Free Access to Premium Series Extended on the iPad App

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Victor

We are very grateful for the amazing support the community has shown. Within two weeks, we reached the first 5000 downloads of our iPad app thanks to your support! As promised, we are extending free access to all premium series until August 20th. It is our hope that more people will get to enjoy a different kind of online reading experience!

Search for INKBLAZERS on the App Store, or go here appstore.com/inkblazers

Click here to talk about the iPad app on the community page.

*Commenting and sharing will be included at a later date

**Illustrations will not be supported

About Victor

Co-Founder of MangaMagazine.net. Permanent site stalker :)

Comic Con: Making a Living in Manga

Posted on July 26, 2013 by Victor

I was lucky enough to be invited by Deb Aoki last week to participate on a panel at San Diego Comic Con on “Making a Living in Manga” and it was an absolute blast! It was my first time at San Diego Comic Con and it is amazing to see the work of so many smart, talented, and hard working professionals (not to mention the great cosplayers). It’s difficult to describe, but the energy and types of people at Comic Con are a little different than a large Manga/Anime convention like Fan Expo, Otakon, etc and it is fascinating to just walk around looking at different products and attending panels. One thing the panel reminded me is how small the Manga and Comic world can be at times. I was lucky enough to run into Myung Hee Kim, author of Simon Sues on the same panel!

I wanted to share a few thoughts from the panel and talk about how it relates to MangaMagazine as I think this is a very important topic and something that we as a company work really hard every day to try to achieve for all of you.

Our very own MYth on the front page of the presentation!

One unanimous comment that everybody on the panel spoke about was that making a living as a comic/manga artist is tough and that in order to succeed, an artist must work their butt off to get noticed and above all act as a professional at all times. I won’t dig into this too much as this has been discussed by many artists, publishers, and editors alike. The panels at Comic Con of course continued to hammer this point home.

What has been changing the last few years though and mentioned by many artists and companies is that working for a major publishing house isn’t the only option available to authors and artists anymore, independent publishing is no longer a embarrassing or closet activity you avoid telling people.

Professionalism, consistency, and sincerity are necessary whether you want to publish under a large publishing company or if you want to publish independently. However, with traditional publishers, it is all about the destination; finishing your series and publishing/selling your comic according to a schedule and targeted reader. With independent publishing on the other hand, the key is the journey and the discoveries you make along the way interacting with your readers of what works and what doesn’t. This is why we have invested so much time and effort into the MangaMagazine community and methods for authors and readers to interact.

We believe in independent publishing and opening a path for authors on MangaMagazine to publish and make a living with their comics. In the next few weeks we will be launching both our print on demand service as well as marketplace which will complement our existing efforts with our iPad app and subscription pool to build what we believe is a critical and sustainable means for MangaMagazine authors to continue their independent publishing journey.

We are extremely grateful for all your support as readers and authors and look forward to continuing our journey with all of you!

Sincerely,

Victor

Continue the discussion HERE

Making a living is no laughing matter! But we sure enjoyed ourselves talking about it.

About Victor

Co-Founder of MangaMagazine.net. Permanent site stalker :)

New Inkblazers App for iPad, Premium Content on iPad free for 2 weeks

Posted on July 18, 2013 by Victor

After months of development and polishing our iPad app, we’re now ready to share it with you. We created an iPad app to deliver the quality reading experience you’d expect from us and give you the flexibility to use different platforms to read.

For the first two weeks all content including premium is free! After that, for every 5000 downloads of the app we will keep the premium content free on the app for an additional two weeks.

You can expect us to roll out more updates going forward so let us know what you think about the app and how we can improve it!

- The MangaMagazine Team

Search for INKBLAZERS on the App Store, or go here: appstore.com/inkblazers

Click here to talk about the iPad app on the community page.

Media Contact:

Justin Ordman

[email protected]

(617) 236-0500

MangaMagazine.net Unveils iPad App for Anywhere, Anytime Comics Access

San Francisco, Calif. – July 18, 2013 – MangaMagazine.net, a digital comic publishing platform, today unveiled its InkBlazers iPad app, making the site’s diverse range of comics accessible on-the-go. Whether your interests are action, adventure, romance, fantasy, sci-fi or anything else, the sleek interface packages all MangaMagazine.net original content for easy, swipeable, page-turning functionality in a user-friendly layout that facilitates the discovery, sharing and reading of new comics. Available as a free download through the iTunes store, InkBlazers lets fans access their favorites anytime, while giving the site’s comic creators another platform on which to distribute their content.

