How to start a webcomic: Reasons for a webcomic

How to start a webcomic: Reasons for a webcomic

from warren ford

In this article I am going to share about the reasons for starting a webcomic instead of using other traditional means to become a semi-professional or professional manga comic artist. It can be important information for anyone who is aspiring to become a semi-professional or professional manga comic artist.

Myths of the pros & cons of webcomics

Before I begin talking about reasons why I want to start a webcomic instead of using other traditional means, I will want to talk about some myths of the pros & cons of webcomics first.

Myth #1: Webcomics are better than traditional paperback comics or manga because the former reachers a bigger audience in the Internet than the latter.

Webcomics certainly nullify geographical & physical boundaries, and it allows exposure to the international audience through the Interent, but yet many webcomics in the Internet remains obscure or unknown. Somehow the better known comics & manga are still in traditional paperback form.

Maybe because most people are still more comfortable with traditional paperback than with webcomics.

Also, many traditional paperback manga or comics are available online because of many scanlation groups & online comic or manga websites. Therefore webcomics still face fierce competition in the Internet nevertheless.

Myth #2: There is too much competitiion from popular titles & publishers for manga or comics in traditional paperback form. In the Internet, everyone has equal amount of chance to prove themselves.

Like I have previously mentioned, many webcomics still suffer from obscurity, and what is going to make the readers click on your webcomics amongst the thousands of other online manga & comics?

The playing field of marketing is a little different in the Internet than marketing traditional paperback manga comics, as now webcomics are under the mercy of search engines and Internet marketing techniques. Noone will magically appear in our blogs & websites if we do not know how to market our webcomic in the Internet.

Therefore publishing traditional paperback comics or manga has the same amount of competition against publishing webcomics for the Internet community, as the former is about picking our comics or manga amongst the thousands of manga comics within a comic bookstore and the latter has similar scenario likewise.

Pros of starting a webcomic

Pros #1: Publishing webcomics has significant less overhead costs than publishing traditional paperback manga comics

A full 30 colored page, US-style comic may cost about SG$8,000++ for 8,000 copies, but in Singapore(my homeland), with only a population of about 5 million people (as of 2009), selling 8,000 copies is a great achievement! I must take note that I am an unknown author amongst so many other manga comic books.

Also, I would need about SG$30,000 of investment money to publish traditional paperbacks effectively. Webcomics has significantly less overhead startup costs than publishing traditional paperbacks, easily less than a couple of hundred dollars startup fees. (See previous post about the tools and equipment needed to start up a webcomic here.)

And the worst scenario is being unable to sell our manga comics, and the stock is left at our storage room to collect dust! Therefore, webcomics is certainly a better startup option than publishing traditional paperbacks.

Pros #2: Webcomics allows time and space for experimentation, while traditional paperback manga comic doesn’t allow much experimentation at all.

Manga or comics may fail to attract readership for a number of reasons, and in many Japanese publishing companies, they will cut serialization for any manga comic that fails to attract popularity.

Imagine having a stockpile of goods in our storage room, and it is because our manga comics are just not attractive to readers for whatsoever reasons! That is one major flaw of traditional paperback manga comics.

As there is little to no fee involved in uploading our manga comics into our domains or gallery, we can experiment against time whether our manga comics are attractive without incurring great overhead costs.

Pros #3: Marketing webcomics in the Internet involves much lesser time than marketing traditional paperback manga comics

Many publishers are not too kind to authors who are just beginning their careers, and in Singapore’s context, Singaporean-made manga comics are not the best kind of books to sell; publishers will rather import well-known titles from Japan and have a translation team ready to cater for Singaporean needs. Therefore it is likely to face rejection from publishers, and at the end of the day many have to take the route of self-publishing.

Self-publishing is a great pain itself.

It is a hassle and time-consuming endeavor to go to different distributers or retailers to market our own manga comics. Distributers or retailers will so often think that self-publishing authors are rejected entities from publishing companies, and dealing with them effectively will be a challenge.

Moreover, transporting goods to distributers or retailers is by itself another big physical and time-consuming challenge.

With webcomics, all we need to know is how to market our manga comics in the Internet, which has little to no overhead fees or charges. More time can be effectively spent on developing the webcomic better, or to have private time for oneself.

Cons for self-publishing or starting a webcomic

Con #1: Difficult to earn a living out of a webcomic

This is obvious, as compared to professional manga comic artists, who are paid by the amount of pages they produce from publishing companies, it is truly difficult to earn a living out of a webcomic.

Self-publishing a traditional paperback manga comic, if in success, can rake in tremendous amounts of royalties and popularity, but compared to a webcomic, it is difficult to point a finger to where the revenue and income will come from.

The majority of readers for manga comics are mostly teenagers, which may not have a debit or credit card or paypal to purchase a good read from webcomics. Hence, webcomics have a great disadvantage in the area of income.

Con #2: Need considerable discipline to post webcomics dilligently

Readers can be fickle, if we do not post up new comics or manga dilligently, readers may forget all about the story we want to portray to them.

In publishing companies, there is pressure from editors and bosses to make sure manga artists produce their work. The company do pay the authors per page.

However for self-publishers, as we do not have a definite income or revenue for our work, our motivation to work diligently for our manga comic will suffer tremendously.

Final words for this article

I personally feel that webcomics is still the way to go for many people, because it just has so much less overhead charges then publishing traditional paperback manga or comics.

Anyway, I will update more about manga and webcomics in future articles. Stay tuned!

This article is taken and edited slightly from my blog at http://manga-journey.com/, where I blog about my personal experience and learning curve of becoming a semi-professional manga comic artist.