Comic Fury Webcomic Hosting - How hard is it to be a Manga artist?

Courtest of LeSean (Boondocks, Legend of Koora) Thomas:

=o

But I bet the pay is fantastic! >_>

That's actually a pretty loose schedule in Japan...

that monday is a death trap, two hours of sleep only?! Holy fuck.

Why do you think Japan has the highest rate of suicide? Lack of sleep and fun, and way too much work.

That is a hellish schedule. I have to agree no wonder the suicide rate is so high in Japan. And I thought we Americans did not know how to relax.

Well I think if you love what you do, a little tight schedule can be....wait...THREE HOURS on Saturday!?
The sexual tension must be colossally Gigantic... probably another reason for the suicides :/

That looks suspiciously like my sleep schedule...

Actually, thanks to the work schedules, most Japanese people rarely think about sex. In fact, the Japanese government is pushing through certain mandatory "dating days" at work places so that more people will "get it on", as the population is starting to dwindle from lack of intercourse.

Hooray for Japan... I guess?
Even somebody as horrible as me can't joke about this. This just isn't right. I've never hated my ancestry more than right now.

No other nation that I know of has a commonly used word for "death by overwork".

plus they are xenophobic against any non-japanese, so if you aren't Japanese you won't get a fair shot even if you draw like Degas and write like Steinbeck.

Also probably why Japanese porn industry is largest of all asia. But damn, why would they do that to themselves. It's like slavery!!

I can haz assistants?

Yes you can, and they work even harder and are paid next to nothing. Ah the wonders of the free marker and take no prisoners capitalism. Regulations,smegulations, pah! Back to work you misanthropes or it is the lash for you!

OK I need more coffee. :\

Kim

Don't assistants usually work on backgrounds and inking?

Yes, they mostly help with the tedious tasks that don't necessarily take away from the main artists work.

... I'm gonna try that schedule out for a week.

See how much progress and thoughts of suicide I can get done ~

I know that the author of Hunter x Hunter in Jump has a weird publishing schedule. He'll go on hiatus for long periods of time. Apparently, when he was working on the series Spirit Detective YuYu Hakusho he kept overworking himself and getting sick, so he was given a special schedule when he started Hunter x Hunter to avoid it.

There's also a bit more to the life of a mangaka than that schedule, though. You have to keep the manga's ratings up or it could be cancelled. The threat of unemployment is always hanging over their heads if they don't have high ratings, or at least that's how it is for Weekly Shonen Jump authors. If you want to see a bit of the typical manga artist's life, I'd recommend looking at the manga series Bakuman. It's published in Jump and follows two high school students over many years as they grow up and begin publishing manga in Jump. It's fictional, but it follows a lot of the problems that manga writers come up against. It's also by the creators of Death Note.

I'm wondering, though... How many series does that particular artist have? Some manga artists work on multiple series at once (usually in different magazines, with one being a spinoff of the other), which takes even more work for them. These guys are pretty dedicated.

Ha, whenever I'm off from school again, I'll try out that schedule and see how long I can last. Probably not very long. The Japanese are insane.
Wait... I'm of Japanese descent... Curse you, ancestors.