Why do you have to prove to the world that you have no life in order to be a respected comic artist in Japan?
What would be wrong with making some of these weekly anthologies that many artists are killing themselves to appear in into monthlies? Couldn't they just add pages to the popular titles for the artists that can handle it? Creators could be given the option of doing a volume of work equivalent to four weeklies, or doing less pages and taking more time to do them in. In turn creators should then also be obligated to meet their deadlines or decrease their work load, and not allowed to keep erratic publication schedules just so they can have the status that comes with being in a flagship weekly (with the obvious exception of time off for unforeseen circumstances such as illness, etc).
I realize that the super nerds will still talk about how many pages a given artist produces in a month compared to everyone else as a mark of how hardcore that artist is, but who cares? Some artists take more breaks and miss more deadlines than others as it is, and that annoys fans both hardcore and casual. I think setting a firmer schedule within a more flexible format is a win-win situation.
Creators who need that extra little bit of time could have it without the problems that come with weeklies that aren't weekly, and people who are doing weeklies can still produce the same amount of work on the same schedule, just with a different release schedule for the anthologies. If longer episodes won't work for creators currently in the weekly format who do it and do it well, then they can make four episodes a month, with the only difference being they get released together. What's the big deal? The upside is that if they get the flu they can make three, even two, episodes for that month instead of four and still not miss having their comic appear in every single issue of the anthology like clockwork. There will be fewer excuses for extended flashbacks and the crap filler that plagues the weeklies now.
Creators would also not necessarily have to take such long breaks because they get burnt out, writers block, or * gasp! * they actually have something else going on in their lives! Heaven forbid these people have lives, right!?
I think comics would be so much better if their creators were allowed to have lives.
Just like this generation won't work overtime for a bowl of udon and drink until last train like their fathers did, or unwaveringly support the kids and household in the absence of said father and at the expense of their own interests like their mothers did, this generation - for better or worse - isn't as willing or able to suffer like their predecessors.
The post-war generation made doing the impossible a way of life. They had little choice and they made Japan what it is today. Hats off to them! I salute them and their achievements.
The fact is, though, that most of their kids simply won't or can't do what they did. Many of the post-war generation would say that they worked their asses off so their kids wouldn't have to be like them. Well, what's wrong with letting their work bare a little fruit by giving their kids a better life than they had?
Why should a comic artist have to prove how dedicated they are by killing themselves to adhere to an impossible standard for the sake of a demanding, but dwindling, hardcore fan base - many of whom (meaning the hardcore "otaku" who complain the loudest) are single, often live with their parents, and don't know the meaning of the word work?
What I'm trying to say is that Japanese comic artists are people too. They should not be considered soft because they don't kill themselves for their craft, and they should not be deprived the option of having a life just because many of their readers don't!
People who have lives tend to be more interesting people, and will probably make more interesting comics, too. If more creators had lives outside of making comics, they may even make more comics that appeal to readers who have lives outside of reading comics!
Need a new fanbase? There it is! Want to know if that will work?
Just ask Nintendo how making games for non-gamers worked for them!
5 comments
A further possibility is to follow the example of the old French magazine Pilote, and rather than having a set number of pages per chapter (and a high number at that), to have the artists draw as much as they can within the schedule and print whatever is available. Of course, this requires a long lead time in order not to become a logistical nightmare, and it would undoubtedly change the way manga is written -- the pacing of stories would probably end up being more like webcomics, where there's roughly a unit of action on each page.
I agree with the comment that Jason Thompson made on your previous post -- weekly manga are unique, and the pacing and story style created by a weekly schedule can't survive at a longer schedule, so ideally I'd like to see a system evolve that leaves room for weeklies to continue (for those who can handle them) while not forcing artists into that format if it makes their art suffer.
Weeklies would go away if people stopped reading manga. We wouldn't want that.
Wouldn't even be able to make a living off the audiences who want weekly formula stuff? Sure. Wouldn't even be able to make a living off *other* audiences? Perhaps not.
I'm not sure about Japan, but in the U.S. there's more than one way for a comics writer or artist to earn a living. Some get in via the monthly superhero comics, some get in like Mat Johnson did (he wrote and published some non-comic books before having his graphic novel _Incognegro_ published), some keep going on comics alone, some keep going as professional writers like Brian Vaughn (he writes both scripts for comics artists to illustrate and scripts for TV studios to produce), etc.
Part of this seems to depend on *which audience* you're trying to reach.
Maybe "...killing themselves to adhere to an impossible standard..." is still necessary for someone who only wants to work on formulaic fight stories or formulaic superhero stories to make a living off of "...a demanding, but dwindling, hardcore fan base - many of whom (meaning the hardcore 'otaku' who complain the loudest) are single, often live with their parents, and don't know the meaning of the word work..."
*and*
Maybe having "...lives outside of making comics..." (including both life outside work and creative work outside the comics format too) is necessary for someone who wants a life to make a living off of "...readers who have lives outside of reading comics!"
No, the point is not that there are more readers of weeklies. Artists are initially *paid by the page* by the publisher. This is very low pay, because magazines themselves aren't necessarily profitable. The page rate is an advance against royalties of future trade sales.
Without making enough in initial page rates, the artist would not be able to afford assistants, drawing materials, rent... they wouldn't have enough money to actually *finish* their tankoubon and turn a real profit.
Do you think that without making enough in selling short stories to magazines and anthology publishers... novelists would not have enough money to actually finish their first novels?
Do you think that without making enough in directing 30-second commercials... movie directors would not have enough money to actually finish their first feature films?
Do you know what the phrase "don't quit your day job" means?
Without making enough in initial page rates *and/or in pay from non-comics work* the artist would not be able to afford all that.
Back to one of the examples I mentioned before, Mat Johnson didn't live on payments from monthly superhero comics before he wrote a 5-issue Hellblazer miniseries and finished his non-superhero graphic novel, he did non-comics work too like writing books that don't have pictures in them and, before that, other jobs too (see http://aalbc.com/authors/mat_johnson.htm for details). Likewise, he didn't live on payments from constantly releasing short stories before finishing his first non-comics book.
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