“As a huge comics fan since childhood, I’ve always been frustrated by how difficult it was to engage with my favorite authors and discover new and exciting content,” said Victor Chu, MangaMagazine.net CEO and co-founder. “Through MangaMagazine.net and our InkBlazers app, we are shaking up the publishing industry and helping fans explore countless new Web comics and manga from some of the most talented artists on the Web.”

Founded in early 2012, MangaMagazine.net has amassed more than 55,000 registered users, who are made up of both comic fans and artists. The site gives artists full control over the editorial direction and rights to their work, while also giving them the opportunity to monetize their content through revenue sharing and e-commerce. Artists who have demonstrated a certain level of success – as determined by a series of criteria that takes into consideration staff selection, number of fans and other statistics – are promoted to the site’s Feature Tier. The top performing Featured comics are then selected for the Premium Tier where the artists can earn income from a $20,000 monthly pool as well as receive additional advertising, merchandise and marketing support. By tapping into feedback from the vast network of comic fans, artists can learn and adapt via crowdsourcing, helping them move through the tiered system and strengthening the reader bond and their content.

“Since publishing my work on MangaMagazine.net, I have significantly increased my fan base,” said Wave, creator of ERA IBUKI. “With the new iPad app, I can now offer my current fans a medium to read, share my work anytime, from anywhere. The app also provides potential new fans with a platform to easily and quickly search and discover my work.”

InkBlazers offers both free and premium access; those seeking up-to-date access on premium content will be automatically charged $2.99 per month or $11.99 every six months. Free users will have access to any premium content uploaded after a two-month lapse.

Premium content will be available for free to all users in the two weeks following the launch of the app. Every 5,000 downloads will extend the free access by another two weeks. To download the app, click here: http://ow.ly/mtNYj

Additional resources:

About MangaMagazine.net

Founded in early 2012, MangaMagazine.net is an open ecosystem of creators and readers who are passionate about manga and comics. The digital publishing site acts as a platform to support creators and connect them to readers who are looking for unique, eclectic and professional content. With more than 55,000 registered users, MangaMagazine.net takes input from readers to create a curated experience that fosters higher-quality content. For more information, visit www.mangamagazine.net.

# # #

Commenting and sharing will be included at a later date
Illustration is currently not supported
Apple, the Apple logo, iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc.

About Victor

Co-Founder of MangaMagazine.net. Permanent site stalker :)

Interview: Trouble Next Door by JigokuNeko

Posted on July 12, 2013 by Victor

JigokuNeko is our latest Premium artist and author of the romantic comedy, Trouble Next Door! Check it out in the Premium section!

Thanks for agreeing to be interviewed, JigokuNeko, and welcome to the Premium tier!
Thank you, I’m happy to be here, in the site’s “roof garden” as it is!

So how did you first get interested in comics and manga?
I’d always been reading comics, every since I was a wee bundle of mischief. I think the earliest stuff was some comic adaptation of a Disney movie about a stray kitten and the standard European stuff like Asterix. Around middle school I found a comic book shop importing from the US and proceeded to leave some serious part of my allowance there on indie comics. Then, when I was wrapping up university (that’d be economics, I never took art classes actually) I woke up one day and decided to learn Japanese because I saw a travelogue and found it a very beautiful place and the kanji fascinated me. Of course, most of the people there were into anime and manga. Somebody loaned me Inuyasha and I was so hooked! Then my good ole comic book shop started importing the Tokyopop stuff and more money left my pockets.

Your style is very unique! While there’s shades of the manga style, there’s also obviously some other influences I can’t identify? What influences you the most as an artist?
I guess it’s a cocktail of manga and European-style with a lime slice of American mainstream and a topping of realism? I have no visual preferences, I will like the weirdest things and emulate elements of them until it all becomes so bastardized you can’t tell what in Chtulhu’s name it is! Though, what most inspires me is not images but music. I may like an illustration or photograph but true inspiration and the need to create something comes from hearing a song I really like.

You also have a pretty quirky sense of humour that can be seen in both your comic and some your illustrations. What are some of your favourite comedies?
I don’t actually like comedies per se, go figure! For me humor must be couched between slices of something else, like adventure. For example I love the humor in (the most amazing show ever!) Firefly, the way the differences between characters create the jokes. And the Harry Potter books had some laugh-out-loud burn moments Rowling doesn’t get enough credit for. As for romcoms, which you’d expect me to like since I make them, I actually haven’t seen a Hollywood-made one that I can even tolerate to watch again. I find them grossly unfunny and promoting totally wrong stereotypes for women…and just as often men. Virtually the only romcom I liked was “Bridget Jones’ diary” but hey, that was heavily based on Pride and Prejudice so it sorta counts.

