One reason for the creation of Shonen Jump Alpha and the simultaneous release of strips in English with their Japanese originals is, according to Viz’s Alvin Lu, a desire to re-create the “New Comics Wednesday” experience of the American comic market for manga fans. Brigid Alverson explains:
For many years, readers of American comics have had the ritual of going to the comics shop on Wednesdays, the day new comics come out, not just to buy comics but also to meet up with other fans. That hasn’t existed in the manga world, because it is more of a book business than a serial business, but Shonen Jump Alpha brings that weekly component into the mix. “It’s so important to build a core customer, a regularity, even a sense of community,” Lu said. “As a company, our graphic novel business does great for us, but to really foster that manga community and to really grow that readership—we were struggling with that.”Shonen Jump Alpha has provided that platform. “That sense of community built up [very quickly] around this digital publication, and it became very apparent that Shonen Jump Alpha is much more than something you download onto your phone or something that you check in on on your website once a week,” Lu said. “It’s a living community that you interact with, and it goes beyond the digital delivery once a week.”
As I said yesterday, the potential for really changing the impact of international comics in the US through digital distribution like this is kind of fascinating…
