Inkblazers.com (formerly MangaMagazine.net) was an international

comic a Media (communication), medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of Panel (comics), panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, Glo ...

platform helping to monetize webcomics and

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

. The company had offices in Boston, Massachusetts and Bangkok, Thailand. It was founded in 2011 by Victor Chu and Bancha Dhammarungruang, and received $1 million in seed funding. Inkblazers.com supported artists via paid subscription, merchandise sales, and ads sales. It also offered free online comic and manga hosting without requiring artists to give up rights to their works. In an interview, co-founder Victor Chu said that the company aimed to provide the technology behind online comics publishing, in terms of hosting, promotion of great titles, monthly sponsorship and print on demand book publishing. The company was more a service provider to independent artists and this sets them apart from other e-comics initiatives.

Crowdsourcing

Inkblazers.com took a

crowdsourcing Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digita ...

approach to publishing. Key benefits of crowdsourcing drove the company's decisions included: 1. Fan support for authors.
2. Data backing up decisions on marketing and content rights acquisition.
3. More sales resulting from content aggregation. Furthermore, the website created an environment in which authors and member contributors can interact and share advice as well as an area in which project collaborations become possible. Inkblazers shut down on February 1, 2015, as the creators could no longer financially support the continuation of the site, causing many members to search for another webcomic site.

References

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External links

Inkblazers.com
Webcomic publishing companies Defunct websites Free webcomic hosting services Original English-language manga Internet properties established in 2011 Internet properties disestablished in 2015