Stealing is stealing

[kudasaru]

I was reading on Anime News Network about piracy and scanlations and all that crap and it got me thinking about some things in relation to the anime/manga industry. There are some people who like to get on their high horse and moralize about how people who are stealing from the industry are ruining it and doing Something Very Bad. I'm not saying

Comments

[kudasaru]

Oh, I definitely wasn't imagining a system where artists were flying solo, creating and selling directly to fans without any sort of assistance. There are very few cases in which that would work and not only would it be difficult from the artists perspective, it would be extremely annoying for the consumers as well. Editors are a necessity if you want to produce quality work. You'd also need to have some kind of structure for people to work in and you'd need some way for mediating feedback.

The distribution channel(s) would be the key point. It's necessary not only for artists to get their name out there, but also for the convenience of the consumer, for generating enough traffic that advertising revenue would actually be substantial enough to be useful (perhaps to pay for the costs of running the site?), and because you want to use pre-existing and familiar forms of online interaction in order to make the process as easy for people to adapt to as possible.

But the thing is, people are willing to pay to run distribution channels. There are costs associated with it and obviously you'd need to have money coming in to pay those costs. But there's a great deal of work that you don't necessarily have to pay people for. Figuring out a working balance between what's necessary to pay people for and what isn't in order to maintain a functioning system is the key point.

The main problem, as I see it, would be to create a distribution channel that has sufficient credibility to pull in artists who would draw a crowd big enough to pay for site costs, editors, artists, etc. You would need to have ties to artists in Japan, perhaps other countries as well, who would be willing to contribute. This is pretty much why it wouldn't work. I mean, Manga Novel was run by Toshiba and that flopped, but then, I feel like they did absolutely nothing to reach out to their potential user base. (Have you ever even heard of Manga Novel?)

As for Garo, I don't know that manga really has the kind of cultural, social and political currency that it had back when that magazine was running. I admittedly know *very little* about Garo, so please correct my assumptions if I'm off the mark, but it seemed to have more of an ideological bent to it in a way that reminds me more of political 'zines (i.e. doujinshi in its original sense). I'm not sure how much of the pull of that publication was in its respectability and how much was in its ideology. People will sacrifice a great deal on ideological grounds that they might not be willing to sacrifice purely for the sake of entertaining others. I'll definitely have to look into it more, though.

[erinfinnegan]

If mainstream news finds a way to pay quality journalists more effectively, enough so that editors and fact checkers can be find work, I think that would be a fine distribution model, moreso than the iTunes store.

At the height of its distribution in 1971, Garo hit 80,000. Some good sources to read about Garo are the intro to Comics Underground Japan, this exhibition catalog from a current exhibit in NYC, and the samehat blog. I probably am overestimating its importance, admittedly, but it is interesting as an example of an alternative distribution channel that was respected by artists.

Very successful webcomics and podcast can do well with a "tip jar" after they are established, however, not many can make a full-time living off the tip jar, let alone hire support staff and assistants.

It is apropos that this is pledge break week on NPR and of the years I've listened, I only pledged once, and then regretted it, because I was unemployed. I feel guilty, but not so guilty as to contribute, because honestly their minimum donation is too low (I would give $10 a year, or $20 one-off payments if it were possible... probably).

What if there were something like big grant companies instead of say, magazines? If I read comics online more, I would be glued to sigikki.com. I would subscribe to Ikki magazine if it were in the States, but it isn't. If there were a big pool fund where I paid the equivalent of a magazine subscription fee, say, $35 per year to Ikki, and I knew my money funded comics of a specific variety I enjoyed, I would do it. In return I would want actual books printed and the continued creation of similar books.

I don't know how poor high school and junior high kids could support such a system. As long as there was no minimum and no pesky 30% paypal fee...?

[kudasaru]

Well, I was thinking of something more like MangaNovel where some things are free, some you'd pay a couple bucks per issue (and you could probably preview a few pages), but instead of most of that money going to Toshiba, most of that money would go to the artists and editors and maybe a small percentage would be contributed towards server costs. Then if people wanted a print copy, the artists could do it through a service like lulu.com (or if the thing became profitable enough, there could be a printing arm created specifically for it).

You could also run something like a magazine either based on genre or customizable by the user where people subscribe and get chapters as they come out that would be accessible online but also maybe sent through some app to their mobile phone.