ComicLoud is a new manga anthology that launched recently on Amazon’s download service in both the Japanese and English languages. The anthology’s main focus is to highlight up and coming manga-ka and each digital copy costs $4.99, which is rather reasonable considering each issue is bi-lingual.
While you download ComicLoud through Amazon, your digital copy can be read on a number of devices, including PCs, MACs, Kindles, and the iPhone/iPad. Additionally, the ComicLoud team actually encourage independent creators of original manga series to get in touch with them to discuss publishing prospects, should they wish to do so.
This week, About.com conducted an interview with ComicLoud publisher, Jiro Nemoto, to find out more about the effort, and one of the questions brought up pertained to what ComicLoud’s target audience was, judging by the serializations in the first volume. To this, Nemoto replied:
“Since the readers need to buy the devices (e.g. Kindles or PCs) to read ComicLoud, we’re assuming that they have a regular job. That means most of the readers are businessmen or businesswomen. The current lineup of the ComicLoud is mostly for men, but (in future issues), we are going to have female manga artists and they will make some manga for ladies, too.”
It’s an interesting contrast to Tokyopop, to whom we asked a similar question regarding the availability of digital devices to youngsters, and CEO, Stuart Levy, replied that he believed enough kids owned smart phones or — at the very least a PC — to be able to access digital manga services.
Still, it’s nice to see a new publisher enter the market with a solid vision and go straight for the target audience that’s best-suited to what they’d like to so. We’ll be sure to keep an eye on ComicLoud in the future.
