It’s not easy, conquering publishing world. That’s what I got from my 3 years experience in publishing. But with the internet era, the publishing world can get a glimmer of hope.

I myself saw some steps getting there as NulisBuku.com did. In comic world, I think for publishing comics offline is now just as hard. I witnessed some local offline comic publishers (independent or form a business entity), struggled to promote their published comics offline, with quality just as good as foreign comics.

But with the Internet, the cost of printing can be slightly resolved, at least in terms of distributing the work of comics which they do not have to wait for printing publication but can be uploaded to the internet. The site which also develop a community other than the comic itself is also growing rapidly, such as Komikoo and Ngomik, which are several times discussed in DailySocial. Now with a slightly different approach, Makko.co officially released to the public.

Makko is an online comics magazine, and featuring a various things related to pop culture. They publish local comics online (also planning to publish it offline). They present the comic series, published in a schedule, a strategy that is good enough to make people come back to their sites.

For starters, there are 3 monthly comic titles, 1 bi-weekly title and 1 weekly comic title that can be read and awaited the publication date. They also explained that already there are 10 titles from Indonesian comic artists who are ready to publish.

In addition to their comic, they also prepare a variety of contents (because the form is magazine) from the news about comics, local and international. After took a look around their site, Makko also sets up an online store that will sell merchandise from the comics that they published.

To read an existing comics, users must register to be a member and login. The interface of the site is good enough, to read the comics Makko provides Makko viewer. Comics provided in Makko are also interesting, which could be due to the selection process Makko did before publishing comics. One of my favorite comic artists, Azisa Noor was also there.

With different approaches, but in the same segment, Makko can not be directly compared with Komikoo and Ngomik which took communities and UGC take approach, while Makko to me more to take the publisher approach, who selects and has its own editorial team for the magazine that will be published on their site. They also will run a community approach, but by organizing offline events and daily programs.

Comics, as I have previously written has a market share large enough, and local comics also as good as foreign comics. Several times I met local comic artists whose amazed me. But Makko should be able to solve monetization strategy problems and of course keep their service continues visited by readers. The level of competition is certainly not an easy thing to pass.

Same like other services that maximize the internet, I certainly hope Makko can provide maximum assistance to the development of local comics, on the other hand, as a startup business they could find a business model of this service, which probably expected from merchandising and advertisement. Makko could also be networking with other services, including Komikoo and Ngomik to publish the best comics of these two services. Another business model, maybe they can sell premium comics, of course with more facilities, such as the unpublished sketches of comic artists or other bonuses.

While waiting for access to mobile devices, which could be additional opportunities for Makko to access the reader on-the-go, for those who want to see Makko, you can drop in to their site, and do not forget to give your opinion in the comment column.

Translated by Nita Sellya.