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Viz's Shonen Jump Print Magazine to End Next March
posted on by Egan Loo
The North American manga publisher Viz Media announced at New York Comic Con on Friday that its Shonen Jump magazine will end publication next March with a "farewell April 2012 issue." Viz announced the print magazine's end in conjunction with the unveiling of its successor — the digital anthology Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha.
At least three of the manga titles in Shonen Jump's most recent print issue (October/November 2011) will continue in the digital Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha next January: Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece. Shonen Jump has been publishing Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan, Toriko, and Bakuman. online since 2010 with a supplement only available to print magazine subscribers.
Viz launched the American edition of Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in November 2002 after releasing "Issue #0" in July of that year. The first monthly issue had 288 pages and a circulation run of 250,000.
Dragon Ball Z, One Piece, Sand Land, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Yu Yu Hakusho ran in that inaugural issue. Naruto, arguably Shonen Jump's most popular English title, began serializing in the second issue. One Piece is the only title from the first issue that remains in the magazine's current lineup.
