Chapter 499: Changes in the Chinese Comics Industry

"Okay, I have also worked with Mr. Lin before. We have tried to bring Chinese mythology-themed comics to Chinatowns in the United States before." Zhang Zhiyuan replied.

Yang Wendong asked: "How are the results?"

Yang Wendong is generally unaware of some of the smaller matters within the company. As for the current management model within Changxing Group, he only knows about major investments, major strategic directions, or new businesses.

Zhang Zhiyuan said awkwardly: "The results are not very good. Our comics are also well-known in Chinatown or Chinese areas in the United States, but these groups are too scattered. This business can be done, but we are extremely dependent on channels;
Therefore, we basically send the comic books and toy stickers over to some local channel partners, and then we don’t care about them anymore. We make some profit, but it’s far less than in Asia.”

"If we can sell it directly, then we will not lose anything." Yang Wendong nodded and said, "Given the dispersion of Chinese people, it is not cost-effective to control this channel. Let's just keep the cooperative model like this."

It is naturally good to be able to control channels when doing business, but you also have to be selective. It is impossible to control all channels around the world. Even if you have strong capital, it is good enough to be able to grasp the main channels.

For some small countries, small places, local xenophobic forces, or such decentralized markets, there is no need to struggle on their own. Just find dealers, just sell things and don't worry about anything else. This is not only true for comics, the same logic applies to other industries. Even Toyota in its previous life did not have complete control over the Southeast Asian market.

"Okay." Zhang Zhiyuan added, "But Peppa Pig has no cultural restrictions. If we can achieve the same results in the United States as in the UK, then our company will have opened up the American market."

"I hope so too." Yang Wendong also said: "If it succeeds, it will be of great help to my future layout of other industries in the United States."

Now it is almost the 70s, and his capital has been almost gathered. Coupled with the rapid development of the electronics industry, he will focus on investing in home appliances and other industrial markets in the future, which requires endorsements.

In the future, if Li Xiaolong becomes popular, he can be the spokesperson for his normal products. Various cartoon characters can also open up the market for children's electronic products, especially games.

Of course, the character of Peppa is too childish and may not be very suitable, but this is the first animation of ours to enter the European and American markets. As long as we can cooperate with overseas TV stations and derivative product distributors through this one, it will be much easier to produce other animations in the future.

Zhang Zhiyuan also said: "Yes, Wei Sheng also contacted me before. He said that they wanted to try to make school stationery, and wanted to license our stickers, and I gave it to them."

"Making stationery? That's an idea. Changxing Industry really needs to do new business now." Yang Wendong nodded and said.

In recent years, Changxing Industry has actually been living off its past profits, because its founder does not have any good ideas for gadgets. Fortunately, it has successfully built an industrial chain advantage, at least in terms of plastics, paper and related products, and its scale is getting bigger and bigger.

In fact, it is sufficient to develop in this model. After all, there is only one global time traveler, and other companies have developed normally from small to large. Changxing Industrial, which has financial advantages, can also do so.

Therefore, for Changxing Industry, Yang Wendong also wanted to let this giant ship develop on its own and find a way out. It was impossible for it to rely on him as the boss for the rest of its life. After entering the 70s, his focus would be on developing the electronics industry and global capital expansion.

Zhang Zhiyuan smiled and said, "Yes, with the sticker pencil case, there is no other advantage, but it is sold at a higher price and the sales volume is also very good."

"Of course, otherwise how do you think Disney makes money?" Yang Wendong asked again, "How are the results of the comics you created?"

The several manufacturing companies of Changxing Group, in addition to their own creativity and requirements, also have their own products. However, they can never compare with Yang Wendong, this idiot. All the ideas he comes up with are popular products that have been verified by the market in his previous life. However, they cannot stop making their own products just because they have popular products.

Wu Hailin, who is in charge of the content, said: "Mr. Yang, in the past few years we have launched more than 20 comics. These comics are sold together with Changxing Comics. The market feedback is high and low. Some of them have begun to develop peripheral derivative products, including..."

Yang Wendong also listened carefully. After Wu Hailin finished speaking, he said, "Okay, keep up the creative spirit and continue to recruit people from the Chinese in Southeast Asia. Japan is also fine.
Or if there are some capable people who don’t want to come to Hong Kong, we can cooperate with them and ask them to create comic manuscripts and publish them in our newspapers. We will pay them. It’s all right.”

When it comes to cultural creation, it is difficult for a company to create all of its own works. Even in Japan and the United States, large comic newspapers cooperate with many third parties.
For companies like Marvel and DC that support their entire teams themselves, the risks are actually very high. These two companies have changed owners several times over the years and almost went bankrupt, while Japan is more focused on cooperation.

"There is no problem with this kind of cooperation, but how do we handle the copyright issue?" Zhang Zhiyuan asked.

