Manga are comics or graphic novels created in Japan or by person using the Japanese language and conforming to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century. They have a long and complex pre-history in earlier Japanese art.
Webcomics are comics published on a website or mobile app. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers or in comic books.
The iTunes Store is a software-based online digital media store operated by Apple Inc. that opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs's push to open a digital marketplace for music.
Weekly Shōnen Jump is a weekly shōnen manga anthology published in Japan by Shueisha under the Jump line of magazines. It is the best-selling manga magazine, as well as one of the longest-running; the first issue was released with a cover date of August 1, 1968. The manga series within the magazine target young male readers and tend to consist of a large number of action scenes and a fair amount of comedy. The chapters of series that run in Weekly Shōnen Jump are collected and published in tankōbon volumes under the "Jump Comics" imprint every two to three months.
Modern Tales was a webcomics subscription service active from 2002 to 2012. Joey Manley was the website's publisher and original editor. The site featured a roster of approximately 30 professional webcomic artists. Shaenon Garrity, one of the site's original artists, took over as the publication's editor in 2006. Other Modern Tales artists included Gene Luen Yang, James Kochalka, Dorothy Gambrell, Harvey Pekar and Will Eisner.
Last.fm is a music website founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. Using a music recommender system called "Audioscrobbler", Last.fm builds a detailed profile of each user's musical taste by recording details of the tracks the user listens to, either from Internet radio stations, or the user's computer or many portable music devices. This information is transferred ("scrobbled") to Last.fm's database either via the music player itself or via a plug-in installed into the user's music player. The data is then displayed on the user's profile page and compiled to create reference pages for individual artists.
Serializer.net was a webcomic subscription service and artist collective published by Joey Manley and edited by Tom Hart and Eric Millikin that existed from 2002 to 2013. Designed to showcase artistic alternative webcomics using the unique nature of the medium, the works on Serializer.net were described by critics as "high art" and "avant-garde". The project became mostly inactive in 2007 and closed alongside Manley's other websites in 2013.
Digital comics are comics released digitally, as opposed to in print. Digital comics commonly take the form of mobile comics. Webcomics may also fall under the "digital comics" umbrella.
Webcomics Nation was a webcomic hosting and automation service launched on July 29, 2005 by Joey Manley. Unlike Manley's previous webcomic sites, Webcomics Nation was based on user-generated content and relied on online advertisement revenue, which increased in viability in the second half of the 2000s. Webcomics Nation was merged into Josh Roberts' ComicSpace in 2007, which eventually closed down in 2013.
The open music model is an economic and technological framework for the recording industry based on research conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It predicts that the playback of prerecorded music will be regarded as a service rather than as individually sold products, and that the only system for the digital distribution of music that will be viable against piracy is a subscription-based system supporting file sharing and free of digital rights management. The research also indicated that US$9 per month for unlimited use would be the market clearing price at that time, but recommended $5 per month as the long-term optimal price.
Zune is a discontinued line of digital media products and services marketed by Microsoft. Zune consisted of a line of portable media players, digital media player software for Windows PCs, a music subscription service known as a "Zune Music Pass", music and video streaming services for the Xbox 360 game console via the Zune Software, music, TV and movie sales, and desktop sync software for Windows Phone. Zune was also the provider of music streaming for United Airlines in-flight, after a partnership in 2010.
A mobile comic is a digital comic or cartoon strip that can be purchased, downloaded, read and sometimes edited or shared with friends via mobile phones.
Marvel Unlimited, formerly known as Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited, is an online service by Marvel Comics that distributes past issues of their comics via the Internet. The service has thousands of issues in its archive and launched on November 13, 2007.
Scribd is an American e-book and audiobook subscription service that includes one million titles. Scribd hosts 60 million documents on its open publishing platform.
Uclick LLC was an American corporation selling "digital entertainment content" for the desktop, the web and mobile phones. Uclick operated several consumer websites, including the comic strip and editorial cartoon site GoComics and the puzzle and casual game sites ThePuzzleSociety.com and UclickGames.com.
Exact Editions is an integrated content management platform for magazine and book publishers. It was launched in 2005 by Adam Hodgkin, Daryl Rayner and Tim Bruce.
Apple Books, formerly iBooks, is an e-book reading and store application by Apple Inc. for its iOS and macOS operating systems and devices. It was announced, under the name iBooks, in conjunction with the iPad on January 27, 2010, and was released for the iPhone and iPod Touch in mid-2010, as part of the iOS 4 update. Initially, iBooks was not pre-loaded onto iOS devices, but users could install it free of charge from the iTunes App Store. With the release of iOS 8, it became an integrated app. On June 10, 2013, at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, Craig Federighi announced that iBooks would also be provided with OS X Mavericks in fall 2013. Prior to iOS 12 and macOS Mojave, the application was named iBooks.
Iconology Inc., d/b/a ComiXology, is a cloud-based digital distribution platform for comics, with over 200 million comic downloads as of September 2013. It offers a selection of more than 100,000 comic books, graphic novels, and manga across Android, iOS, Kindle Fire, Windows 8, and the Internet. In April 2014, ComiXology became a subsidiary of Amazon.com.
The business of webcomics involves webcomic creators earning a living professionally through various revenue channels. Webcomic artists may sell merchandise based on their work, such as T-shirts and toys, or they may sell print versions or compilations of their webcomic. Many webcomic creators make use of online advertisement on their websites, and some have undergone product placement deals with larger companies. Crowdfunding through Kickstarter and Patreon is also a source of income for webcartoonists.
