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Erotic Manga Artist Who Left Company Describes Poor Pay, Rejection

Warning: this story contains statements relating to thoughts of suicide. If you or a loved one is in the U.S. and in need of help, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

Erotic manga artist Canned Beef took to Twitter this week to describe their work environment's difficult circumstances. In an exasperated series of tweets, they said, "I want to quit manga and quit living."

Canned Beef said an editorial department would only pay them 80,000 yen (about US$719) a month. Also, the editorial department would not pay anything after rejecting 200 pages of storyboards. The artist further described what they believe were unreasonable demands for Comic Market imposed on them by editors.

Additionally, Canned Beef mentioned pay of 7,000 yen (about US$63) per page every other month. In the same tweet, the artist said the could not live on such low pay, so they asked about working for another company to supplement their income. However, editors told them they were not allowed and also told them they were not popular enough to add on work for another magazine at the same company.

In another tweet, Canned Beef said that they had been told, with a laugh, "We're really thankful that dōjinshi is making you more well-known! Oh, but please stop becoming a dōjin punk like that!" Canned Beef added, "At any rate, I'm sorry to people who said they wanted a compiled book volume. That's really tough. But I just can't draw there."

Canned Beef described repeated rejection and also posted a sample of their rejected work.

Canned Beef finally tweeted, "There's no paradise to run away to, but if you're about to be broken then running away is your only choice."

Source: Canned Beef's Twitter account via Yaraon!