Chapter 297 Calabash Brothers' Explosion and Black Cat Sheriff
Chapter 297 Calabash Brothers' Explosion and Black Cat Sheriff
Qin Zhiye smiled and agreed, "Okay, I have already prepared all kinds of printing materials and labor, and I have also contacted a printing equipment manufacturer in Japan. As long as we need it, they will send a set of equipment to Hong Kong within a month."
"Okay, I hope the comic weekly will be so popular that your existing equipment will not be enough." Yang Wendong said with a smile.
The first cartoon is a bit simple, but sometimes simple things are easier to understand.
Otherwise, in an era when national literacy was not yet very high, when the concept of Doraemon's robot cat was introduced, many people did not know how the "machine" turned into a cat, let alone Transformers.
A few days later, Yang Wendong also went to the printing factory in North Point. This was his first time there;
"Mr. Yang, we currently have one color printing production line and three black-and-white printing production lines." Qin Zhiye accompanied the boss and introduced them one by one: "Oriental Daily News, Hong Kong Chinese Daily News, about 3 to 3 newspapers are issued from here every day."
"Hmm." Yang Wendong casually flipped through the newly printed newspaper next to him, looked at the title, and asked, "Does this place also accept newspaper business from outside?"
Qin Zhiye replied: "Yes, some very small newspapers or literary journals are small in scale and cannot afford to buy equipment or rent factories, so they will adopt this leasing model;
Or if there are any special circumstances, other peers will also entrust other peers to print on their behalf. Not every newspaper company has enough extra production capacity. In the past period of time, Ming Pao's sales increased significantly because of our help in OEM."
"Well, okay." Yang Wendong nodded: "Since our initial printing capacity is high enough, it's better not to waste it."
The subsidiaries of Changxing Group are basically free in all other aspects except that they need to strictly implement the orders given by Yang Wendong or some development directions designated by him.
If management feels that a certain business is profitable and related to its own business, then it can try it.
Of course, these can only be said to be industries that can be developed by taking advantage of some existing advantages. If additional investment is required, it must be reported.
Qin Zhiye then took out a color newspaper and said, "Mr. Yang, this is the first issue of our comic weekly."
"Let me see." Yang Wendong took it.
The first page of the newspaper features a picture of the seven gourd brothers, Gourd Grandpa, and two goblins, with each of the gourd brothers showing off his or her own unique skills.
There are four big words on it: "Calabash Brothers".
"It feels good." Yang Wendong continued to turn to the next page. The content was similar to what he had seen before, except that the layout had some changes.
Then he asked, "How many issues do you plan to publish for this Calabash Brothers?"
Wu Hailin replied: "Mr. Yang, Mr. Qin and I have discussed and decided to divide the entire story into 12 volumes, one for each Calabash Brothers.
The following issues are about how the little gourd brothers were deceived, which led to internal fighting among the gourd brothers. Later, they came to their senses and worked together to deal with the snake demon. There are 5 issues in total.
"So it will be over in more than three months?" Yang Wendong asked.
Wu Hailin said: "Yes, I also feel that it is a bit fast, but this is the end of this story, and there is no way to write it any longer."
Yang Wendong nodded and said, "Okay, then let's do this. Will it be officially launched the day after tomorrow?"
Qin Zhiye replied: "Yes, it will be on sale the day after tomorrow."
"How much is one serving?" Yang Wendong asked.
Qin Zhiye said: "The tentative price of a copy is 5 cents. This comic newspaper is different from ordinary newspapers. Although it is in color, it does not have the cost of obtaining various news, so on average, the cost of a copy is only 2 cents.
Our factory price is 3.5 yuan, and the remaining yuan is the transportation and terminal profit in the middle."
"Well, OK, let's set the price like this for now." Yang Wendong added, "This doesn't need to be a huge profit, just a moderate price will do. As long as you become famous, there will be many ways to make money later."
The most important thing in the cultural industry is reputation. Once you gain reputation, there will be many ways to cash in and make profits.
For example, the show "Blue Cat's Three Thousand Questions" which is quite memorable to the post-90s generation was broadcast free of charge on major TV stations in the early days. Then, as it became famous, it made a lot of money from various derivative products or licensing businesses.
The 21st century's "Boonie Bears" has made multiple movies and the box office has exceeded 70 billion.
"Okay." Qin Zhiye agreed and said, "In addition, I plan to arrange for someone to deliver this comic weekly to the vicinity of the school. The students will definitely like it."
