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Forum - View topicNEWS: First Free Weekly Manga Mag Ends Publication in Japan
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kokuryu
 Posts: 915 |
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Ah well, I put what titles I could into my Amazon Japan wishlist, but there are still a few titles there I want to see... I guess maybe I have to buy a set of the weeklies then... They dont seem to be accepting anymore registrations on their website, so only previously registered people can view what is there now.
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Proz512
 Posts: 74 Location: Texas, Ya'll |
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For all future news posts like these I will be putting in the obligatory
/sky is falling |
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naruto fan 09812
 Posts: 499 |
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Did they actually think selling a free weekly manga was a good idea?
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BellosTheMighty
 Posts: 767 |
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Good question. How DID they plan to make money off this? Ads, I assume? Some small papers in the U.S. are able to get by with free distribution... |
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fighterholic
Posts: 9193 |
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I would have thought of it as a way of trying to promote the artist's manga titles, but trying to run that across the nation seems to me like a challenge, especially when you're distributing it for free. |
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BellosTheMighty
Posts: 767 |
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I don't think it would work... any artist who wants to promote himself by giving away some work for free can make a webcomic, can't they? |
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fighterholic
Posts: 9193 |
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That or put up a couple of chapters for download, like we have seen people do recently. |
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ptolemy18
Manga Reviewer/Creator/Taster
Posts: 357 Location: San Francisco |
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Well, there are still plenty of free weekly newspapers around, particularly in big cities. Here in San Francisco we have the SF Bay Guardian, the SF Weekly, and AsianWeek. And the East Bay Express across the bay in Berkeley/Oakland, and a couple of little papers I've probably forgotten about. Now, I know their circulation has declined in the past 10 years due to lost advertising revenue to the Internet, just like all print media... but they still seem more solvent, and in some cases more topical, than daily newspapers. (Raise your hands, everyone who has a newspaper subscription? Now raise your hands, everyone who would pick up a free weekly paper they found in a newsbox on the street? Particularly if it had manga in it? Come on, admit you would pick up the frickin' weekly paper, I'm talking about a nice clean paper, not some ratty stinky one.)
In short, I'm very saddened that Comic Gumbo couldn't make it work. I don't know the ins and outs of their business scheme, but I was hoping they might be successful. |
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ptolemy18
Manga Reviewer/Creator/Taster
Posts: 357 Location: San Francisco |
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Yeah, but I assume the artists were getting paid in some form by the publisher, who was in turn getting paid through advertising... or not getting paid through advertising, apparently. If you're going to draw 30 pages a month, believe me, it's real nice to have some money upfront, instead of drawing month after month for free in the promise of eventually maybe being able to make money. That's why artists are lining up to get published by Tokyopop and Seven Seas. I suppose the other advantage of having your free comic in a magazine, rather than online, is the "hmm, what is this magazine doing here, guess I'll check it out... oh my! a comic!" rather than randomly stumbling upon it online. Although nowadays, people are probably more likely to randomly find something online than to randomly pick up and read a paper, I guess. |
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