Let’s talk a little bit about your series, Trouble Next Door; Can you tell us where you came up with the idea?

Er, well, actually, I was listening to an AKB48 song (don’t judge my taste in music, I have more horrifying things in my playlists!) and I had this image of a bouncy, happy girl who leaped over steps two at a time because she was in a hurry to get somewhere. I found I could make her an interesting character and started building everybody and everything else around her. Aaaaand, that was Ilona, named after an actress in a Polish sitcom my parents were watching fanatically at the time.

Have you ever had trouble with any of your neighbours in the past? Are any of the interactions in Trouble Next Door influenced by your own experiences?
I’ve been at odds with the neighbors quite a few times though nothing as cute as what goes on in the comic. Mostly it’s embezzlement of the building funds here, but hey, that’s the national pastime. And another time I duct-taped a “Do not park in my spot again” note to one of the asshats’ Benz who was all “too much fuss to park in my own spot”. And when I say taped, I mean taped all around the window. I must have left half my tape on it. But nobody ever parked in my spot again.

The main character of Trouble Next Door, Ilona is training to be a vet. Is there any particular reason you chose this profession? Do you have a love for animals yourself?
Would you believe that was tacked on with me having already drawn several pages? The script I had then was open to any type of student and I was having trouble deciding. I had to resort to googling lists of professions and at one time Ilona almost became a librarian. But yeah, I do love animals. In fact that’s also my people-filter: I don’t want anything to do with people who treat animals badly.

I see that you have two other series, Love Song and 9Lives, can you tell us a little bit about those series?
Well, Lovesong had its web run between 2010 and 2011 (so I’m only uploading revamped pages, don’t go thinking I can crank out so much!) and it’s another romcom although it’s more of a soapopera than slice-of-life. There are a lot of similarities in character-design, themes and tropes between this and TND. Basically every element I enjoy remains pretty much the same in every comic I do and only the story changes. On the other hand, 9Lives is a bit of an odd fruit. It’s a full-color oriental fantasy heavily influenced by my sightseeing during the time I spent as an intern in Istanbul, Turkey. In my free time I’d go visit all the palaces, bazaars and mosques and the aesthetic of their history fascinated me. Well, that and a trip I took to Egypt way before the riots and political unrest. I remember standing in the fringes of the desert and thinking “whoa, that’s a lot of sand to get lost in!”.

Do you have any future projects that you’re working on for your readers get excited about?
I’m heavily leaning towards a scifi adventure in the spirit of Firefly (have I mentioned this is my all-time favourite show? Have I?) with a band of outlaws fleeing the corrupted law across the planets. I know it sounds like so many shows and anime and games out there but I love that setup. Anyway, my stories rely heavily on character charm to get them going and less on action so that will be the focus here as well. I’ve done fantasy comics before but never scifi and I want to try my hand at it. I’m sorta curious to see how it goes since I plan for it to be more background-heavy as well as more heavily inked.

Well thank you for taking the time to answer our questions and once again congratulations on your well-deserved promotion!
Thank you very much! *enjoys sorbet at the roof garden*

Discuss the interview here!

Guest: JigokuNeko

About Victor

Co-Founder of MangaMagazine.net. Permanent site stalker :)

See you at the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con!

Posted on July 10, 2013 by powil

Thanks to an invitation from Deb Aoki of manga.about.com, MangaMagazine co-founder Victor and Featured author Myung Hee Kim will be panelists for Making a Living in Manga: New Trends Worth Watching at the San Diego Comic-Con this July 18th! Say hi if you’re coming!

Here’s what the panel is about:

As a generation of North American comics fans who grew up with manga aspire to become comics creators, they’re bumping up against a glass ceiling: a lack of paying publishing options for their work. But a new wave of manga-inspired creators are finding new ways to get published and get paid. Panelists include editors and comics creators who are forging new paths for making a living in manga, including Lillian Diaz-Pryzbyl (editorial director, Chromatic Press), Faith Erin Hicks (Friends with Boys, Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong), Victor Chu (co-founder/CEO, MangaMagazine.net), Myung Hee Kim (Simon Sues, Bento Comics), and moderator Brigid Alverson (MangaBlog.net, Publishers Weekly).

Thursday July 18, 2013 5:30pm - 6:30pm

Room 26AB

Share your comments here.

About powil

Hi, I'm a community manager at Mangamagazine.net

More Posts (18)

More great press coverage: Wired.com and Toonbarn!