"Well, okay, but we have to consider their purchasing power." Yang Wendong nodded.
In any era, the biggest customers of animation are always children. Even babies are born to like watching cartoons.
Qin Zhiye said with a smile: "Don't worry, Mr. Yang, most of those who can go to school in Hong Kong have good family conditions."
"Okay." Yang Wendong looked at Wu Hailin again and said, "Old Wu, this comic is finished. There will be another one later. Don't worry about other things on your side. Recruit people for me as soon as possible. You can go to Shui Wutong Mountain to recruit people, or recruit people from Hong Kong."
There are still many talents of all kinds in Shui Wutong Mountain. Lin Haoyu arranged people to check and found that there are all kinds of occupations. Changxing Industry also recruited more than 300 people from them, including some chefs, or strong young people, who were brought back to do security and heavy physical work.
Wu Hailin said, "Okay, how many people do you need?"
Yang Wendong smiled and said, "The more the better. I wouldn't mind if you have dozens or even hundreds. The content of the next comics will be much more complicated than this Calabash Brothers."
Not to mention some classic anime from Japan or the United States, even in the 80s and 90s, there were many comics;
"Calabash Brothers" is just one of them with less content, suitable as the first shot of Changxing Comics Weekly.
But if you want to continue to publish new comics, you have to be like "Detective Conan" with one story per episode, so that it can last forever, and the protagonist will remain the same even when the readers grow old.
"Then I will definitely try my best to recruit people first." Wu Hailin smiled and asked, "Mr. Yang, what is the story? Can you tell us first?"
Yang Wendong thought for a moment and said, "It's a story about how an animal society solves a case. The content is quite long, so I'll talk about it next time. You can prepare a variety of different animals and draw them with human bodies and animal faces."
"Animal face?" Wu Hailin was a little puzzled.
Yang Wendong added: "Just like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck in the United States, we can change it a little bit to make it look better."
In fact, in this era, it is not feasible to make comics that are too complicated, because truly complex comics are all drawn with the help of computers. Otherwise, the workload of drawing a Transformer would be so overwhelming that it would make people vomit blood.
The same is true for cartoons.
Therefore, when choosing comics, it is best to start with the simple ones.
"Okay, I'll start trying to paint now." Wu Hailin agreed.
On September 9, Changxing Comics Weekly published the following for the first time:
Inside a bookstore in front of St. Paul's School on Hong Kong Island.
Several middle school students came in, and the boss said with a smile: "Are you here to buy homework books?"
"Yeah, this is a crappy school. The homework books we gave out don't have answers at the back." A student complained, "They were all torn up by the teacher."
The boss said: "That is also to let you concentrate on your homework and not have other thoughts."
"What ideas can we have?" The student laughed and said, "I just want to compare it with the answers at the back after I finish it."
"Okay." The boss smiled and said, "Many exercise books on the market in Hong Kong are here, you can find them yourself."
"Okay." Several students then dispersed and looked for the books they needed.
Suddenly, one person saw a newspaper in a conspicuous place, and asked while reading it: "'Calabash Brothers'? What kind of cartoon is this? I've never heard of it." "Calabash Brothers?" Several other people came over after hearing the voice. Compared to homework, anything else could interest him.
The boss also said at this time: "This is a comic that just came out. I took a look at it and it's quite interesting. You can take a look, but as usual, you can only read the first page."
"Okay." Several students agreed. Everyone knew the rules.
[Snake demon, gourd doll with super powers, spitting water and fire? Invulnerable to swords and guns? Infinite strength? ]
After seeing the introduction on the first page, several students immediately became interested, and one of them asked, "Boss, how much does this newspaper sell for?"
"5 cents a piece." the boss replied.
"Okay, let's buy one." Several students said readily.
They are all families that can send their children to middle school, so they are generally not short of money and naturally have some living expenses. Regardless of whether it is a novel, comic or a normal newspaper, it is enough for a few people to buy one copy, and on average, it does not cost much.
After paying, the boss gave them a new one and said, "There's a table over there, you can go over there and take a look."
"Okay." Several students took their newspapers and sat at the table next to them to read.
Several people took turns exchanging newspapers and soon finished reading them.
"The Calabash Brothers are so powerful, they are really amazing." A student said, "They were just fooled by the snake demon."
"Yeah, yeah." Another student agreed, then looked at the boss and asked, "Boss, when will the next copy of this comic be available?"
The boss replied: "This Changxing Comics is a weekly publication, published once a week, and every Monday, you can only see the next episode next week."
