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Should the west adopt a Shonen Jump style Magazine

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Should the west adopt a Shonen Jump style Magazine Empty Should the west adopt a Shonen Jump style Magazine

Post by Hourglass Tue Jan 19, 2010 2:55 pm

Let me explain. In Japan comics are rarely released as single issues (though it does happen). Most of the time they are released in weekly or monthly issues combined with many differing titles. Often these are around 300-500 pages depending on which one. They are certainly good value for money. The most famous of these is 週刊少年ジャンプ, Shūkan Shōnen Janpu or Shonen Jump in English.

Now what's unique about these collections is that they come in different genre. For example whilst Yung jump is aimed at the 8-12, Shonen jump is aimed at 13-15+, business jump is aimed at the working man and deals with stories of a mature nature etc Theres a variety for everyone, boy girls, young and old. A full list of versions can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_manga_magazines#Sh.C5.8Dnen_magazines

Now the USA has been publishing there own Shonen Jump translation for a fair while now, dealing with some of the titles which have finished in the Japanese version. However what I'm suggesting is rather than export all the variations of the "JUMP" we could perhaps make are own, western version with western style comics rather than manga.

Do you like the idea? Do you think it could work? What genre do you think should be used as an experiment?

For more infomation on JUMP visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weekly_Sh%C5%8Dnen_Jump
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Post by felneymike Wed Jan 20, 2010 8:04 pm

I saw another one while i was in Japan called Shonen Weekly, i couldn't beleive that a comic with several hundred pages could come out each week! (but they do have only 2-3 panels per page usually). For the unitiated these usually have thin glossy paper covers and newsprint interiors, and are around the same "size" (dimensions) as those big Commando books, though not as thick but still 300-500 pages. Sometimes the pages are different colours for different stories - oh and they are, of course, resolutely black and white.
Shonen Jump also comes out over here in Forbidden Planet, but it's also a general magazine about Japanse pop culture etc.

I was, though, thinking today of how a British version could be done - it could be advertised as a "cultural merge" of Japanese and British style comics, with several hundred pages - some of which could be used for instalments of British-style adventure strips, some of them for bigger (because of less frames to a page, but the same "length") instalments of Japanese style strips. Also to make it more like British comics it could also contain text stories, educationalish articles (old-style, not modern "WOWEEEE LOOK AT THAT!" Dandy Xtreme style) - if advertised as a 'crossover' of British and Japanese culture they could fill tons of issues with articles teaching people how to learn Japanese, it's not very easy! Oh and also there could be cutaways.
If it was produced by a big publisher such as IPC or DCT, they would also have acres and acres of old material to fall back on which could be cheaply reprinted to fill up those hundreds of pages - also with so many pages they could give jobbing self-publishers a go (hint hint) at filling a few and they won't have lost as much as those few pages, if not liked, won't be a significant enough amount of the comic to stop people buying. There's also plenty of self publishers in the UK who draw in Japanese style (in fact easily outnumbering those who draw in "British adventure style" by 50 or more to 1).
Of course the interiors would be mostly black and white and newsprint, so the old reprinted stuff which originally appeared black and white and on newsprint wouldn't need editing. There could also maybe be a few colour centre pages with 'showcase' stories in, like the old comics with thier colour centrespreads.
Then there's the attraction provided by cramming in loads of iconic characters into all of those pages to get people interested in the beginning. Make it 'something for everybody' with historical, modern, futuristic, war, sport, detective, adventure, funny, romantic etc etc stories all in one!

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Post by MajorHoy Fri Jul 11, 2014 8:01 pm

The problem with creating a regular comic magazine like this for either British or US markets may include:
* are there well-known writers and artists involved (who usually would get decent money for their work), or are we talking no-name, generic writers and artists just entering the field who may be less expensive (and possibly of questionable abilities)?
* what are the costs involved in physically producing and distributing these books?
*where would they be sold? I'm assuming there would be a limited marketplace here in the U.S., and I don't know what Britain would be like. Here in the U.S., comic book shops and bookstores may be the most likely places, but how do you convince places to give these shelf space?
* are unsold copies returnable by retailers?
* how do you make people aware of these and create an interest in them? There's a limited marketplace for comic books as it is, and those have been around for much longer.
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