If I write a comic book, how can I determine the number of pages per chapter & chapters per volume?

[Ruby199]

This number seems to be different depending on the type of comic. Manga from Japan has a lot of pages per volume while American comic books come with a lot more variation. I just want to know if there are any general rules when it comes to deciding how many pages to include in each chapter and how many chapters to have in each volume. How is the info organized into chapters and volumes for comics?

 

[WiseMack]

Keep in mind I am no expert, but the one time I held an actual manga in hand I noticed it was small, about the lenght of my hand tall and an (1) inch wider at most.
while American comic books I have seen are a lot larger.

So in the end I guess it comes down to drawing speed, a chapter = how many pages of ilustrations of this size and this quality is the author capable of creating every x amount of days, where x is how often they publish.
And a volume is (I hope) decided by weight, too many chapters and it gets unwieldy and too heavy to carry around.
Who knows? professionals might need to stay aware of other data like shipping costs.

 

[Akuma-Heika]

Manga from Japan has a lot of pages per volume

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Pages per chapter can vary greatly though, even within the same series. D. Gray-man for example had chapters that averaged 45 pages early on, but the later chapters average to around 17 pages a chapter (edit: might have been 14 now that I think about it). Whole volumes usually average 175 pages I believe, and will have a number of chapters to equal that (for some series 4 chapters a volume, others up to 12).

 

[Theatrical Barrister]

Also bear in mind that they have different publishing strategies. The small Japanese volumes are usually a collection of chapters that were originally published one chapter a time in magazines that publish several different ongoing stories. The chapters for one story might be published once a week, or once a month, or possibly once every few months. Because the magazine has several different stories in each issue, and has several different stories to rotate through, the creator does not necessarily need to complete a new chapter every week or month. Even if they are creating it at that rate, the chapters tend to be shorter than a US comic issue. When they have enough chapters completed, and if the story is popular enough to readers of the magazine, they gather up all the published chapters and release them collected in the volume form.

On the their hand, most American comics are published on a monthly basis. Similarly to the Japanese comics, very popular story lines will be gathered into graphic novels.

Another difference is the amount of finished detail that goes into the art. The Japanese manga magazines all publish in black and white only, with color only being on the cover. While there are American comics that are not colored, the ones from the major publishers are all colored, and including coloring in the production process means more time is required for each issue.

 

[Sonifri]

you guys should read this blog for the perfect guide for beginners on how to write a story https://www.mermaidpublishers.com/blog/how-to-write-a-story-for-beginners/

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he also mentions comic format. In addition to knowing how to create a story comics in particular should really have a storyboard in the creative process.