What Do You Look at First, When Picking out a New Series to Read?

[fbunawan]

Probably the author first. I would definitely read a series by an author I'm familiar with. Second would be art, sadly. I'd probably say art is not everything for a manga and values storyline more, art is critical for the first look. Also the popularity of the series. If it's rising in popularity, I would be curious enough to check it out.

[jas]

yeah, if it's from an author i know and love, i'd read it in a heartbeat.

next is story, if it seems interesting i'll give it a try regardless of art.

if the art is sufficiently pretty, i might be able to plow through a bad story.

[midnight]

for me, it will be the storyline, follow by the art of the manga.

[Akuma.]

most of the time i pick up the manga's from unfinished anime like hunter x hunter, shaman king and etc. But for completly new mangas i just read the summary and i like it, i just start to read it

[fletcherpugh25]

i just read the plot summary first. If it piques my interest then i read 1 chapter, if its good then I keep reading but if not I look for something else.

[tone]

First genre, then plot and lastly artwork. I think the most important one is the plot though.

[tristal]

I Read a summary and if i like it and the artwork is of my taste it will get me
started to read it . But  i usually pick manga's from anime that i already have seen like
Get Backers , Air gear , Hunter x Hunter and etc.

[captainsobe]

I look at a brief description to see is I like the story premise. I also look to see if there are scans available. I like action mangas and also introspective manga that  makes you think a little. I just recently started reading more athletic based manga. The plot is the big thing, if that sucks, I move on.

[evilninja]

The quickest way to get me to pick up a manga is to tell me there's an anime!  I love seeing the characters in full color, moving and talking.

But, that isn't the only determining factor.  I can be really picky about what series I read.  I have to like the art, the story, the dialogue and the translation.  There's a few that I can't read because the "Official" translation uses bad English or puts everything in a weird typeset - i.e. INVU looks like it might be a fun shojo romp, but I can't focus on the pages because the font they used makes it look cheap and instead of leaving it in the original right to left format, it was flipped to read "properly" for English.  That is also a HUGE turn off for me.  I have a really hard time with the books that are done left to right rather than the original right to left.  It messes up the flow for me when I'm reading, which I know is strange because I am a native English speaker.

[Lin]

I'm so used to reading right to left now, that I find myself reading English comics in the newspaper the wrong way!  I really appreciate English translations that keep the manga in original right to left mode.