This chapter surveys the numerous publishing formats of postwar story-manga and analyzes the way in which these formats have affected its visual and narrative structure beyond editorial choices or reader expectations. Starting from obsolete manga-centric publishing media like akahon and rental comics by minor publishers, the chapter moves on to introduce how monthly children’s magazines by major publishers changed into weekly and monthly manga magazines, which are still present in the market. I address Republishing practices and formats like pocketbooks and complete editions, each possessing different characteristics for different purposes. How digital comics have changed the way of providing and consuming manga content, giving way to new formats like webtoons is introduced. Finally, franchising, which has been raising manga sales even when the market has to battle diverse forms of rivaling entertainment and declining birth rates, is highlighted.

This chapter provides an overview of the variety of contemporary digital comics.

Digital comics encompass diverse objects, both online and offline, ranging from print comics that are digitized to webcomics that resist print publications and have greater affinities with video games or animation. The chapter regroups these different formats into three main categories; it reconstructs the history of digital comics, isolating four partially overlapping phases connected to the evolution of digital culture. It traces the similarities and divergences between digital and print comics, identifying their formal specificities and contextualizing them in the analog/digital debate; and discusses their different characteristics in terms of immersion and agency. Finally, it reflects on the relationship between digital media and participatory practices on the one hand, and comics preservation on the other, elaborating on the issue of copyright infringement.

In doing so, the chapter offers a multidisciplinary and comprehensive account of the heterogeneous nature and stratified history of digital comics.