Comic AUN 2008-03 (the real one)

[dudino]

i could kiss you for this goldangel

[goldangel]

i was about to upload a 1600px version but deadfrog is dead.... wait a little bit i will up it

[Fatishman]

Originally Posted by goldangel

somewhere between 2008-01 and 03

...yep...my fault...I should've expect such a reply

...anyway...maybe now AUN issues every two months...in fact I found all them from 2005 to 2007 and there were one comic for each month, bot now in 2008 only Jan, Mar and may are out...

[Crippler2k]

From the looks of it, A-Un is still published monthly.
We just happen to be missing Volume 141 (February 2008) and Volume 143 (April 2008).

I know Volume 145 (June 2008) and Volume 146 (July 2008) are out but it will be a while before they find their way here.

[goldangel]

nobody are scanning them. they are still published.

that all

[Sakunyuusha]

When you think about it, it's an expensive habit to scan an H magazine well. From what I understand, it virtually requires you to destroy the magazine (by debinding the pages if they are gluebound; by unstapling and then possibly cutting the pages if they are glossy magazine prints that have been stapled together through the center), and I think most collectors would be hesitant to do that to their only copy. So I'm guessing that the anonymous Japanese scanners who do this typically purchase 2 copies of the magazine: one copy for their collections, and one copy to be destroyed for the sake of obtaining a digital copy.

Over time, that cost adds up substantially. One day the guy wakes up and realizes, "I haven't gotten much out of this relationship and I've spent $300 more than I needed to." ($5/mo over 5 years.) He says to himself, "I could have bought 60 magazines with that money. 60 magazines I don't have." All it takes is one dedicated fan to separate the binding and scan the magazine, but when you consider how much the hentai community in Japan has clamped down on file sharing and has vilified Japanese fans for uploading digital copies to the Internet, and when you consider the expense involved, and when you consider how little the guy gets out of it, it's easy to see how something like this might happen. ("this" meaning how we're missing copies of Comic AUN)

Still, I'm not afraid for the future of digital copies of H magazines because I am certain that there are people in Japan who, like me, prefer to purchase the original magazine (to support the industry and as a collector) -but- who also prefer to "fap" (as it were) to a digital copy instead of to the magazine itself. It's a lot easier to "flip the pages" of a digital scan than it is a real magazine. You can read a digital scan in a poorly-lit environment because your computer screen is bright. You can look straight ahead at a digital copy; it's hard to do this with a magazine, so you're going to have to set it down on a flat surface and stare down at it. If you see a word you can't read (not an issue for native speakers, most likely), you have direct access to the Internet. And best of all (from a collector's viewpoint), you can leave your magazine on your bookshelf and not dirty it even with the natural body oils and sweat secreted from your fingertips during normal activities (like if you just wanted to pick it up to look something up real quick). I think for that reason, there will always be some demand for digital copies of these magazines. And where there's demand, supply will surely follow provided an incentive (fame? money? just feeling good from having done people a favor?) is given.

In all honesty, I'm surprised that Japan's H magazines haven't made the jump from print to digital and started selling digital copies. Or at least offered to do both and see if offering digital copies for $4 (one buck cheaper, let's say, than the $5 printed version) has any significant effect. To get otaku to keep coming to Akiba for the atmosphere, they could even start printing CDs each month and package them in CD cases with the front cover and back cover art on the front and back of the CD case.

Is this already happening? If so, I've never heard of it. I think it should, though. :\

[goldangel]

yea release directly digital... because they are not losing enough money

[Sakunyuusha]

That's precisely the point, though! Whether they release it digitally or in print, it's going to wind up online anyway. Already the publishers are saying, "We are losing a lot of money to piracy." If they released digital copies for retail (e.g. by direct download or by selling CDs in stores), you're acting as though that would make the piracy situation even worse, but it wouldn't. All it would do is save one guy from having to debind his magazine. To all the pirates who downloaded it illegally, they would never know the difference.

Think about it this way: somebody scanned Comic AUN 2008 03 (even without there being a digital retail copy), and now 100,000+ people downloaded it. Of those, 95% would not have bought it anyway, but 5% would have. So you could say that AUN's publisher lost out on $25,000. Of the 95% who would not have purchased the paper magazine, let's say 10% would have bought it had there been a digital alternative; but because there wasn't they said "screw this." It's those 9.5% of the population who the publishers would be targeting with digital releases. We're talking big bucks here -- almost $50,000 of untapped sales! I'm not making any other claim than that. Pirates will be pirates, and yes, if you release a CD then it's going to be fairly easy to crack and the magazine will be up on Share in under 24 hours; but it was going to wind up there anyway, so why not print the CD or offer the DDL-for-$ for the few customers who want it?

I guess the best way I have of explaining it is, it doesn't matter whether it's doujinshi, magazines, anime, or PC games -- all hentai winds up on the 'net in a digitized format fairly quickly, and releasing -- or not releasing -- hentai in a digital format from the start won't have any added negative effect.

One last thing ... publishers are all about saving money, right? Imagine how expensive it is to print 50,000 issues of a magazine. You've got 200+ pages per volume and over half of them are very ink intensive. 5% of the pages and advertisements are in color. Then there's the cost of shipping the paper magazines out from the factory to various stores throughout the country. Ink is expensive. Paper is expensive to ship (HEAVY). Both of these costs could be cut completely by selling a digital version. If the profit margin for a $5 paper magazine is x, you could sell the digital version at a lower retail price (say $4) and still make x or more in profits because of the cut costs.

I dunno. I don't think it's an idea worthy of ridicule.

[goldangel]

tl;dr

[diabolicly]

Thanks for sharing