"The "print apocalypse" that shook the American magazine industry a few years ago
is happening in Japan too. It's not just Shonen Jump -- every manga magazine has
had a decline in readership -- most of them a major decline. Quite a few of the lesser magazines have ceased publication.

The fact of the matter is, thanks largely to smartphones, people are a whole lot
less in need of printed reading material than they used to be. Where you once were
able to hop on a train in Japan and see a good number of commuters reading those
giant phone book-sized weekly manga magazines aimed at every conceivable demographic, nowadays it's more likely that the entire train is looking at their
cell phone, a tablet, or some other device."

See:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2017-06-05/.117025



So, are smartphones, tablets, etc. the future of Manga?

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On 06/05/2017 09:16 PM, animefan188@gmail.com wrote:

"The "print apocalypse" that shook the American magazine industry a few years ago
is happening in Japan too. It's not just Shonen Jump -- every manga magazine has
had a decline in readership -- most of them a major decline. Quite a few of the
lesser magazines have ceased publication.

The fact of the matter is, thanks largely to smartphones, people are a whole lot
less in need of printed reading material than they used to be. Where you once were
able to hop on a train in Japan and see a good number of commuters reading those
giant phone book-sized weekly manga magazines aimed at every conceivable demographic, nowadays it's more likely that the entire train is looking at their
cell phone, a tablet, or some other device."

See:

<http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2017-06-05/.117025>

So, are smartphones, tablets, etc. the future of Manga?

Well the kids are already there with games using anime
and manga characters so the phablets will rule for introduction
of material but from the Japanese experiences referenced in
the noted article the good stuff will come to paper publications
in the end.
I am already reading most of the stuff I mention here
online i.e. digitally but my 3 years old 10 inch SOTA tablet
cannot handle decoding .mkv though it gives a great page of
manga. It has lost 90% of its value since I got it.
But I cannot afford a new 7 inch phablet so I am stuck
with the laptop and real books mostly from the San Francisco
Public Library Main branch, real paperbacks are what I read
on my bus rides.

When I really like a series I find online I try to
buy the volumes to support the artists and the industry.

bliss

--
bliss dash SF 4 ever at dslextreme dot com

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Robo Manga!


Henjo's Twitter Lets Users Automatically Generate 4-Panel Manga:

"In order to participate, people must reply to the announcement tweet with "four
panel" in Japanese, plus a theme listed in parentheses that they want the bot to
use to make the manga. The theme can be a maximum of eight characters in Japanese.
A bot then uses panels from Konogi's manga, inserts new text, and replies with the
manga itself. The announcement also states that more characters will debut as people retweet the campaign."

See:

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2018-02-24/henjo-twitter-lets-users-automatically-generate-4-panel-manga/.128071

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Digital Manga Volume Sales Overtake Print Manga Volume Sales in Japan for
1st Time:

"Reports by both The Huffington Post on Monday and the NHK World on Tuesday noted
that annual sales of digital manga volume sales overtook sales of physical manga
volumes for the first time in 2017. The reports, citing the Research Institute for
Publications, noted that total sales of physical compiled manga book volumes were
166.6 billion yen (about US$1.56 billion) — down 14.4% compared to the previous
year. This drop is the highest since sales were first tabulated in 1978. Meanwhile, digital volume sales rose to 171.1 billion yen (about US$1.6 billion) —
up 17% compared to the previous year. These figures do not include magazine sales."

See:

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2018-02-28/digital-manga-volume-sales-overtake-print-manga-volume-sales-in-japan-for-1st-time/.128360

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On Tuesday, 6 June 2017 06:16:18 UTC+2, anime...@gmail.com wrote:

"The "print apocalypse" that shook the American magazine industry a few years ago
is happening in Japan too. It's not just Shonen Jump -- every manga magazine has
had a decline in readership -- most of them a major decline. Quite a few of the
lesser magazines have ceased publication.

The fact of the matter is, thanks largely to smartphones, people are a whole lot
less in need of printed reading material than they used to be. Where you once were
able to hop on a train in Japan and see a good number of commuters reading those
giant phone book-sized weekly manga magazines aimed at every conceivable demographic, nowadays it's more likely that the entire train is looking at their
cell phone, a tablet, or some other device."

See:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2017-06-05/.117025

So, are smartphones, tablets, etc. the future of Manga?

I can imagine it. I got back into manga in a big way lately, mostly because it is just so comfortable to read on my phone. I downloaded a manga reader (Tachiyomi) from F-Droid and now am always reading it in the dark, when I am rocking my son to sleep.
Of course that mostly contains fan-translated stuff, but if the industry goes a similar way, and if they are smart, they should easily be able to harness this trend and expand even in areas they don't have that much of a foothold in.

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Now you can not only read manga on your smart phone, you can create it too:

"Creating art, or even just learning it, is a year-round endeavor of a lifetime.
And thanks to the magic of modern technology, you can immediately get started on
that journey with nothing but your smartphone or tablet and your dreams. So if you’re a budding comics or manga creator or are curious whether you have what it
takes to be one, get out your Android or iOS device and start right here and now
with these apps, most of which you might not have even heard of before."

