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by Benjamin Ong Pang Kean
With the various comic book and fan communities, websites, chat forums, blogs and others still debating on and discussing about DC Comics webcomics initiative Zudacomics.com, it is noteworthy to highlight that TOKYOPOP, the leading distributor of manga in English, German and Japanese, has recently (and silently) launched Version 2.0 of their official website.
Newsarama.com got in touch with Jeremy Ross, TOKYOPOPs Director of New Product Development and asked him to compare TOKYOPOPs web and digital strategy and DCs latest imprint.
We wish DC well with Zudacomics, Ross began. Digital sequential art is a rapidly-evolving area and every serious effort helps to build the market as well as to find the paradigms that work. Although Zudacomics offers some new ideas and models, frankly, TOKYOPOP is ahead in this area. We have been implementing a digital strategy and encouraging new creators for some time now.
For the record, TOKYOPOP launched their (then) new website in July 2006 and the site featured the ability for fans to create blogs, post artwork, videos, and manga, and generally created a more user-focused website as an attempt to bridge the gap between publisher and consumer.
The publisher then went on to announce, much to that selling some of its titles exclusively through its website with Atomic King Daidogan, One, Neck and Neck, and Rure in March 2007, a controversial move that saw reaction from readers and retailers.
In February, Ross spoke on a panel at New York Comic-Con. Also in attendance was Richard Bruning, DC Comics SVP-Creative Director whos now overseeing Zudacomics, and Scott Rosenberg, CEO of Platinum Studios, and Heewoon Chung, President of Netcomics and ecomixedia. Platinum acquired DrunkDuck.com in September of last year and the company is using DrunkDuck as a way to promote its print books by releasing Web versions in advance of print release. Netcomics provides online pay-per-view service of manga/manhwa/comics/cartoon and sells Netcomics manhwa/manga books online.
At the panel on webcomics, Ross talked about the state of TOYOPOPs ongoing Web and mobile efforts at the time, which included an online magazine, interviews, how-tos, over 300 stories of user-generated content and a host of other features which Ross described as manga meets MySpace.
For the last few years, TOKYOPOP has added program after program to encourage new talent, giving aspiring creators a chance to be published in print and online, he told Newsarama.
Initially these programs were in print. Our Rising Stars of Manga competition, launched in 2003, has yielded over 22 contracts to develop original IP for graphic novels and cross-media products. Rising Stars finalists stories are now also featured in manga viewers on our Web site for user voting that results in a Peoples Choice award -- along with awards from our staff judges.
The TOKYOPOP website changed radically in July 2006 and became a place where users could upload their manga or comics for free. Its a popular site. We get over a million unique visitors per month, and each visit is long. Fellow users vote on uploaded manga & comics using POPS, or popularity points. The most popular uploads rise to the top of the rankings. Weve approached creators who caught our users & editors attention and are working with some now.
We've recently launched TOKYOPOP 2.0, which builds on this base. The prior online manga and user profiles with manga and comics carry over. But theres a lot of new features and a whole new site structure to explore.
To date, TOKYOPOPs online manga and user uploads have been free to view, although Ross admitted that they are considering various methods to monetize.
In addition, he said that TOKYOPOP offers shared-copyright contracts to creators for full graphic novel series; the creators participate in all ancillary revenue sources including digital.
One area where we do have revenue that will be divided according to our agreements is the successful mobile manga viewer we launched on all major cell phone carriers with our partner uclick. Our manga anthology for handsets commands the majority of subscription sales so far, and the business has been steady with a nice growth curve. On Verizon alone, we have had tens of thousands of users download the free trial each month with a healthy conversion rate to paid subscriptions.
We have recently initiated a manga Pilot program in which we contract with a promising creator to create a pilot chapter that will be displayed on our website, then voted on and commented on by fans. Based on an evaluation of popular response and our editors reactions, Pilot creators may then be offered a shared-copyright deal for a complete series.
Источник: http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=122384
