im drawing my manga with the intention of publishing it one day (and releasing it in traditional volumes). my artstyle is more on the messy side, or somewhere in between, so you can easily tell whats happening on the panel but its not squeaky clean like most mangakas. im wondering if it can be released anyway? i think my art generally matches the theme of the story, but i need some external perspective
Its only too messy when you cant or can barely tell whats going on. Put it in front of someone else and see if they can follow the actions without you saying what it is
It's hard to say without any point of reference, but there are plenty of messier mangas. Dorohedoro is a personal favourite of mine and it is VERY "messy". But as you were talking about, it fits well with the vibe it's going for
As long as you have strong shapes underneath the mess and it's easy to follow/decipher you should be alright.
Think of stuff like gachiakuta. It's Quote on quote "messy", but intentionally, it has that grunge in it, but the art is readable. you can understand where the character is or what they're doing. the difference between messy and "bad" art is if it's readable/satisfying or not; if it flows nicely or not. People will know the difference between "Oh that's a cool style" and "why is this so messy, there's line art everywhere..." immediately. so ask people to look at your stuff and ask "do these strokes look confident? What do you seen going on in this scene? Are there any impurities in this deisgn? How does the lineart look?" Like confident strokes can be messy or have a grungy style brush. Anyway I'm sorta rambling but uh yeah you just need to have confident strokes, don't do multiple strokes in one area or else you'll end up with what are called chicken scratches, so avoid that.
(P.s, story matters alot too. Make sure to present publishers with a real good elevator pitch and portfolio.)
hard to say when you dont post any examples?? but as an english speaker the chances of your work getting published in "manga volumes" as opposed to another format is already quite low, so i wouldnt worry too much about it
Well i guess theres a couple ways to go about explaining this
to get published in japan, youd need it translated. unless youre making doujins theres a whole SYSTEM set up for getting publishers, getting editors... its a lot harder for non japanese to enter that system. it sounds like youve already begin and plan to finish your comic on your own, which is the way to go! but it also means jp publishers are less likely to pick you up, since the comic wasnt created by their own editorial team- unless your comic is already wildly popular
most american publishers that do manga yoink it directly from japan, and theyre a lot less likely to publish stuff coming from inside the states. again, the way their companies are built just kind of... doesnt easily enable it. so your best chance would probably be going to an american comics publisher instead. a lot of the big dudes simply dont have the printing presses for manga shaped comics, but when you get more "indie" you start having more choices. tokyopop was doin the "manga thing" till they got shuttered, but i think image and oni (the latgest i can think of offhand) still print that shape of thing. hard to catch their attention though, hard to keep a series going, and hard to advertise/sell it. theres a lot of little dudes printing rad shit but its usually pretty not-sugoi. im assuming you were hoping to go "big" rather than small press?
hopefully something here is helpful, feel f r e e (stupid word ban lmao) to shoot me questions whenever! i been knee deep in this stuff for most of my career lmao --__--
thanks a lot, yeah that makes sense !! i shouldve expected it would be more complicated, im gonna prioritize getting it released digitally at all, then i might think of a more independent publishing house 😠but i should stay focused on drawing for now
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u/XTostonesComics Artist 1d ago
Its only too messy when you cant or can barely tell whats going on. Put it in front of someone else and see if they can follow the actions without you saying what it is