Yang Wendong said: "If there are some achievements, then copyright cooperation can be negotiated. We have complete production capabilities for various derivative products in Hong Kong, and have partial channel distribution capabilities in Southeast Asia and even Japan;

Only through cooperation can they maximize their benefits, and for us, with the help of these different copyrights, we can also expand our channel operation capabilities. "

Like Changxing Industrial, I don’t have a deep memory of many comics, and many of them are not suitable for production by Hong Kong comic companies. Therefore, if the comic business wants to grow bigger and stronger, it cannot rely solely on itself as a boss, but must have its own business capabilities.

"Okay, I understand." Zhang Zhiyuan replied.

"Remember to maintain mutual benefit. Content creators must have enough income, then we will make more profit in the end." Yang Wendong said again. Wu Hailin smiled and said, "Mr. Yang, we understand this principle."

"Okay, if you collaborate with other people on comics in the future, let me know so I can take a look." Yang Wendong nodded and said.

I have traveled through time for ten years. Although I will make use of the original historical development to gain benefits, I will never rely on these alone. One is that my actions will inevitably cause a butterfly effect, and the second is that I must change something for the better.

The Chinese comics industry has achieved almost nothing in this century. The few comics produced in Hong Kong in the past were only okay, far inferior to those produced in Japan.

As a time traveler, he could at most plagiarize some comics from his previous life. But if he wanted the comics industry in the entire Chinese world to explode, he would have to rely on enough Chinese people who had the ability in this area. What he needed to do was to use big capital to expand the entire market and make the pie bigger.

Once the pie becomes bigger, many people in the comics industry, whether they are content creators or painters, will become outstanding talents because of sufficient benefits.

This is the value of capital and finance. You may not be able to create wealth, but you can guide other people in the whole society to create value. However, few people who engage in financial investment in reality have the patience to do so. It would be better to reap the profits than to spend many years operating the industry.
Zhang Zhiyuan agreed: "No problem."

Yang Wendong asked again: "How is the training of comic talents going? I remember you also opened a training class, right?"

Zhang Zhiyuan said: "Yes, we have found more than 100 young people with painting talent in Hong Kong or young Chinese in Southeast Asia, and trained them in Hong Kong. It has only been half a year so far. According to the plan, the training will take two years.

When the time comes, we will assign positions to them based on their abilities. These people are quite talented, and when they graduate one after another, we can alleviate our talent shortage problem.”

"Two years, the training cost is high enough." Yang Wendong said.

Zhang Zhiyuan replied: "It's not bad actually. You can basically tell the level of the students in the first half of the year. If they are really bad, they will have to leave. The remaining students can also help us with some simple tasks while learning.

All we have to pay is accommodation, basic food and a small amount of their living expenses. Those who can receive bonuses are also those who have strong painting skills and save us the workload. "

"Okay." Yang Wendong thought for a moment and then said, "Recently, many people have come from the mainland. Some of them may have talent in painting. You can also check and recruit suitable ones. Old Wu, you should know how to do this."

Wu Hailin was the refugee found by Yang Wendong a few years ago. If Changxing Comics didn't need such talents, even if he hadn't starved to death, he would probably be working as a screwdriver in a factory.

Wu Hailin nodded and said, "I know. In fact, I have already arranged people to investigate, but they are very scattered and not easy to find."

"We'll find as much as we can." Yang Wendong added, "Now that our cooperation with China has been cut off, we have to rely on ourselves for everything. We need to restore manpower as soon as possible."

In the past two years, even China Resources' cooperation with Changxing Group has not been very smooth, and there are frequent shortages of goods, which has forced Watsons, Changxing Industrial and others to look for overseas suppliers.

The same is true for Changxing Culture. Previously, many cartoons were produced by the Shanghai Art Film Studio in mainland China. Now that cooperation is suddenly no longer possible, the workload in Hong Kong has skyrocketed. Many painters have to work overtime to meet the demand for cartoons.

But there is no other way at the moment. Even if we recruit people from overseas, it is difficult to fill such a large gap. The reason is that there are too few Hong Kong people. Even though there are tens of millions of Chinese in Southeast Asia, there has been no comics industry before, and there are few talents in this area.

"Okay, let's get the American TV show done as soon as possible." Yang Wendong added, "Once this is successful and Peppa Pig becomes popular in the US, we will need to invest more resources to make subsequent comics. We can't just rely on our old success."

If you want to be a high-quality comic platform, you must have enough capabilities to develop channels, so you can only find some classic anime from the past.

"What kind of comics?" Wu Hailin asked immediately.

He found it incredible that all the comics Changxing Comics had published in recent years combined were not as creative as his boss's.

Yang Wendong said, "It's somewhat related to the story of Journey to the West, but a lot has been changed. I'll gather you for consultation later. For now, you should use all your resources to ensure that Peppa Pig can continue to produce new stories and animations. The more the better."

"Okay." Wu Hailin didn't ask any more questions.

If it is a complex comic, it does require a lot of resources and manpower to do it. Right now the entire company is concentrating resources on "Peppa Pig" and many previous comics. There are still not enough comic talents in Hong Kong and even Southeast Asia.

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(End of this chapter)

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