Voltron Big News For Voltron !!!

Voltron has made it back into the newspapers with all the work that WEP is doing. Here is the article from 9/11/03 addition:



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Voltron roars back to life



St. Louis-based World Events Production tries to ride the recent trend of resurrected superheroes by relaunching the 20-year-old cartoon in comic books, television series and interactive toys.


By Cynthia Wilson
Of the Post-Dispatch


Chris Mouser admits that as a teenager, he was probably a little old when he became smitten with the cartoon "Voltron: Defender of the Universe." But age didn't stop him from racing home after school to watch the futuristic tale of a giant robot who battled planet raiders.

After all, Voltron offered something that most other cartoons in the mid-1980s did not: killer robots, Japanese influence, teenage explorers and plenty of action.

"It was something you really hadn't seen before," said Mouser, a graphic artist with World Events Production Ltd., a St. Louis-based company that introduced Voltron to the world.

Mouser has outgrown the original series, but his 10-year-old son reads the new Voltron comic books. Mouser collects action figures and other Voltron paraphernalia.

"I have them all posing, doing stuff," Mouser said.
Tiffany Ilardi, director of international sales for World Events, says many more Voltron enthusiasts like Mouser are around. Perhaps the 700,000 hits a month on VoltronForce.com are evidence that fans would snap up Voltron collectibles as well as a new television series.

That's why the company recently licensed the collectible-toy rights for the original animated series, "Voltron: Defender of the Universe," to Toynami Inc., based in Sherman Oaks, Calif.

Toynami has a three-year license to create and distribute five die-cast metal robots, each about 12 inches tall. When combined, they make up the giant transformable lion-robot known as Voltron. Also, fans will be able to collect smaller versions of the lion robots and 1- to 3-inch figurines of the space explorers - Keith, Pidge, Lance, Hunk and Princess Allura - , director of public relations for World Events.

Like fans of Spiderman, Hulk and Scooby-Doo, "A lot of people are enjoying seeing the older '80s cartoon shows coming back," said Dan McNamara, store manager at Star Clipper Comics in University City, where Voltron is sold. "To be blunt, it's very smart of (World Events) to jump on the bandwagon."

Given the competitive and fragmented nature of the animation industry, few trade organizations have been able to size the market. But the National Association of Software and Service Companies forecasts that the global animation market will generate $50 billion to $70 billion annually by 2005.

World Events, an affiliate of privately held Koplar Communications International, makes no secret of its desire to tap into the popularity that retro animation titles and comic books have enjoyed in recent years. Last fall, the company licensed the comic-book rights based on the original animation series to Devil's Due Publishing. World Events hopes the new Voltron comic will help to create a new generation of Voltron fans and to prime older ones for the release of a collectible toy line and a DVD collection of the original series, with some outtakes of the Japanese version.

Devil's Due, based in Chicago, released the first issue of the new Voltron comic in May. Josh Blaylock, the studio's publisher, said one challenge in re-creating the new story was making sure it had a modern style and edge for today's audience without losing the elements that made Voltron popular.

"We wanted anyone to pick up the book and read Voltron without having any previous knowledge," Blaylock said. "But if you're a Voltron fan, you will like it that much more."

It's wise of World Events to release the new comic book before re-entering other mediums to create interest in its plans for Voltron products, said Milton Griepp, president of ICV2, a trade publisher in the licensed-products industry.

The first issue of the new comic book ranked 34th out of the top 300 for its debut in May, an impressive showing for a comic less than 20 years old, said Griepp, based in Madison, Wis.

"Anything that gives a property a leg up, as opposed to starting from scratch, is a positive," Griepp said. "TV drives sales. ... Potentially, the big money is in toys."

World Events thinks so, too. It's seeking an entertainment company to produce an interactive TV series and a master toymaker to create a line that goes with the new cartoon.

Company officials said it's difficult to estimate how much revenue the new comics, collectibles, interactive toys and television series might generate. But they could be big sellers, with Voltron fans in more than 70 countries as well as a core base of fans that range from 7 to 30 years old.


Voltron's origin






Voltron, an adaptation of Japanese animation's Go-Lion, made its U.S. debut in September 1984. The show aired on independent stations in 85 percent of the country, and it was the No. 1 show for kids in the Unites States the first year of the three seasons it ran.

Voltron hit the U.S. airwaves again in 1998, this time in three-dimension animation.

Voltron hasn't aired in the United States since 2000, but it's still showing in Spain, Italy, Mexico, Russia and Australia.

Voltron's success ought to make it easier for World Events to attract a production company for the new series, said Mark Workman, president of FirstFireworks Group Ltd., a marketing and consulting firm in Los Angeles. But the brand will face stiff competition from animation alternatives available through comic books, video games, DVDs, mobile phones, movies and other mediums, Workman said.

"Do they have enough of what was unique when (Voltron) was popular, and have they added enough new points of freshness to keep it culturally relevant today?" Workman said.

Edward "Ted" Koplar, the World Events chief executive who brought Voltron to the United States, is confident that the character is still a winner with animation buffs. Also, he said, the new series will gain a competitive edge from technology that allows specially designed toys to receive signals from the telecast and interact with the programs. The toys would mimic some of the show's on-air action.

The technology "can make the toys walk, talk, light up," Koplar said.

Voltron might not be the first animation series to use the technology because it's garnering interest from other programmers, Koplar said. The technology, developed by St. Louis-based VEIL Interactive Technology, has been used on the TV game shows "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" and "Wheel of Fortune."

Koplar envisions a GameBoy-like product that allows Voltron viewers to insert a cartridge into a hand-held computer game to receive new characters, weapons and programming when they watch the cartoon. The programming would create new games that can be played on the system.

"Kids have to watch the show to get those new characteristics," Koplar said. "It would drive people to watch the show."

Reporter Cynthia Wilson:
E-mail: ccwilson@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-340-8159


This is good news for all us die-hard fans.

Victor