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| My Personal Drawing~ |
Having run across many fun people on twitter, one person I have chatted with countless times is Deb Aoki. Among all of all the people I've talked to on manga, graphic novels and other kinds of comics, licensing issues and bootleg issues is far beyond my own expertise. So I decided to send her some interview questions based on the digital shift in the western market for manga, graphic novels, manga, comics or the state of illegal apps on Ios. I hope you enjoy reading these and give her shout out on twitter some time as a thank you.
1. How do you think the digital transition of manga
in the west is
being handled by online sites and tablet devices?
A: I think it's
going pretty well. After years of being at a virtual
standstill, a lot is happening in the digital
publishing space for manga
nowadays. This is largely thanks to 1) the
arrival of a lot of reasonably
priced devices on the market,
2) the fact that
more and more people own
them and
3) many have discovered that it's fun
to read comics on them.
We're seeing a lot more manga becoming available
in English legally,
digitally than ever before.
Granted, I only have an iPad, and iPhone, and a
laptop computer, so I
can't say how good or poor the experience is on
other devices like Kindle,
Nook, or Android tablets/phones, but I'm pretty
satisfied with what we
have available today. VIZ Manga, Dark Horse
Digital, Yen Press, Kodansha
Comics, Digital Manga, Manga University,
plus JManga, and various indies
like GEN Manga, ComicLoud, Manga Magazine, and
several comics sites and
applications like ComiXology, Graphic.ly,
Panelfly, etc. are all offering
manga online, in various ways. The selection is
still relatively small
compared to all the manga that was published in
print in Japan and North
America over the past few decades – but keep in
mind that the shift toward
digital publishing is
The only downside is that buying digital manga
means having to use digital
payment systems, which require a credit card.
The downside to this is that
a lot of younger readers who enjoy manga simply
don't have credit cards –
so it's not as easy for a teen or tween to buy
some of these digital-only
titles / magazine subscriptions, whereas before,
you could just go to the
bookstore or comic shop and buy what you like. Now,
if you don't have a
credit or debit card, you have to ask your
parents to buy online comics,
which I'd imagine must be a hassle.
But I think the manga publishers are aware of
this, and I think they are
looking for some kind of solution. I feel like
they have been pretty
responsive to fans' requests, so I see
continual, steady improvement day
by day. .but keep in mind that the shift toward digital publishing is a
relatively new development
2. Do you think it's possible to create a free, yet
legal site
dedicated to reading manga or doujinshi online??
To be honest,
no. Not unless artists and publishers were willing to do it
just for giggles / be willing to forgo getting
paid. I don't think people
realize the expenses involved with publishing
manga, and how few people
(in US book-buying market) actually
read / buy manga. Yes, there's a lot
of people who read manga, but it's but a
fraction of the amount of people
who read manga in Japan. Manga is a niche within a
niche of a niche – far
fewer people read manga online than say, read
the NY Times online. While
the NY Times makes some content available for
free, they do rely on
subscribers too, not just ad venue.
Online advertising only brings in so much
revenue, and I don't see how
just ads would generate enough money to pay for
expenses like translators,
graphic designers, editors, artists, and stuff
like server/bandwidth
expenses, R&D to continually improve the
websites/apps. If huge newspapers
and large mainstream online magazines are
struggling to find ways to make
digital publishing as profitable as print was,
then I don't think it's any
easier for manga publishers to do it either.
Besides needing to pay the people who translate,
edit and do graphic
design on the manga you like to read, any online
publisher also needs to
get agreement from the Japanese licensors: the
publishers and comic
creators. Without OK from these people, nothing
will happen – or at least
nothing legit.
There are doujinshi websites – in fact, Digital
Manga is working with DL
Site to make translated doujinshi available
online. But I don't think it
will be free.
There are free, all you can read webcomic sites
out there too. But if
they're free, are the comics on there as
consistently good as the manga
you buy from VIZ, Dark Horse, Yen Press, etc.? A
website can offer all the
free manga/webcomics for free they like, but if
it's not any good, then
that's no bargain for fans, now is it?
JManga is trying to offer a new strategy with
JManga 7 where they'll offer
serialized chapters of new manga online to read
for free, with the hope
that you'll pay for the complete volume later.
This is promising, so we'll
see how it goes. But make no mistake – if the
vast majority of the JManga
7 readers only read the free content / don't
subscribe/pay for the premium
content/early preview privileges, and don't buy
more JManga manga, then I
don't think this experiment will last very long.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, manga publishing
is a business, not a
charity. Manga publishers and artists deserve to
make money for bringing
us great manga. There are too many reasons why
"free, all-you-can-eat"
manga websites aren't financially feasible in
the current business climate
for book publishers, not just manga publishers.
3. What are your thoughts on scanlations and the
amount of sites or
apps dedicated to hosting said illegal material?
I think
scanlation is something that started out with good intentions (I
love this manga, I want other people to love it
too) that has just gotten
way out of hand.
