Viz Now Accepting Submissions for Comics Outside Japan

You'd get payed and have your name on it, but Tokyopop basically owned whatever you gave them, and if you wanted to end it, they'd be able to keep using your characters without you. On the flip side, if they didn't want to let you continue, you wouldn;t even be able to shop that idea to anyone else, or at least the pages you gave to them.
 
A SCAD (my college) student got her "Sea Princess Azure" comic in Tokyopop.

First:
Being a newbie, there wasn't much room for negotiation in her contract, so the amount of money she got paid was not good.
Also they co-own the rights to the comic and it's characters. All profits on the comic goes through Tokyopop first, then the creator. She couldn't even sell prints featuring the characters she created anymore. And creative control is gone, though she had creative say on the comics, they went behind her back and changed things.
Also, they divided her story into three volumes, and since the sells didn't reach Tokyopop's expectations, they never released the third volume. And she's not allowed to put the ending up online. She's even in an exclusive publishing contract, so they own the rights to publish it forever (or until the company closes down) even if it goes out of print, meaning she can't get it published by another company.

And that's why it's not good to submit to Tokyopop.

Here's her DA account. Apparently she did Disney comics for Boom Studios.
Good for her!
 
Oh, well, I see your point.
It kinda goes the same way with Viz...To me I mean. Viz treats popular manga/anime like kings and non-popular/was popular like crap sometimes.






And I used to like TP.



I never seen this side in TP!
Now I can see why many ppl hate TP. Really, and I was about to submit some of my works to them. But by reading this. No-way!

I guess Viz going to my choose than. Well, I need more info about Viz idea of comics before I jump in.
 
I'll look at the contract first, but I've never considered working there, mostly I'd consider Image or Ape Entertainment first before Viz.

I did hear that submitting to them you have to do 20 pages within a week to test your skill.
That's not easy.
 
Hmmm, really?

Well, this will help Viz to split the weak from the brave.

Make, for fun, in the begining of next year, I'm going to drew 20 FULL PAGES month. FOR A WHOLE YEAR!!
I just want to see if I can do it. If it goes well, I'll drop it down a week until it reach 1 week.
 
BIG NEWS




I just called Viz and the guy said he's looking for all styles and formats, including Manga and American style

He got upset when i mentioned TokyoPop's program, but went on to detail a similiar submission style to TP



1. 3 pages of story

2. 3 pages of art

3 Main character designs, and char profiles

4. 1 pg how you would sell it
 
Yeah, my first choice would be Dark Horse. Or do a webcomic and print trades through LuLu.

Oh ho ho! 20 pages in a week? That's Jump standarRAB there. INTERSTING.



Wow, only three pages, random art and character profiles? Tough to get a good idea of things from just from that. And you have to have a general idea of how to market it? Curious.
 
http://manga.about.com/b/2009/10/09/qa-viz-media-talks-about-relaunch-of-original-comics-manga.htm

I found this interview. It reiterates some things previously mentioned, plus other stuff.
 
Eh, I'd try this, but...

Yeah, I'm not willing to take the risk of sending anything because of how similar this sounRAB to the Tokyopop program.
 
That's often not the case in America, with Marvel and DC they would own all the things you create for them, but they would pay you more then Viz would.

If you want to make comic books for a company, you should submit your work to Dark horse, they would allow to retain some rights over the characters. Plus Viz seems like a way smaller player then DC, Marvel or Dark Horse.
 
Yeah, I'm looking at Dark Horse too. But Viz is very close where I'm living.
Or a can self-Publish. But that will be very hard to do so. For me I mean.
 
See, that's where cultural differences make the manga and comic industries different. A manga artist who succeeRAB get a better cut of the profits than any comic artist, but get a worse off debt if his stuff doesn't sell.

I just don't see any Western comic company duplicate the manga style of the product, when the production method is so different from Japan. The Japanese artists have an incentive to do well, because their copyright earns them more money the more popular the product is. It's sink or swim. Manga artists who fail, simply vanish forever and take their franchise with them.

Not saying Western comics are inferior to Manga anything; I'm just saying it would never be the same if you don't MAKE them the same way.
 
You aren't quite correct there are companies where you can retain rights to the characters you create, Dark Horse, Top Cow and Image. Mike Mignola owns the rights to Hellboy, for example. So there are comic book companies that operate like manga companies, you just have do your research into various companies.

Marvel and DC are just protective of their franchises that are worth billions of dollars, that's why they want to retain the rights to the work you create for them. Viz is just cheap.
 
If you wanna know how manga get done then read Bakuman (lol, even the editors in the Shueisha in this manga are based on the real life Shueisha editors from Jump), its completely different then the way things are done here in the states, nuff' said.
 
But the fact is we don't live in Japan, we live in the West, so Japanese rules don't apply to this Viz deal.
 
Location is never an issue in comic book publishing. The industry is completely freelance, and so long as you have an internet connection, you can work anywhere in the world and submit to a pubisher.



Webcomics provide a lot more exposure than regular self-publishing could. You'd still have to promote yourself, so selling prints and going to conventions help.



Besides Marvel and DC, pretty much every comic book publishing company in America lets you retain the rights to your creations. Slave Labor Graphics, Image Comics, Top Shelf Publishing, Oni Press, and Dark Horse to name a few.

Also Top Cow is a suRABidiary of Image.



But if Viz's deal is anything like Tokyopop's, then they are treating it as if we were from Japan.
I was told that it was similar.
 
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