Sooo I'm sure a few of you know about the very wide-spread Shonen Jump Manga Competition, and if you don't then check it out here! - [link]
Sounds pretty awesome!

Anyway, I am very much considering entering this contest but there are a few things confusing me that I'm really hoping someone here might know about, particularly about the page sizes as comic page sizes ALWAYS manage to confuse me, but some other things they weren't very specific on as well.

1: On the sign-up page ( [link] ) it says the manuscript size should be "greater than 650 dpi (Display resolution) recommended, width: 230mm to 260mm, height: 330mm to 360mm". Okay, with Manga Studio this should easy enough to set up...but then I saw this picture on the right side of the page:
[link]
It apparently has the panel template height as 270mm and the width as 180. So is that just a recommendation for the panel size or should I go by that too?? It wasn't in the requirements on the left though. I realise panel sizes tend to vary depending on the content but that is throwing me off a bit and I really wish they had been more detailed considering they said the overall page size can vary slightly.

2 Manga Studio has a "B4" setting for pages that I hear is basic manga size. Would these settings work with this contest and should I just go by this?
[link]

3: What else is confusing me is the size for the actual JPEG submission should be approximately 800 width and 1200 height. Oookay, if I shrink the page down and it's not that exact size do I just mess with the pic until it IS that size?

4: When they say "manga style" does that mean there has to be screentones involved or can I get away with using a style of shading/coloring I use regularly? I realise it says "There are no restrictions to the manner of production" so I know it can be traditional or digital, but I still wasn't sure about the look.

5: ...this isn't very important, and while I'm not planning any sort of insane gore-fest of a story, how violent do you think shonen manga can be? XP

That's it for the questions....but now for an observation - that manuscript page size is BIG. I work with large size pages but never quite THAT large, I hope it doesn't lag while I work on it or anything, but I'm REALLY going to try and find a way to make this work.


So yes, chances are this may mean a temporary hiatus for Daniel while I try to pop out a quick 15-page comic, but trust me that this has NOTHING to do with disinterest with Daniel, heck the biggest reason I wasn't sure about participating in this contest is because I DON'T want to put Daniel on hold, especially at such a terrible time in the story, but...I pass on these sort of things far too often and, if possible, I'd really like to go for it.

I figure, at the very least, I'll get a completed one-shot comic out of it, and that's certainly not a bad thing to have.