I've had this idea I've had rolling around in my head for quite a while that I call “Armanga”. For those of you familiar with manga anthology-type books like Shonen Jump, this is the basic idea, save for the fact that it's intended to be entirely reader-driven. In other words, it doesn't get its material from a select few big artists, but instead, all readers contribute their own works to make up the whole of the book. Think of it as Drunk Duck in paper format, or even a smaller-scale Rising Stars of Manga.

What each contributor would provide is an 8-to 24-page comic, which would in turn provide the artist with a $.01 profit per page per book sold. The book itself would weigh in at 200 pages measuring in at 8.5x11, and the comics themselves would be very slightly smaller than the pages; the extra real estate would allow for little extras to be placed on the sides, such as artist interviews. The books selected for each issue would be selected based on quality and length (As in, whether or not the book's length will be workable into an issue, as opposed to a “bigger is better” philosophy).

I'm well aware that most “anthology” books don't do so well, and I really can't guarantee that I'll even sell a single issue (Although I certainly have confidence in my idea). But if you're interested in participating, I'd like to assure you guys that there's virtually no risk involved - you get to keep the copyrights of your works, and you don't have to pay anything. The only investment I'm asking for is the time to compile your works into a format I can put into the book.

So, if you guys like the idea and want to participate, or offer suggestions, or think it sucks and want to offer me critique (Beyond “This idea sucks!”), feel free to drop me a PQ.

I may be interested. I have tons of things I never had time to get on DD.

By “slightly smaller” how much do you mean? What dimentions?

I'm guessing you'll want this in 300 dpi. What rating are we aiming to be under and is this black and white only? I'd love to get involved if you're interested.

Sounds likes a cool idea. :neenjah:

I haven't really finalized all the little details quite yet, but I wouldn't worry about page size - so long as the image is as large as or larger than the page size itself, I can just work with it to suit its needs. In terms of DPI, 300 is definitely recommended; I could work with smaller resolutions, but it wouldn't look as good. And it will be in grayscale, since if I were to attempt to work with full-color then the base price alone would be about $35(!). But if you already have material that's in full-color, I can work with that and just convert it into grayscale.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and in terms of the rating, Teen (13+) or under.

I'd like to contribute, as someone who had the #1 Manga comic on drunk duck, I think I'm qualified. Right?

Anyone's welcome to submit their work, but I'd recommend submitting something besides Penis due to its age category.

I'D LIKE TO SUBMIT MY INCREDIBLE (and unoriginal) FUSION COMIC CALLED: BLEACHEMON!
if it's an issue-type-thing, then go ahead and print the first 8 strips, but if it's a one-off thing, print up to #22 ('cuz it's the end of the previous arc).

I'm definately up for it then. Be expecting some original and teen friendly work from me in the near future.

Avalon: I'll probably be using 22 pages if I use your work, since I'll have a rotating roster of artists from book to book so I can't really guarantee that it'll make it into the next. But look at it this way, it'd also be a larger cut of the profits.

Snuffkin: Sounds great, can't wait to see what you come up with!

Since my comics are always loner than 22 pages I'll just say you can use any of my comic pages. Maybe you can skip some early pages in issues 1-1 to make it 22?

I'm not sure if you meant that we the original artist would profit off this. I don't really care about that. Just let me know if someone likes my stuff and tell them where they can find it ^_^

If like you started getting rich off my stuff that would be different haha. If you decide to use anything from “The Devon Legacy” just let me know and I will get you whatever size you need for the images.

I like your enthusiasm, JustNoPoint, but believe me, the last thing I have on my mind is to gyp my contributors out of pay.

Also, I'd like to know how many pages everyone's work will be before I can finalize the book. My plan is for the book to have exactly 200 pages, 196 of them going to the comics themselves (With the additional pages going towards such pages as the table of contents). I also want to see the actual material before I finalize it, which is mostly just for content control. (Which means that those of you who just want to use one of your own DD comics can sit cozy, since I can already see it). If I find that your content is a little bit inappropriate for the guidelines, but can be fixed easily by censoring a few words here and there or anything to that effect, I'll probably just ask for your permission to make those minor adjustments. And with the pages themselves, don't feel pressured to rush anything - October 15th is when I plan to have the first issue of Armanga out, though I may make it earlier if all submissions are finalized and in my lap in good time, so you've got plenty of time to plan.

I wouldn't feel gyped out of pay. Seems more like free promotion to me. =]

I mean you will be printing our work and spending your time to pass it around. I don't think you should pay me for that. That is quite the undertaking, especially if you are doing color. If anything pay the other artists and subtract my portion off the top to make the book cheaper so more copies can be sold (provided you decide to use any of my work of course).

Oh and good luck.

Well, if that's really how you want it, I can't argue - and I'm sure any readers I'd have will appreciate the price cut, too. But I'll be sure to give you the option for any later issues you may participate in.

And just a side note, the book is actually grayscale, since if it were in color it would jack the price up FAR too much.

As a rough guess I'd say my story would probably be about 15 pages but I'll need to script it out before I can give you a definate answer.

Whats wrong with penis stuff?

marine
Whats wrong with penis stuff?

It's uh… the humor is far too high-brow for this kind of thing! Uh… Yeah! That's it… the humour is too adult and crude for this kind of thing… I suggest you should try and get it printed in a kids magazine, instead.

marine
Whats wrong with penis stuff?

