How web manga became mainstream
2The Pairing · 110How amateur webcomics and publishers' web magazines changed where new manga comes from, from One-Punch Man to Shōnen Jump+.
2The letters of this question total 110, a 2 — the number of partnership, diplomacy, and the search for balance.
The old route
For decades a manga artist's path was narrow. You entered a magazine's competition or brought your pages to an editor, worked as an assistant, published one-shots, and hoped for a serialisation. The magazine decided what readers saw, and readers' surveys decided what survived.
The amateur breakthrough
The internet opened a second door. Anyone could post a comic on a personal site, and readers would find it if it was good. The famous case is One-Punch Man: ONE, who had no training and drew in an extremely rough style, began posting it in 2009, and it was read by millions. His success showed publishers that a story could prove itself before any editor was involved.
Publishers move online
Publishers responded by launching web magazines and apps. Shogakukan's Ura Sunday gave ONE Mob Psycho 100. Shueisha's Shōnen Jump+, launched in 2014, publishes new series every day alongside the print magazine, and has produced hits such as Spy × Family. Many apps also run open platforms where amateurs can post, giving editors a large pool of new artists to choose from.
What changed
Web publication removed the limits of the page count and the weekly print schedule. Chapters can be different lengths, colour is cheap, and a series can find a niche audience that a mass-market magazine could not support. Readers' attention is measured directly, by views and comments, rather than only by postcards.
What stayed the same
The printed collected volume remains important, and most successful web manga are still published as books. Editors still guide series, and the same pressures of deadlines and popularity apply. The web did not replace the old system so much as widen its entrance.
Why it matters
Today, many new manga reach readers on a phone before they reach a shop. Understanding web manga explains where much of the medium's new talent comes from, and why so many recent hits appeared first on a screen.
Where this explainer is shelved
Counted letter by letter this question comes to 110 — 2 once reduced. The weight sits in “mainstream”, which carries 41 on its own and reduces to 5.
The reference files it as a negotiation. The number's contribution is partnership, diplomacy, and the search for balance — and with it the 2's search for balance between competing sides, which is the thread the reference follows here.
Split the question again and the vowels give a Heart's Desire of 4 (foundation) against a Personality of 7 (inquiry) in the consonants — foundation underneath, inquiry on the surface. The gap between them is where the subject is most interesting.
Read on the 2's terms, this explainer asks you to find the second party, because there always is one. The 2 will keep a bad arrangement alive out of politeness. A number of these texts are about partnerships nobody ended in time. The other explainers that reduce to 2 are collected on The Pairing.
Common questions
- What is web manga?
- Manga first published online rather than in a printed magazine, either by amateurs on their own sites and social media or by publishers' web magazines and apps.
- Was One-Punch Man originally a webcomic?
- Yes. ONE began posting it on his own website in 2009. From 2012 it was redrawn by Yūsuke Murata for Shueisha's web magazine Tonari no Young Jump.
- Is web manga the same as webtoon?
- No. Web manga usually keeps the page layout of printed manga, read right to left. Webtoons, which come from Korea, are designed to be read as one long vertical scroll on a phone.
- Do web manga get printed?
- Usually, yes. Successful web series are collected in printed volumes in the same way as magazine series, and sales of those volumes are still an important part of how they earn money.