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MediBang's 2nd Manga Contest Collaborates With Weekly Shonen Magazine
posted on by Jennifer Sherman
If you've ever wanted to become a manga creator, MediBang and Kodansha unveiled an opportunity that could jumpstart your career. The MediBang manga creation app's second international manga contest is offering a chance for publication in Magazine Pocket, the manga app of Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine. The contest is accepting aspiring manga artists' entries from October 13 to January 12.
Manga-loving hopefuls can submit entries through MediBang's website in English, Korean, Chinese (traditional or simplified), Spanish, French, or Russian. The app's translation team will translate submissions into Japanese, and Magazine Pocket's editor will review the entries.
Each submitted manga must be a completed one-shot work up to 50 pages in length. Pages may be oriented in left-to-right or right-to-left format. The MediBang website's results page for the previous contest encourages the new participants to consider "What if I was the main character” and “what type of character every reader would be able to sympathize with.”
The grand prize winner will work with an editor to further develop the manga and receive feedback from editorial staff. Then the app will publish the manga. Other winners will get the same editorial support but no publication. Unlike the first contest, winners will receive no monetary prize this time. Fortunately, some entries that do not win may also receive editorial feedback.
The contest does not specify how many winners of each type it will choose, but it also reserves the right to select no winners. The last contest awarded second and third place as well as eight runners up.
MediBang partnered with Shueisha's Shonen Jump+ app to launch its first international manga contest last December. The contest collected entries from December 17, 2015 to March 21, 2016. The collaboration received many more entries than expected with more than 900 manga submitted from all over the world.