The highest content rating allowed for Armanga submissions is “Teen”, and I personally believe that Penis is a mature-rated comic. You yourself seem to back this opinion up, since you've rated it “M” on Drunk Duck. The name alone raises eyebrows.

If you think you can pick out a few comics that you think can be toned down/are already appropriate for a “T”-rating, feel free to pick them out and send them to me. You'll also want to consider an alternate name just for the anthology collection.

The vast majority (I'm gonna say 60-70%) is Teen rated stuff. One or two really extreme pages earned me the M rating, as well as a characters who may or may not have cartoon genitals showing.

i'd like to try it. =]]]


does it have to be colored or anything?
i've got some pages i've sketched a while ago that's close enough to 20 pages.

do i need to send a few pages for as a premilinary or something?

marine
The vast majority (I'm gonna say 60-70%) is Teen rated stuff. One or two really extreme pages earned me the M rating, as well as a characters who may or may not have cartoon genitals showing.

Well, like I said, feel free to show them to me and if I think they're within the rating system, I'll consider them for the book. I'm still concerned about the name, though - if I put any of your comics in, I'd print the name in the address, but I may have to censor it on the title page just because I don't want the word “PENIS” in big, bold letters.

ohnn
does it have to be colored or anything?
i've got some pages i've sketched a while ago that's close enough to 20 pages.

do i need to send a few pages for as a premilinary or something?

They don't need to be in color, since the book itself is in grayscale. Shading would probably help, but that's up to you. As for sending in preliminaries, I will need some of those - at least enough to give me an idea of what your book is like, since whether or not it makes it is based on the content itself, including quality and age category.

It doesn't appear on my site in big bold letters either. Its used as the url for comedic purposes. Whenever I've had to censor penis's name, I just used “name” for it.

I just looked at my comic piecewise to see if any story arcs (that aren't in my ugly/embarrassing art phase) could fit. Most of my chapters don't stand alone well or the story arcs are too long. They are all a bit violent, but I consider them rated T+.

Let me know if you're interested in any of these.

Page 115 to 134 (19 pages) : Halloween party
Page 135 to 160 (25 pages) : A kidnapping/attempted murder
Page 228 to 253 (25 pages) : A story about treasure hunting
Page 261 to 283 (22 pages) : Valentine's Day (not very stand-alone)
Page 327 to 349 (23 pages) : A back-story involving how two of my main characters met

The last two are scanned but not cleaned up or finalized yet. But I can fix it up with a little time. (The last one is likely the most “stand alone.” )

Okay, so here's the lineup of entrants thus far:

Ocka: Unnamed project, approx. 13 pages
SomaX: Unnamed project, unknown number of pages
Evil_Snuffkin: Unnamed project, approx. 15 pages
Marine: Penis, unknown number of pages
Avalon Comics: Bleachemon, 22 pages
JustNopPoint: The Devon Legacy, 22 pages
ohnn: Unannounced project, unknown number of pages
usedbooks: Used Books, 23 pages
mechanical_lullaby: Unnamed project, unknown number of pages
Hapoppo: The Pirate Terminators, 20 pages

Assuming each creatror has one title page that's not accounted for, that's 120 pages confirmed (usedbooks, I've decided p. 327-349 would probably be the best place to start on your book) with 76 pages remaining. So far it looks like unless each and every one of the creators with unannounced page counts comes through with a good 24 pages, everyone's got a pretty good shot at making it.

Okay, I'll get started on cleaning up those pages and making them nice. :)

Hapoppo
Okay, so here's the lineup of entrants thus far:

Ocka: Unnamed project, unknown number of pages
SomaX: Unnamed project, unknown number of pages
Evil_Snuffkin: Unnamed project, approx. 15 pages
Marine: Penis, unknown number of pages
Avalon Comics: Bleachemon, 22 pages
JustNopPoint: The Devon Legacy, 22 pages
ohnn: Unannounced project, unknown number of pages
usedbooks: Used Books, 23 pages
mechanical_lullaby: Unnamed project, unknown number of pages
Hapoppo: The Pirate Terminators, 20 pages

(Ocka, I wasn't entirely sure if you wanted to enter, so I put you down as an entrant just to be safe.)

Assuming each creatror has one title page that's not accounted for, that's 107 pages confirmed (usedbooks, I've decided p. 327-349 would probably be the best place to start on your book) with 89 pages remaining. So far it looks like unless each and every one of the creators with unannounced page counts comes through with a good 24 pages, everyone's got a pretty good shot at making it.

Actually I am interested and have a comic idea that has been in my head for awhile…
I plan to make it around 13 pages long.

Alright, the list has been updated to include the information I have from you, then.

What kind of story should I do? Could I do a story then have a few done-in-one-page pages too bookend it in?

It's up to you how you want to do it.

Hapoppo
Assuming each creatror has one title page that's not accounted for

Eep! I nearly forgot about that. Actually, I created that today ( http://usedbooks.deviantart.com/art/Greyscale-Cover-Art-62937647 ) Yeah, that will be 24 pages total.

While I'm working on this, any specific formatting? I'm guessing I should remove the page numbers from the bottoms.

As far as content… If we go with all 24 pages, someone gets killed. If that is too severe for the anthology, the story won't suffer too much to use the first half (a cohesive story itself), which doesn't contain anything “questionable” at all. I'll get the whole thing cleaned up (7 pages down, 17 to go) and send it to you. I guess you can decide when you see it.