Comments on: How to Break Into the Manga Industry

By: Willie Hewes

Willie Hewes — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 09:27:58 +0000

Or try to find an artist on your own?

Finding an artist is difficult, but it’s difficult for me too, or any publisher. I hope you’ll do what you can on your own, rather than waiting.

By: Cynthia

Cynthia — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 03:17:53 +0000

I’m sad you’re not taking submissions, I was actually crafting something with Itch in mind as a lot of the publishers out there aren’t accepting submissions–especially submissions solely from writers, or the type of material that I’m looking to put out there. (Non-super hero, vampire, magical girl fluff.) I guess I’ll have to wait until you’re capable of handling more submissions or hope I come across someone willing to take a “writer only” seriously.

By: Karen

Karen — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 02:25:54 +0000

Start?

draw. Draw, write (if you want to write), draw, look at art, study anatomy, study comics, read comics, analyse comics, read critical analysis of comics, draw. Then do some drawing.

Draw outside your comfort zone. Draw from life. Seek every resource you can find about drawing (google is your friend, but so are local life drawing classes and art courses). Join art communities where REAL critique is available and encouraged. Take their advice to heart, even if it hurts. It will make you better.

Can you WRITE? this is important. Talented artist you may be, but can you create compelling three dimensional characters, involving plots, genuine emotion and (if appropriate) truly funny humour? If you can’t, there’s no shame in it, but don’t pretend you can, because you’ll end up with something pretty but unreadable. Find someone ELSE who can. In the west, the majority of comics are a TEAM effort.

Create comics.

are your comics good? genuinely good, not “your mum put up a picture on the fridge” good?

Get them out there. Go to events. Expos, small press events, general comic events. Talk to small presses, in person. Hell, talk to the bigger ones if they’re there.

Join forums. comic forums, small press forums, art forums. Make friends, not just to wring for information so you can get ahead, but to share and develop your artistic and professional skills. NETWORK.

Find open-entry and international competitions. Or, look for more general “comic” competitions, not just specialised Manga ones.

If you want, build a website, and publish as a Webcomic. If it’s popular, it can be worth printing up collections for existing fans to buy. If it’s REALLY popular, you might find a publisher who wants to do this for you.

Don’t expect to make a substantial amount of money at this stage (you’ll probably lose a small amount of money, but be very wary of vanity publishers). It’s a lot of hard work and grind, honing your skills and, just as importantly getting them noticed.

By: Just dropping by

Just dropping by — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:43:01 +0000

To Violetta: start by drawing? That always helps.

By: Violetta

Violetta — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 07:52:13 +0000

Well, this isn’t very helpful, actually. I want to do manga, but I don’t even know where to start. Where I live, we don’t have competitiions like that, so, what am I supposed to do?

By: Jhanni Corrin

Jhanni Corrin — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 06:58:26 +0000

It’s not like you can just pass this one interview and get hired by someone and hey, you’re in, and you can relax. It’s not about blagging your way into the country club.

Unless you’re Rob Liefeld of course…

http://progressiveboink.com/archive/robliefeld.html

By: Jhanni Corrin

Jhanni Corrin — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 06:55:55 +0000

Interesting post, on one hand it must be nice to be thought of as inside the industry... but on the other hand it kinda requires you to give out advice like this. By which I mean sensible advice that nobody is going to like. Because its tough news if you're starting out and have the kind of hopes you describe. Like any form of what is basically self-employment the principles of 'having your shit together' and 'working really, really hard' are two things that most people (myself included) find hardest. In short, comics writing is not for ~~****~~ weaklings and ~~****~~ cowards, its real hard work, and that's gonna scare a lot of people and piss off others. Telling the truth is a ~~****~~ lady dog man. Willie: Sorry Jhanni, taking your language down just a tad. ^_^ I take your point though, it IS hard. What is it you get stuck on most?