How to Become a Manga Ka
For those that don't know, a manga-ka is the term for someone who is the creator of manga, a form of Japanese comic. Much of the manga (over the last 65 years, over 2050 manga have been made, often in one of 50 manga anthologies) is adapted into shows or movies.
[edit] Steps
- Find what genre suits you. The various online sites you can sign up for to do online manga often have parody, fantasy/sci-fi/myth-based, and, of course, action/adventure.
- Come up with a good storyline and learn how to draw well.( if you are new at this try makeing your own comics for a series, Naruto or bleach for example)
- (optional) Get Manga Studio 3.0, a software program you can purchase from E-Frontier and Content Paradise's sites.
- Get working hard. If you do successfully sign on with TokyoPop or Antarctic Press or GoManga, you'll be up much of the day, and not have much of a social life for a while.
- You can also enter manga competitions such as Kodansha International Manga Competition.
- Get it published.
- If presenting your work to the big publishers doesn't work out well, you can always self-publish through sites like lulu.com or make a webmanga at smackjeeves.com or some other site. Manga Studio 3.0 has a service were it will turn your manga story into a proper graphic novel, for a fee of course.
[edit] Tips
- TokyoPop has the yearly creation contest "Rising Stars of Manga". Tania Del Rio, a previous runner-up, got to go to Archie Comics, where she's done the manga version of Sabrina since the summer of '04.
- Sometimes you may just want to freely do manga without worrying if it gets published or not.
