Leek and Sushi 2: Here comes the Sun (working title)

After the success of Leek and Sushi: 150 years of friendship, ITCH is now planning for Leek and Sushi 2, an anthology made up of the Jiman entries for this year.

More about being in the book, copyright, payment, ect: Q&A for Leek and Sushi 2.

If you want to be part of Leek and Sushi 2, you can submit your Jiman entry (or a 6-8 page manga that’s something to do with the sun) to ITCH.
Sorry, the deadline for sending me your entry has now passed. I’m working hard on putting the book together, stay tuned for updates.

IMPORTANT: the Leek and Sushi book and the Jiman contest are completely separate. I am in no way involved in judging or organising the contest, and the Japanese Embassy is not involved with the book. You can enter the contest without being in the book, and you can submit your entry for the book even if you don’t want to enter the contest (or you didn’t finish your entry in time).

Once I have all the entries, I will make a selection based on pure whim and capriciousness quality, and send word to the artists of the selected entries on what to do next. If you didn’t make it into the book, I’ll let you know that as well, and wish you good luck for next year.

Tell me who you are

If you want your entry to be considered for the book, I need some details so I can be organised and not spend half my time wondering who drew which entry again. Please fill in this little form and send it in an e-mail to leeknsushi@itchpublishing.com :

1, Your Name:____________
How you want your name to appear in the book. Most people use their real names, sometimes with their online handle in brackets, for instance: Sam Barker (Volker).

If you are a team, include your names and roles, like this: T. Didum: story, lettering – T. Didee: artist.

2. Your e-mail address:______________
Again, if you’re a team, please give an e-mail address for each of you, so there’s no delay with copying people in and such. Please also give me at least one phone number, in case something crops up that needs to be fixed quickly. No, I will not share your contact details, and I promise not to stalk or spam you.

3. Title of your entry:_____________
So I can match it up with what you’ll send me.

4. Number of pages: ______________

How to send me your entry

When e-mailing leeknSushi@itchpublishing.com, also tell me where I can find your entry. There are many ways you could send it to me.

1. Get Dropbox, set up a shared folder and invite me to it. Dropbox is an awesome backup/sharing/syncing system and I recommend it, also, if I get my friends to sign up we both get a little bit of extra space on the free account. But seriously, it’s pretty great.

2. Send the files through a file sending service like yousendit or some such.

3. Upload it to my webhost with FTP. (If you know how to do this tell me in the e-mail and I’ll give you the details you’ll need.)

4. Upload it to your own webhost and send me the details.

5. Something else. My, the possibilities are just endless.

How to format your files

OK, this is important, and may strike you as complicated. I’ll be as clear as I can. Relax, read carefully, and if you have any questions feel free to ask.

Please format your pages as 158 mm by 220 mm .TIFF files at 600 dpi, either B/W or greyscale. This includes a 5 mm bleed all around, and the safe zone is 128 mm by 190 mm (10 mm from the edge).

Wait, what? All right, chill, I’ll explain it step by step.

158 mm by 220 mm: This is the size of the file, including the bleed (see below). It should be about 3732 by 5197 pixels.

.TIFF: Tiff is a non-lossy file format that’s been around for a while and most of you should be able to use it. You can choose zip compression if your programme offers that, but I advise against using jpg compression because it can affect the image quality.

600 dpi: You can set the DPI value in the new document dialogue or the resizing dialogue, depending on what you’re using. Make sure the mm size and the DPI value are right, and you should end up with a file that’s 3732 by 5197 pixels. Don’t worry too much if it’s a couple of pixels or 0.02 mm off. If it’s hundreds of pixels off, something has gone wrong.

BW or greyscale: If you have used pencils, ink washes, watercolours or digital greys, you can save your file as greyscale. It’s not a problem, I’ll do some test prints to make sure it looks good.

However, if you use manga tones, or ink hatching, or just plain black ink, the print quality will probably be better if you convert to pure black and white after any resizing you may need to do. This makes the lines look all jaggy and weird on the screen, but in print, it makes for a better image. Really. So convert to black and white (or “2 bit”, or “bitmap”) and save the file like that.

Bleed: In manga, the ink often runs right to the edge of the page, without a white border like you have in a normal book. To get this effect, the printer prints an image that is slightly larger than the page, and then cuts it down to size when putting the book together.

The bit that’s cut off is called the ‘bleed’. So the outermost 5mm of your files will be cut off. Do not put any lettering in the bleed. Do make sure that your speedlines, backgrounds, etc run right to the edge of the file.

Safe zone: The safe zone is the center of the page, where it is safe to have your lettering and vital art. Anything that is too close to the edge of the page is at risk of being cut off or disappearing into the spine of the book. So keep your letters a little bit away from the very edge to be safe.

Again, if you have any questions, contact me at leeknsushi@itchpublishing.com.

All the best of luck with the contest, and may the best of us win!