See:

https://www.slashgear.com/make-comics-and-manga-right-on-your-phone-and-tablet-07507138/

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 04/26/2018 11:25 PM, animefan188@gmail.com wrote:

Now you can not only read manga on your smart phone, you can create it too:

"Creating art, or even just learning it, is a year-round endeavor of a lifetime.
And thanks to the magic of modern technology, you can immediately get started on
that journey with nothing but your smartphone or tablet and your dreams. So if
you’re a budding comics or manga creator or are curious whether you have what it
takes to be one, get out your Android or iOS device and start right here and now
with these apps, most of which you might not have even heard of before."

See:

https://www.slashgear.com/make-comics-and-manga-right-on-your-phone-and-tablet-07507138/

Ah they still cannot package and sell talent nor ethnicity. You must train to develop whatever talent you have and you cannot be born
Japanese if you have already incarnated in another social system.

Not to say you cannot make great cartoon art or narrative in whatever system you are born into or can adopt within that culture otherwise I
never would have been fascinated by the Overland Vegetable
Stagecoach comix back in the 1970s, and all the autobiographical
stuff that really got into print as a result of the Western Drug
cultures of the 1960s to current time.

But it ain't Manga if you are not a talented Japanese artist.
In my opinion.
bliss
--
bliss dash SF 4 ever at dslextreme dot com

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On 04/28/2018 04:46 PM, animefan188@gmail.com wrote:

Korean-Style Webtoons and Webcomics Are The Future of Comic Books:

"What happens when the comic book evolves for the future? For decades, the comic
book and even the newspaper comic strip have maintained a certain look and format.
But now, with the omnipresence of e-readers and smartphones, how will comic books
adapt to this new, screen-filled reality? Turns out, a new layout of comics quickly grew out of Asia and is rapidly becoming the de facto format of reading
comics on new devices.

Enter the Webtoon."

See:

https://www.inverse.com/article/16334-korean-style-webtoons-and-webcomics-are-the-future-of-comic-books

Well when do you expect to see the equivalent of "Show:History of Japan" on web-toons or even on web-comics?
How about "A Drifting Life"? Any of your web mangaka coming up with a story of such complexity?
How about "Hadashi no Gen"?

Actually I am reading several stories that appear to have
originated on the Web as they have the several panels on one segment
of each chapter that is common with such.

So far I have seen nothing that stands up to the paper versions
of the Korean cartoon stories, "Click!" and "Dobecki Bride".

And real books on paper or some synthesized material with similar characteristics will remain the choice for reading when
the power goes out. When you cannot recharge your reading device
because of earthquake or other disaster you will save the power
you have left for reading survival information from it. The
paper books will provide daylight hours entertainment.

bliss

--
bliss dash SF 4 ever at dslextreme dot com

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Korean-Style Webtoons and Webcomics Are The Future of Comic Books:

"What happens when the comic book evolves for the future? For decades, the comic
book and even the newspaper comic strip have maintained a certain look and format.
But now, with the omnipresence of e-readers and smartphones, how will comic books
adapt to this new, screen-filled reality? Turns out, a new layout of comics quickly grew out of Asia and is rapidly becoming the de facto format of reading comics on new devices.

Enter the Webtoon."

See:

https://www.inverse.com/article/16334-korean-style-webtoons-and-webcomics-are-the-future-of-comic-books

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Saturday, April 28, 2018 at 5:09:50 PM UTC-7, Bobbie Sellers wrote:

Well when do you expect to see the equivalent of "Show:History of Japan" on web-toons or even on web-comics?
How about "A Drifting Life"? Any of your web mangaka coming up with a story of such complexity?
How about "Hadashi no Gen"?

Actually I am reading several stories that appear to have
originated on the Web as they have the several panels on one segment
of each chapter that is common with such.

So far I have seen nothing that stands up to the paper versions
of the Korean cartoon stories, "Click!" and "Dobecki Bride".

And real books on paper or some synthesized material with similar characteristics will remain the choice for reading when
the power goes out. When you cannot recharge your reading device
because of earthquake or other disaster you will save the power
you have left for reading survival information from it. The
paper books will provide daylight hours entertainment.

bliss

--
bliss dash SF 4 ever at dslextreme dot com

Digital comics won't completely replace paper, but they are getting more popular. In the case of South Korean Webtoons, it remains to be seen how popular they might become overseas. Even if the SK Webtoons are too Korea- specific to become very popular elsewhere, the Webtoon *style* may spread much more widely.:

"One comic app has slowly been transforming the way Korean teens and millennials
read comics for over the past decade, and it’s finally starting to roll out in
the US and abroad.

LINE Webtoon allows readers to scroll vertically up and down through comics unlike traditional comics which read horizontally from panel to panel. There is
no fancy cover art, no variant covers to collect, and no pages to flip.

There aren’t really pages at all."

See:

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-webtoons-2016-2/?IR=T&r=SG

http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=3041255

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/why-south-korean-filmmakers-are-adapting-local-webtoons-movies-tv-shows-1054466

&

https://comicsverse.com/beyond-manga-webtoons/

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