Posted on July 8, 2013 by Victor

What a great week! Another two great articles about us were posted in the last few days! Check out these articles if you get a chance and let us know what you think!

Crowdsourcing: Why Publishers Should Rethink Content Acquisition

Toonbarn Feature: Interview with MangaMagazine.net’s Victor Chu

You can participate in the discussion here: http://www.mangamagazine.net/blogs/More-press-coverage-Wired-and-Toonbarn/detail-page/4814

About Victor

Co-Founder of MangaMagazine.net. Permanent site stalker :)

New Author Promotions! (July)

Posted on July 3, 2013 by Victor

Hope you’ve had a good June, let’s start off July with some awesome new promotions!

Premium Promotion

Trouble Next Door by JigokuNeko

Prepare to laugh with our brand new premium series, Trouble Next Door!

Summary: Ilona hates her new neighbor! Sure he might be a tall, athletic, motorcycle-riding hot model kind of a guy but he’s snarky and rude. Just like the jocks in school that used to make fun of Ilona because she was a nerdy tomboy girl. And did he say something about Ilona’s panties?!

This means war! Ilona wants him gone, right now! Because he’s a horrible person…but wait, he actually has a kind side? …and how come he’s always helping her out when she’s in a pinch? Could she have been wrong about him?

About Victor

Co-Founder of MangaMagazine.net. Permanent site stalker :)

Press coverage: Techie.com and Boston Magazine

Posted on June 16, 2013 by Victor

A very important part of building out MangaMagazine is interacting with the press and helping get coverage about our site so more people know about us.

The last few weeks were amazing as I was able to speak to the amazing folks at Techie.com and Bostonmagazine.com to share with them a little bit about what we are trying to do and achieve. I hope you enjoy these articles as much as it was for me speaking with them! Hopefully this is the first of many more to come! You can expect some other big announcements soon as we have lots of exciting things in the works!

Manga Magazine takes a crowdsourced approach to publishing

Harvard Alum Plans on ‘Disrupting’ the Comic Book Publishing World

Victor

About Victor

Co-Founder of MangaMagazine.net. Permanent site stalker :)

New Author Promotions (June)

Posted on June 5, 2013 by Victor

Summertime is upon us, so let’s welcome our brand new promotions!

Premium Promotions

Urban Reality by JonLock

Have you heard the story of Urban Reality? Well it’s one of our new Premium series!

Summary: Takes place in the modern era, where urban legends are more than real to Detective Gretchen Adler, who was born with ability to see things that no normal humans can. With her unique gift, she does her best to help people who have been abandoned by the justice system. Of course, she doesn’t realize that the more and more she encounters these strange cases, the more she’s letting herself sink into the depths of the City of Urban Myths.

About Victor

Co-Founder of MangaMagazine.net. Permanent site stalker :)

Screentones Episode 10 - Mary Sue - The Worst Character Type?

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Rogo

This Week on Screentones!

Mary Sues are considered by many to be the very worst kind of character in a story, but what exactly is a Mary Sue? We are joined by H0lyhandgrenade, Wave and Kura to discuss this archetype and try and work out why it’s such a problem and how writers can avoid falling into the trap of a Mary Sue.

Check it out!

If you want to skip ahead, here are the major points of discussion (times are approximate)

Start - Introductions and what is a Mary Sue?

12mins - why Mary Sue and not Gary Stu?

23mins - Good Stories with Mary Sues

31mins - Have any of the participants written a Sue before?

37mins - Shoulder writers avoid writing their own personal traits into characters?

45mins - Other bad character archetypes.

1hr 14mins - Final Thoughts

1hr 19mins - Artist Recommendations

Full Length - 1hr 27mins

Recommendations

Off by Mortis Ghost

Iron Man 3

Manga Guide to Electricity

Paranorman

Next Time - Anime/Manga Fandom Around the World

Please feel free to comment below with questions, feedback and/or ideas, or alternatively you can send an e-mail to [email protected].

About Rogo

Hey there, I'm Rogo, part of the MangaMagazine Community Team. I'll be keeping you up to date with the latest promotions from now on.

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	Shinbuki by Asamiya Summary: Shinbuki, or Weapon of Mind, was a fighting skill that changed one’s energy into varies weapons. The summoned Shinbuki was much stronger than any ordinary weapon, thus the teaching was expended. Soma Kenichi, a stray, was able to summon Shinbuki by himself with no one to teach him. While Soma was chased by an unknown organization, he met a famous Master of Miyazaki, prompting him to know that he was a special one called Tensaiji.Read More >>