It’s rare that I get a link from Heidi MacDonald, so rare in fact that this is only the second (hm… third?) time that it’s happened. I felt like clarifying my drunken, rambling post of the 9th for the readership on The Beat, and of course since I know no one bothers to read comments (on this blog, let alone my comments on someone else’s blog) I thought I’d pull this for a post over here.

Why no, I’m not stalling before I finish my 2007 Year in Review. What made you think that?

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[The topic is manga, in Japan, and why digital comics make sense for the Japanese Market, but not for your-underpants-wearing-superhero-ass]

In Japan (at least, this is what I’ve been told) — the magazine anthologies just take up too much space (space being at a premium) so fans buy the equivalent of graphic novels (~200 page books, what we’re in the habit of calling ‘manga’ as if it isn’t a graphic novel) for those series they like, and the magazines go off to the recycler. Or get left on the train after the original buyer is done reading it.

So the model is something like disposable first printing, a chapter or two at a time (w/ other titles, in a magazine, for about $3) and then collectors buy a book that compiles the chapters, but only for the stories they like.

In the States, they sell you the individual chapters for $3, and those are also the collected items. Graphic novels are an add on, for folks who dabble (or for *really* serious fans who want a reading copy).

Digital distribution can easily replace bulky print magazines as a means of getting the first run of individual chapters in front of eyeballs — even if folks get used to reading manga this way, if they like the stories they will still buy the books — actually it’s more likely that they’ll buy the books.

If the first run of the printed chapter is itself the collectible (and sometimes the first run is the only version available) then there’s no point in a digital version. People will buy the individual issues. Maybe they wait to buy the trade, if a graphic novel compilation is done — this varies quite a bit by title and publisher. Digital comics, american style, would not be for the customer who rushes out on Wednesdays, but instead for casual readers who’d be interested in reading stories beginning to end without having to bother with all the pesky *collecting*

— in other words for the US comics model, a digital version isn’t an alternate means of getting that ‘first read’ out into the marketplace so that you can sell graphic novels, a digital version is a replacement for the books — the $15 to $25 books (more in hardcover)

In Japan, a digitized manga chapter is the equivalent of whatever fractional portion the comic would take up in a $3 weekly magazine. It’s almost an ad for manga tankouban; they might end up giving these away.

The reading habits, expectations, and economics are vastly different.

Then there’s the whole black-and-white vs color thing.
Not to mention that Japanese mobile phones are at least 3, maybe 5 years more advanced than anything available in the states (iphone included)

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The original article was a little hard to follow because I was writing from an otaku’s perspective (if you’ve been following this crap all year then my post is [*yawn*] old news, outside of the hard numbers that I front-end-loaded the article with) and I assumed quite a bit of prior knowledge. If you want an easier starting point, click on the NPR link I posted, and also go to web-japan.org.

I get a lot of my writing done on the weekends — so no promises, but a follow-up (2007: manga/comics/publishing in America) will in all likelyhood post this upcoming Saturday.