"Next week, we'll have to wait a long time." The students felt a little uncomfortable. They finally saw a good comic, but they could only see a little bit of it in a week.
"Wait, boss, Changxing Comics? Does this have anything to do with Changxing Group?" a student asked.
The boss said, "It's from the Changxing Group. It was sent here together with the Hong Kong Chinese Daily and the Oriental Daily."
"That's true." The student who just asked the question said, "I have a relative who is a senior executive at Changxing Group. He told me to study hard and then join Changxing Group."
"I know that in recent days, some people in my family have gone to the Changxing water storage station to fetch water. Many people have gone there."
"Yes, Yang Wendong is praised to the sky by the teachers at school every day."
Seeing several students praising Yang Wendong, the bookstore owner smiled, as this was normal.
One is that his history of making a fortune is indeed amazing and enviable. The other is what he did after he became rich, and anyone who knows about it will give him a thumbs up.
There are many secondary schools in Hong Kong, and around each secondary school there are many bookstores, newsstands and even some vendors selling various books, comics and so on.
Many students, when passing by these places, would also pay attention to the new comics there. After asking around, they would immediately become interested. When they inquired about the price, they found it was not very expensive and it was easy for a few people to get together to buy one. Even if ten people bought one copy, everyone could still read it.
After reading the story, they immediately became interested and everyone was imagining how great it would be if they had this magical ability.
Inside the Cheung Hing Building, Hong Kong Island:
Yang Wendong was reading an English newspaper from the United States. Now that many of the company's products are exported overseas, he also needs to pay attention to some major events in Europe and the United States.
"Knock, knock, knock~~~" There was a knock on the door, and Yang Wendong replied, "Come in."
The two people who came in were Qin Zhiye and Wu Hailin. Qin Zhiye came to the boss and said happily, "Mr. Yang, the data of Changxing Comics this morning is out. A total of more than 2000 copies were sold."
"More than 2000? Is this number a lot?" Yang Wendong asked casually.
Qin Zhiye smiled and replied, "It's quite a lot. It's not an exaggeration to say it's very popular. We can't compare a new newspaper with a traditional newspaper. Moreover, ours is a comic weekly, which basically excludes a large number of adults.
Only a small number of adults and children are interested in comics, so if you compare it to that, more than 2000 is not a small number.”
"That's true." Yang Wendong put down the newspaper in his hand.
Qin Zhiye added: "Besides, our newspaper is a weekly one, so it will continue to sell well in the future. It may even still have sales a few months later."
"The future is too far away." Yang Wendong asked again: "What is the market feedback? What are the customer comments?"
Qin Zhiye replied: "We have done some research and the feedback from customers is very good, especially from students, who are all looking forward to the next episode."
"Okay." Yang Wendong said, "Then we should increase publicity later, especially near the school."
Although comic weekly magazines are also distributed in the form of newspapers, the channels are completely different.
The mainstream bookstores and newsstands are around schools. There are newsstands in other places, but not many.
"Okay." Qin Zhiye said, "Mr. Yang, I have already discussed with some channel managers in Taiwan, and the comics weekly is also ready to be sent to Taiwan."
"Okay, it's also important to explore other markets." Yang Wendong agreed.
Traditional newspapers are subject to content restrictions and are difficult to export to other places. After all, Taiwan will not be interested in news from Hong Kong, and it is also difficult to pass official approval.
But comic weekly belongs to normal literature category and can easily enter other markets, especially Taiwan. The text is the same as that in Hong Kong. Once there is a channel, it can be sent over by express ship.
"Taiwan will be a week later than us." Qin Zhiye said again.
"Okay." Yang Wendong nodded, then looked at Wu Hailin and asked, "How's the recruitment going?"
Wu Hailin said: "We have recruited 6 people in the past few days, and our team has expanded to 13 people."
"We will need to continue recruiting later, but now I want to tell you the plot and characters of the comics I will be making next." Yang Wendong paused and said.
The plot of "Huluwa" is relatively short, and it can be regarded as a test work. So far, the results are okay, and it is estimated that funds will flow back soon, so I can proceed to the next step.
Wu Hailin immediately said, "Mr. Yang, please speak."
Yang Wendong said: "The story of this comic is mainly about a small town made up of various animals, where different cases always happen.
Our protagonist is a black cat. He is the sheriff and specializes in solving crimes."
The next story is naturally about Black Cat Sheriff, who left a deep impression on the post-90s generation.
PS: Ask for monthly ticket
(End of this chapter)