offs. Even at the current ratio of translated vs. skipped issues, it would take us something like 20 years to catch up. So, we're focusing on the highlights, as chosen by the original German publisher.
Jessica Bannister... all I can say is that we were told a number of the stories weren't available for licensing. Short of tracking down the original authors who wrote under the Janet Farrell name and asking them (which I would not recommend doing), any further reasons remain unknown
For the most part, the stories (especially in Jessica) are self-contained, and given the nature of the original release (weekly print magazines), the expectation was that if you missed an issue, it wasn't coming back unless you grabbed it from a collector shop or there was a reprinting in a few years. Ergo the style of "this thing happened recently and it's knocked out character x" where if the story isn't present, the key detail is conveyed and the reader can process it as simply having happened off-stage. 'tis the space where fanfics are born.
I hope this helps answer some of your questions and that you aren't put off trying these series. They're all a lot of fun, and are written with the intent of being picked up at any given point in the story (even if it takes an issue or two to fully get up to speed).
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@exedore I don't read this series, but I find that to be interesting. It almost sounds like trying to compile all of the "Dr. Who" episodes from start-to-current. That being impossible from what I know.
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@kilocron For Sinclair, it's physically possible to release it all, sure, but we'd have to have something like 20 translators working in tandem and pumping out a book a day to get it done in anything resembling reasonable time. And even then it'd still take about 10 years to catch up.
