AOL's RED Service Promotes How to Draw Manga

Posted: Wednesday, September 8, 2004
Posted By: Shawn Patty

With the help of publisher Graphic-Sha, Diamond has arranged for the bestselling How to Draw Manga to be promoted on America Online through its RED service (the successful online experience for teens from America Online).

Through its Comics &Anime Screen, RED will spotlight a different How to Draw Manga book each week, showing sample pages and inviting subscribers to submit their efforts at following the sampled guides.

Since its translation into English, the acclaimed, bestselling line of How to Draw Manga instructional books has been an unconditional hit in the West, with sales topping one million units sold in the English language editions alone! This line, comprised of more than 40 separate volumes, each detailing specific aspects of the artform, is the original and best manga instructional series, with new volumes released throughout the year. The How to Draw Manga books are available in the U.S. exclusively through Diamond Comic Distributors.

"This is an opportunity for the How to Draw Manga titles to reach an even broader audience," said Diamond Purchasing Brand Manager - Imports Frank Supiot. "We've taken the very best instructional manual for aspiring manga artists of all levels and teamed it up with the world's top online service for teens, those who are most interested in this particular area."

The promotion will not only draw further attention to the How to Draw Manga series and manga in general, but will also highlight comic book stores as a destination for these products - RED will direct interested subscribers to their local comic book store to purchase the How to Draw Manga series.

"The RED manga chat rooms and messages boards are among our most active, so we're excited to present this online exclusive to the huge manga-hungry audience of RED," said RED Senior Programming Manager Chris Bonner. "We're also pleased that in addition to enjoying manga, RED members will now be able to make their own, perhaps one day to be featured on RED."

Got some comments on this item?
Have your say at the Silver Bulletins forum.