Q:

When you submit to TOKYOPOP, do you have to use proper manga paper?

A:

No you don’t. When you’re at the submission stage, I doubt they’ll care what type of paper you submit your sequential art on. You can draw on ordinary computer paper, or proper manga paper, or whatever paper you can get your hands on, and it wouldn’t be a strike against you. What they’ll be looking for is whether you can tell a story properly - that’s the first hurdle you’ll encounter. Therefore, it’s not necessary to buy expensive manga paper if you’re just doing an ordinary submission and your budget is tight. The reason why I recommend proper manga paper is because of it’s quality - it absorbs ink well, and is able to withstand lots of sketching and erasing, but that’s about the only reason. In actuality, all the finished files I sent to TOKYOPOP are digital, and none of the real pages ever see TOKYOPOP’s offices.

That said, even while it’s okay to use ordinary paper, you are still expected to follow instructions properly. No one will care if you don’t use proper manga paper, but they will care if you don’t do your pages to the specified dimensions. And last of all, I would advise against sending original samples of your work in ANY submission process, to TOKYOPOP or to any other company. For someone to evaluate your work, they don’t need the original samples except in special circumstances, so if someone asks you to send in the originals, be very careful and suspicious. The best thing to do would be to either send in print-outs or photocopies of your work.

This is not necessarily because your work may be stolen, but because things get lost in the mail or in the office ALL THE TIME. Sending in the originals is just a silly and unnecessary thing to do.

Last updated on: Friday, 28 December 2007
Filed under: TOKYOPOP submissions