It's created this perception with some fans that
manga has no value, that
you should never have to pay to read manga, that
it should always be free
to read/consume and that anyone who draws,
writes, translates manga should
do it simply for love, not money. That's
bullshit.
It aggravates me that the people who make money
off scanlations and those
bullshit apps are not the original artists, or
even the people who do the
translations. These websites DON'T pay the
artists/translators who create
the content on their websites, but they profit
from hosting content that
they didn't create by selling ads. Sure, it's
profitable to run this kind
of website. They don't have to pay those
inconvenient expenses like paying
licensing fees, or paying translators or graphic
designers a living wage.
I have a lot of friends who are comics creators
– heck, I'm a half-baked
cartoonist myself. I don't know if you can ever
understand how it feels
until someone you created is stolen, and is used
to make someone else (not
you) money; money that you will never get a
share of. Worst of all, it's a
situation that you'll likely never be able to
stop.
For me the bottom line is, did you get the
artists' permission to post
that work? Are you sharing whatever revenue
you're making from your with
the comics creators/artists and the editors,
translators, etc. who drew,
wrote, edited, translated, scanned, cleaned up,
etc. those pages that
you're posting on your website? If the answer is
no to both of those
questions, then you're not doing the creators of
the manga you love so
much any favors at all.
4. Do you think that people should be careful
importing risqué
manga such as kodomo no jikan or comic lo given recent issues lately?
Let's just say
I wouldn't do it.
Ryan Matheson spoke at Comic-Con, and the
manga/artwork that got him
searched, arrested and thrown in jail for in Canada was
relatively mild. I
think the political climate is such that it
doesn't make sense to take
risks with importing potentially problematic
material.
The problem is that manga has a visual style
that often depicts characters
as younger than they really are. And for people
who aren't familiar with
manga/anime art styles, if they see a comic
character with large sparkly
eyes and small build, it looks like a child. And
if that said character is
seen doing 'grown-up' stuff – then well… you see
where this is going?
And come on. Is Kodomo no Jikan really that good
of a manga? I haven't
read it myself, but I can think of tons more
interesting manga that I'd
rather read, rather import from Japan. It's not
like there isn't smut to
be had via US publishers (Digital Manga'sProject H Hentai imprint comes
to mind). It's not worth it.
5. This goes back to question three do you think
that it would be
okay to import a manga from Japan then download the scanlations for your
personal use?
By visiting a
scanlation site, you're still supporting them, financially.
Your presence on their websites = traffic, and
the more traffic a given
website gets = they make more money from the
online ads posted on their
site.
So even if you buy one copy of the manga, when
you visit a scanlation
site, you're creating traffic to the site, which
= money for that website,
and therefore, you're encouraging these sites to
continue. By allowing
these sites to continue to make money, you're
facilitating making an
unauthorized copy of said manga available
online, and making it available
to many, many thousands of people who will never
buy a legal (Japanese or
English) edition of that same manga.
Yes, some people will discover this manga via
reading it on a scanlation
site, and may become a big fan that will buy the
manga through legal
channels when it's available. But honestly, the
vast majority won't spend
a dime on it. And that's more lost potential
sales that your purchasing of
a single legal copy can't quite compensate for.
In the end, you're still causing a net negative
effect to the artist /
comic creator. Your math may differ from mine,
but that's how I see it.
6. To wrap this up what are some of your favorite
manga
series/genres and why?
Hm. I love all
kinds of manga. My first love is shojo manga, and that's
probably my favorite. But I also enjoy seinen,
shonen, and josei manga. I
like romances, comedies, action manga, slice of
life manga… literally, all
kinds.
I like manga that teaches me something new while
entertaining me. I also
love manga that shows a real mastery of the art.
I like manga that makes
me laugh. And I'm a sucker for sports manga,
because I don't actually
enjoy watching sports on TV, but I like the
drama and real-life action in
these series that make me appreciate a sport I'd
otherwise never get into.
Some of my current faves include Blue Exorcist,
Kekkaishi, Ooku, Eyeshield
21, Cross Game, Slam Dunk, Drops of God, Chi's
Sweet Home, Yotsuba,
Dorohedoro, A Drunken Dream, GoGo Monster,
Children of the Sea, Summit
of
the Gods, and Skip Beat.
Hope that helps. Sorry to take so long to reply.
Let me know if you have
any follow-up questions or need anything else.
Thanks!
-Deb
Deb Aoki
Guide to Manga
manga.about.com
About.com | Need. Know. Accomplish
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Update:
I did have a quick chat with Deb on twitter on Kodomo No Jikan and explained to her what kind of series it was. I think that she understands that it's not completely just smut or baseless sex acts/lolicon but she did help point out the usual truths on the matter. This is the said quote below from our conversation on Aug 30th
there are just some titles that are too hot to handle in the US, and that's just how it goes. it's another reason to learn JP.
-Cecil The Dark Knight~
