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NEWS: First Free Weekly Manga Mag Ends Publication in Japan




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kokuryu



Joined: 07 Apr 2007
Posts: 915
PostPosted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 2:01 pm Reply with quote
Ah well, I put what titles I could into my Amazon Japan wishlist, but there are still a few titles there I want to see... I guess maybe I have to buy a set of the weeklies then... They dont seem to be accepting anymore registrations on their website, so only previously registered people can view what is there now.
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Proz512



Joined: 17 Aug 2004
Posts: 74
Location: Texas, Ya'll
PostPosted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 2:34 pm Reply with quote
For all future news posts like these I will be putting in the obligatory

/sky is falling
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naruto fan 09812



Joined: 24 Jul 2006
Posts: 499
PostPosted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 2:45 pm Reply with quote
Did they actually think selling a free weekly manga was a good idea?
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BellosTheMighty



Joined: 27 Nov 2007
Posts: 767
PostPosted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 7:26 pm Reply with quote
naruto fan 09812 wrote:
Did they actually think selling a free weekly manga was a good idea?


Good question. How DID they plan to make money off this? Ads, I assume? Some small papers in the U.S. are able to get by with free distribution...
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fighterholic



Joined: 28 Sep 2005
Posts: 9193
PostPosted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 1:51 am Reply with quote
BellosTheMighty wrote:
naruto fan 09812 wrote:
Did they actually think selling a free weekly manga was a good idea?


Good question. How DID they plan to make money off this? Ads, I assume? Some small papers in the U.S. are able to get by with free distribution...

I would have thought of it as a way of trying to promote the artist's manga titles, but trying to run that across the nation seems to me like a challenge, especially when you're distributing it for free.
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BellosTheMighty



Joined: 27 Nov 2007
Posts: 767
PostPosted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 2:08 am Reply with quote
fighterholic wrote:
BellosTheMighty wrote:
naruto fan 09812 wrote:
Did they actually think selling a free weekly manga was a good idea?


Good question. How DID they plan to make money off this? Ads, I assume? Some small papers in the U.S. are able to get by with free distribution...

I would have thought of it as a way of trying to promote the artist's manga titles, but trying to run that across the nation seems to me like a challenge, especially when you're distributing it for free.


I don't think it would work... any artist who wants to promote himself by giving away some work for free can make a webcomic, can't they?
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fighterholic



Joined: 28 Sep 2005
Posts: 9193
PostPosted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 2:17 am Reply with quote
BellosTheMighty wrote:
I don't think it would work... any artist who wants to promote himself by giving away some work for free can make a webcomic, can't they?

That or put up a couple of chapters for download, like we have seen people do recently.
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ptolemy18
Manga Reviewer/Creator/Taster


Joined: 07 May 2005
Posts: 357
Location: San Francisco
PostPosted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 7:33 pm Reply with quote
Well, there are still plenty of free weekly newspapers around, particularly in big cities. Here in San Francisco we have the SF Bay Guardian, the SF Weekly, and AsianWeek. And the East Bay Express across the bay in Berkeley/Oakland, and a couple of little papers I've probably forgotten about. Now, I know their circulation has declined in the past 10 years due to lost advertising revenue to the Internet, just like all print media... but they still seem more solvent, and in some cases more topical, than daily newspapers. (Raise your hands, everyone who has a newspaper subscription? Now raise your hands, everyone who would pick up a free weekly paper they found in a newsbox on the street? Particularly if it had manga in it? Come on, admit you would pick up the frickin' weekly paper, I'm talking about a nice clean paper, not some ratty stinky one.)

In short, I'm very saddened that Comic Gumbo couldn't make it work. I don't know the ins and outs of their business scheme, but I was hoping they might be successful.
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ptolemy18
Manga Reviewer/Creator/Taster


Joined: 07 May 2005
Posts: 357
Location: San Francisco
PostPosted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 7:39 pm Reply with quote
BellosTheMighty wrote:
I don't think it would work... any artist who wants to promote himself by giving away some work for free can make a webcomic, can't they?


Yeah, but I assume the artists were getting paid in some form by the publisher, who was in turn getting paid through advertising... or not getting paid through advertising, apparently. If you're going to draw 30 pages a month, believe me, it's real nice to have some money upfront, instead of drawing month after month for free in the promise of eventually maybe being able to make money. That's why artists are lining up to get published by Tokyopop and Seven Seas.

I suppose the other advantage of having your free comic in a magazine, rather than online, is the "hmm, what is this magazine doing here, guess I'll check it out... oh my! a comic!" rather than randomly stumbling upon it online. Although nowadays, people are probably more likely to randomly find something online than to randomly pick up and read a paper, I guess.
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