AsianWeek.com WonderCon 2009 Exclusive
February 25, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO, CA—Last year over 29,000 comic fans filled San Francisco’s Moscone Center South for the annual WonderCon comic convention, and this year, organizers are anticipating an even larger crowd due to the premiere of Alan Moore’s Watchmen. To celebrate this weekend’s WonderCon, Grapple Entertainment and eigoMANGA will be hosting a Greet and Meet, featuring a special tasting from Haamonii Smooth at Horizon Ultra Lounge on Feb. 28.
AsianWeek.com sits down with Grapple Entertainment President and CEO, Ludon Lee, and Director of Business Development, Lisa Lee –AsianWeek’s former Yin Yang celebrity entertainment columnist, to discuss the company, comprised of members from the local Asian and Pacific Islander community and comic industry.
AW: Tell us about Grapple.
Ludon: We’re the first of its kind entertainment company with an all-in-one shop for screenwriters and comic book writers to develop their properties into motion pictures, video games, and merchandise. We have our own online social app that produces original works into mass market brands by allowing social networking communities to help Hollywood producers select titles that they would like to see on the silver screen.
We work with our legal team and agents in Hollywood to explore all possibilities for film development. Our core business is licensing that can range from $500k to $1.5 million per property, maybe more if we decide to pursue co-financing deals with our investment partners. Since our overhead is minimal, we offer a higher revenue sharing model with our creative partners that are competitive against most comic book publishers. We are not an ad-driven social media content developer.
AW: Tell us about the team.
Ludon: The executive team consists of members in the San Francisco API community, including, former Romeo 5 bar owner Sonny Tamada, Billy Chan - a member of the Asian American Bar Association, and entertainment writer Lisa Lee. I worked at the Asian Law Caucus in the mid-90s and I’m currently helping build a Business & Technology program at The Beacon Center in the Outer Mission/Excelsior district to serve not only the API youth community in the area, but also help other minorities who are at-risk from drug abuse and gang violence.
AW: How would Grapple help talents break into the movie industry?
Lisa: Unless books are published by DC or Marvel, it’s a challenge for other writers to get their works in front of producers due to the lack of distribution. There are 3,500 comic book retailers in North America and some of them only carry a handful of titles, mainly DC and Marvel. We created an online digital distribution platform for creative talents. On average, an indie artist would have a reading circulation of 6,000 units a month.
Ludon: Graphic Novels are the hottest source for motion pictures, given the recent success of The Dark Knight, Spiderman, X-Men, as well as the anticipation of Watchmen. Sources say there are 80 Graphic Novels in the works over the next 5 years. Rather than pitching and selling their scripts to studios, we partner with comic book publishers to adapt their screenplays into Graphic Novels as we develop their content to license with our digital comic format, iComics.
AW: Tell us about iComics.
Lisa: Unlike most digital comics where the images are static, our platform displays moving storyboards with original music soundtrack. The experience is interactive and immersive.
Ludon: To experience the concept of iComics visit: http://widgets.clearspring.com/c/widget.bs?wid=48da9dac8eda4ca4
AW: How would Grapple market iComics?
Ludon: We apply a similar distribution model where online advertisers use social media apps to market their services or products to consumers on Facebook, MySpace, Blogger, or any other community sites. We’re also exploring co-marketing strategies with 3rd party social media developers to create brand awareness.
Lisa - As iComics is spread virally online as a Widget, we provide test market data from Web Analytics to assess market opportunities for properties that we represent.
AW: What makes Grapple unique?
Lisa: Our solution delivers a complete package for a pitch. We we will use online polls and blogs for social communities to provide feedback for titles to determine if they would be good movies or not. This includes attaching actors, producers, and directors, along with selecting the right studio partners.
AW: How does Viral Marketing boost ticket sales at the box office?
Lisa: Before The Blair Witch Project had its full theatrical release, the online marketing behind the film created a social community around one destination site. The movie generated $250 million worldwide for a low-budget picture that cost $35,000, plus $6.5 million on print and advertising. Just imagine now where Web 2.0 can create an online marketing campaign that embraces social communities viewed on multiple sites
AW: How would you brand comics in a niche market? Lisa: Let’s take for instance AsianWeek.com. We have an Asian horror property and we’re looking for distribution to attract our target audience. We understand your site has 3 million visitors annually and we would buy space to host the Widget for readers and your staff to build a social community that could go beyond AsianWeek.com. Since we designed iComics to deliver content episodically, readers subscribe by grabbing the Widget to install onto their own sites. This could potentially attract new readers who don’t normally read comics, but enjoying our digital format as we create mass market brands.
Ludon: Let’s look at the numbers – if 100 million unique visitors will see our app, we estimate that .5% will subscribe to our comics. We’re now looking at 500,000 sites that will help us push our content out to social networking communities. A mystery part of our business – one new site can offer 100 to 1,000,000 readers.
AW: Why is Grapple based in San Francisco and not in Hollywood?
Ludon: I think the key to our success is to build strong relationships in Silicon Valley, the world capital for Internet technology and investment capital. Entrepreneurs for all over the world come to this area because of the resources available for building garage businesses to multi-million dollar ventures.
AW: How does Grapple target Asian American audiences and the rest of the market?
Lisa: We’re currently searching and evaluating horror films from Korea and Japan for potential remakes in the U.S. and other territories. It’s a small step backwards to brand films with iComics and a giant leap forward to deliver lucrative movie deals. This can open doors in the U.S. for Asian movie studios.
AW: What will be Grapple’s possible first title coming out of Asia?
Ludon: We’re looking to re-master the first martial arts film in 3D for our generation. I think the cinematography is a natural fit for a 3D motion picture. Another problem we’re also trying to fix is that most Asian films are available free online on Bit Torrent or pirated sites. Our target demographic in the U.S. may have already seen the film that we want to pursue, so we want to deliver a unique experience by re-releasing the film in 3D. We’re currently looking at several martial arts films in Hong Kong and China for our first pickup.
AW: Where did Grapple come from?
Ludon: This came to me 2 years ago when I had a business meeting in New York with Mr. Ed Pressman, the film producer for Graphic Novel titles such as Conan the Barbarian, Judge Dredd, and The Crow. I showed him an early stage of the digital comic along with Mr. Dan Kletsky, who’s responsible for the Resident Evil movie franchise. Prior to the meeting, Steve Niles (30 Days of Night), Thomas Jane (The Punisher, The Mist, Mutant Chronicles), and Todd Farmer (Jason X, The Messengers, My Bloody Valentine 3D), among others thought my comic format was very cool. Everything else fell into place.
AW: What’s next for Grapple after WonderCon?
Lisa: We currently locking up our portfolio of Action and Horror titles and will announce them at San Diego Comic Con International in late July.
Ludon: As we’re taking one step at a time to build a successful company, I want to establish a great company for content owners. We’re not here to take out the competition; rather, I’m looking forward to partner up with comic book publishers for rebuilding an industry that has a dying medium with a digital format that is much needed for creative talents.
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