What goes into an IDW issue?

[TailsGotTrolled]

I noticed that used of the IDW comic come out once a month but One Piece can put out a new chapter every week or 2.  It’s hard for me to tell from YouTube comic dub videos but they both seem to be 20 pages long (although most of one pieces pages are black and white.)  What do the IDW guys do every issue that takes all that extra time?  Not complaining, genuinely curious about how the industry works.

[MetalSkulkBane]

I can answer that.

Less Important Reason: Manga is black and white. It's usually drawn, inked and written by one guy, called Mangaka. So it's much faster process.

More Important Reason: Mangakas are insane. It's a mix of passion, work ethics, but also just sick industry.

Fun Fact: Naruto's creator, was married in 2003, but due to being busy drawing and writing the manga for years he never went on a honeymoon with his wife until 2015

 

[Kuzu]

Yea, it really comes down to the difference in cultural work ethics; comics are created on a monthly basis , usually with multiple authors, and artists involved. 

Manga are generally run by a single author who is also the artist, and they are expected to put out content on a weekly basis, usually at the sacrifice of a personal life. 

[Mega]

Japanese work culture is extremely unhealthy and several mangaka have been hospitalized as a result of it.

We're better off that IDW doesn't follow such a tight pace.

[Kuzu]

The flipside is that Manga is far better than any Comic book.

[MetalSkulkBane]

4 hours ago, Kuzu said:

The flipside is that Manga is far better than any Comic book.

Not worth it.

I wanted to suggest that having multiple artist would fix the problem (say Yardley and Stanley draw 2 issues at the same time), but while typing I realized that artists of latter issue would be 'blind', having no idea of new characters, locations, battle damage, any kind of visual continuity between stories.

[TailsGotTrolled]

13 hours ago, Kuzu said:

The flipside is that Manga is far better than any Comic book.

Certain manga, sure, but Japan's going to go all in on the woke BS sooner or later

8 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Not worth it.

I wanted to suggest that having multiple artist would fix the problem (say Yardley and Stanley draw 2 issues at the same time), but while typing I realized that artists of latter issue would be 'blind', having no idea of new characters, locations, battle damage, any kind of visual continuity between stories

I could have sworn Oda had other artists working for him.  Still working himself sick though

[Mauro Fonseca]

Saying it's just that Japanese work harder is as oversimplifying as reducing this to "IDW Sonic" is. IDW Sonic uses the same publishing format most of the US industry uses, it's not something specific to this comic, so what you're actually asking is why do most ongoing manga print 12 pages a week, while most ongoing american comics print 20 pages a month.

 

The answer is simple production values. Manga is made by a person and the assistants he hires, and printed in black and white. This means you have two, three, often five, maybe more people all working together to make a 12 page story in one week without colours. Tasks are divided in such a way that allows for the speed- the main artist storyboards the comic and often draws the main characters, then there's someone whose job is only drawing backgrounds, someone whose job is only drawing crowd scenes, etc. The negative to this, beyond the tight schedules leading to really bad work hours mentioned already, is things like being unable to produce colour illustrations, being unable to be flexible if something wrong happens, often having to do very decompressed storytelling which looks nice but leaves you feeling like those 12 pages only had about 5 pages worth of content, etc.

 

American ongoing serialised comics meanwhile are also made in an assembly line, but with each person being responsible for more work. The artist draws the characters, and the backgrounds, and the crowds, and often inks their own pencils, and so on. Adding to that, the expectation is of a more produced final result- so there has to be someone adding colours, and often there's a separate writer altogether, and a separate letterer, and there's added time needed for all these people to coordinate and cooperate since unlike with a mangaka's assistants, they're unlikely to all be working in the same physical space, and so on.

To that, in the specific case of a licensed comic like Sonic, add extra time needed to have everything approved by the licensor.

 

Also, youtube dubbing channels are piracy. I'm not going to tell you off on pirating, it'd be at the very least hypocritical of me. But don't judge the work we're doing, time-wise, by how pirate channels are dealing with it themselves.

[FlameStream]

26 minutes ago, Mauro Fonseca said:

often having to do very decompressed storytelling which looks nice but leaves you feeling like those 12 pages only had about 5 pages worth of content, etc.

Conversely, mangas tend to be able to develop or focus on things that comics cannot as a result. The fixed format of comics, especially Sonic ones, tend to leave you with a dry conclusion or compressed chain of events. That extra aspect seem to make a difference in the enjoyment of readers. 

[KoDaiko]

1 hour ago, TailsGotTrolled said:

Certain manga, sure, but Japan's going to go all in on the woke BS sooner or later

I could have sworn Oda had other artists working for him.  Still working himself sick though

Depends in the readers. If the manga sell well they will keep it alive as much as possible and new writers will follow the trend. If it doesn't then they will mercilessly kill it off, given 1-3 issues to wrap it up if lucky. And from what I know, many "woke" people don't pay much.

Most if not all mangas use assistants, especially non-digital ones. I'm sure it'd be impossible for most manga writers to write 15-20 pages a week by themselves.

6 minutes ago, FlameStream said:

Conversely, mangas tend to be able to develop or focus on things that comics cannot as a result. The fixed format of comics, especially Sonic ones, tend to leave you with a dry conclusion or compressed chain of events. That extra aspect seem to make a difference in the enjoyment of readers. 

Oh yeah, Idk about other comics but Archie and IDW had problem with pacing due to the 4 issue per volume format. Tankobons on the other hand varies from 5-10 chapter per volume, and isn't afraid to make it not clean-cut (sometimes an arc takes like 1 1/2 volumes instead of neatly fitting in 1 or 2.)

[Mauro Fonseca]

25 minutes ago, FlameStream said:

Conversely, mangas tend to be able to develop or focus on things that comics cannot as a result. The fixed format of comics, especially Sonic ones, tend to leave you with a dry conclusion or compressed chain of events. That extra aspect seem to make a difference in the enjoyment of readers. 

That's the flip side. One chapter has 12 pages and often feels it's very little, but you get four chapters per month, so in the end you get 48 pages per month, meaning a decent chunk of content with little time between parcels. Easier to accept 12 pages with not much happening when you're getting the next 12 pages in just 7 days.

[TailsGotTrolled]

2 hours ago, Mauro Fonseca said:

Also, youtube dubbing channels are piracy. I'm not going to tell you off on pirating, it'd be at the very least hypocritical of me. But don't judge the work we're doing, time-wise, by how pirate channels are dealing with it themselves.

Didnt mean it like that, I only brought that up because it hard to tell how many pages long a comic book is when youre watching some dubbed video that jumps from panel to panel