Digital manga magazine publishing (thoughts?)

akuna-san 2015-03-13 20:52:28 UTC #1

I want to know your thoughts on starting an independent digital manga magazine publishing site. Featuring works of others who are interested in getting there works out to many others. Sort of what Saturday AM is doing: http://www.saturday-am.com/

It may not be my business, but I want to get into the action with this. Not because I want to make manga (which I do), but as a support to the manga/anime community. May be in over my head, hell who cares though. Still going to do what I want. But am interested on what you all think of this as an idea & an actual digital/print product.

I plan to start this project in the summer, paying out my own pocket. But want to start something small & see what becomes of it. Even this article here: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2015-01-03/kodansha-to-publish-simultaneous-digital-editions-of-all-its-manga-magazines/.82865

...plus the magazine page you see displayed on the page. Want to go for something like that. But yeah, thoughts??

Thanks for reading.

SpavVy 2015-03-13 22:42:47 UTC #2

It's not a bad idea, however these things are a bit tedious to manage and can be expensive. Inkblazers former name was actually mangamagazine. Sadly though Inkblazers had to shut down because it could no longer afford to keep the site up or pay the artists that actually earned their living off of it. If you want to make a site like Saturday AM then you are going to need assistants or admins as well. I do think it's a great idea but it's going to be a lot of work and money.

MylCreates 2015-03-15 01:49:54 UTC #3

I agree with what Savannah said. Also, it would be cool if it wasn't anime/manga restrictive. I don't know too many magazines that include a wide range of comics/

keii4ii 2015-03-15 02:22:27 UTC #4

The problem is, if you have a very wide range of comics, what's the point? (genuine question. Think marketing!) There should be something the comics share in common. There's a reason why anthologies are often themed, e.g. horror, sci-fi, story-driven, etc.

I suppose one could start a magazine/ collective whose common denominator is quality and consistency, kind of like Hiveworks, but even they share something common other than those two, this... factor that I can't quite pinpoint.

SpavVy 2015-03-15 02:27:23 UTC #5

Yeah, when InkBlazers was still MangaMagazine it was pretty much manga restrictive until the name change which drove away some really talented artists from what I've heard.

supersachiko 2015-03-16 05:44:23 UTC #6

i'm so glad you started this thread!! =D i myself am trying to start... not actually a magazine but it is a manga "label" or brand name. sadly not much is going on with it because i'm buy with school, but our activity will increase in the summer.

check it out! it's called "lace song" and it's about shoujo manga!!

http://lacesong.co.vu
http://lacesong.deviantart.com (click "join our group" to join our list of fans and keep up with updates)
http://lacesong.tumblr.com
http://twitter.com/lacesong

i actually first had the idea by thinking about doing a magazine. then i decided i don't want to do that (maybe one day in the future?). so instead we just simply are a group of aspiring mangaka who have come together to talk to each other and help each other and also, advertise each other. and we are going to do events together, like our upcoming contest and future artbook =)

i completely agree with @keii4ii . other independent manga labels or comic labels seem to be pretty wide-ranging in terms of what kind of manga/comics are there. in lace song, i wanted to narrow the focus. we are a group that mainly focuses on cute/pretty art, bishounen, romance... typical shoujo things. though other genres are mixed in... still, we are centered around that shoujo focus. i wish i could find more manga labels with a narrow focus. i dislike the ones that are too wide-ranging in what they accept because i think a group like that lacks focus and direction.

LS is off to a slow start so far but i have hope that as time passes, we will get better. i hope one day LS is super popular and has many good quality mangas being made. we might become a real company one day who knows. so yeah i am very interested in other people who are doing things like this. i think if you want to start your own manga label, go for it... but there is a TON of planning involved and it's not easy.

(on the other hand, are you trying to start a site like inkblazers? that was just a general site where anyone can upload their comics. so if that's what you want then ignore what i said about narrowing the focus.)