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