I’m going to the city again today for live-drawing “classes”, so here’s a good opportunity to unload reviews of all the work I’ve read in the past FEW days. Granted, all the stuff that I bought in the previous entry, and thought it would be good to share my views.

 

First Up – Scholarly Works on Manga

 

The three “academic” works I bought off Amazon last week were all good reads, though some more relevant to my interests than others. To re-cap what they are, they are “Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics” by Frederik L. Schodt, “Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga” by the same author, and “Manga: 60 Years of Japanese Comics” by Paul Gravett.

Out of the three, “Dreamland Japan” was the one I found most useful. The book itself is a sequal to “Manga! Manga!”, so people who have read that book would benefit greatly. Not only does the author write with an insider’s view of the Japanese manga industry, but it illustrates some aspects of manga culture that other scholarly works don’t brush upon enough. Case in point would be the introduction to the best-selling and most influential manga zasshi, which like it or not, is what defines the type of work most manga-ka creates. Another would be the overviews of several influential alternative manga-kas – unknown outside Japan, but who has created incredibly influential works inside their country’s borders. This blows away the cliche that most manga are aimed at the shoujo and shounen market. That may be true of the commercial manga world, but the number of alternative manga works being created in doujinshi markets are also staggeringly high. Overall, a highly recommended book – the only drawback being that it was published a decade ago, and so only covers the manga market up to 1996.

The other two, “Manga! Manga!” and “Manga: 60 Years of Japanese Comics” are pretty much equivalent in their content for the newbie manga scholar. Both serve as an introduction into manga, outlining both history and recent trends, though “Manga! Manga!” is much disadvantaged in that area since it was published in 1983. If you’re looking for pretty colour pictures and coverage up to 2002, I suggest you go for Paul Gavett’s book. If you’re looking for a more in-depth history and an insider’s perspective (and manga shorts in the back), then go for Schodt’s book. There is no reason to get both, because they cover the same ground. I would recommend “Manga! Manga!” over the other book though, due to the quality of its sequal “Dreamland Japan”.

 

Western Comics – Preacher: All Hell’s a-coming (Vol.8)

 

I’m attempting to shore up my list of Western Comics purchases, and is making good headway with my current “Great Hits” shopping list (nearly all Vertigo books). However, I wish I didn’t randomly buy the second last volume of “Preacher” the other day. It was my first “Preacher” book, and not only did it explain quite wonderfully what went on in the previous volumes, but it also negated the need to buy any of the previous volumes to understand the plot and the characters. Not that it’s going to stop me from sampling the previous volumes, as “Preacher” is a pretty good read.

It belongs in a genre I like to call the “Apocalyptic Texan Rebel” genre – a genre that came to fruition by collision of 60s and 70s genres. It comes complete with an anti-hero, a tough-chick love-interest, apocalyptic visions, powerful and secretive religious cults, every Hollywood Western ever made, the seedy underside of “this great country of opportunity we live in”, and… alot of Texan “stuff”. There aren’t any zombies popping up in this volume, nor are there any commies to shoot at, but I’m almost certain they show up in the other volumes (unless you count Cassidy). So yeah, I like stuff like this, and “Preacher” is a wall-done example of something that is familiar to me, whether from the movies or other comics. There isn’t much else to say about it, other than the fact that if this is your cup of tea, then you should go and buy it, beause you’ll have a good-time. And the way the author gets to vent his hatred of pop-music is also pretty funny.

If there is anything that bothered me about “Preacher”, it would be something that alot of people don’t care about. Namely, the confessional way complete strangers talk to each other. Most of the character interaction is well-done and realistic, with good dialogue (some satirical) and sharply-drawn personalities, and yet, for some reason, hitch-hikers and bar-tenders see no problem in revealing their intimate life-stories to people they met just two minutes ago. You shouldn’t ask for realism from a story like “Preacher”, but I was… bothered when a bar-tender revealed to a stranger that he was once mistaken by police for a pedophile and had his family jewels dissolved as a side-effect. I know you hear all sorts of strange stories from bar-keepers, but (1)bar-keepers talk about others alot, but almost NEVER about themselves, and (2)I wouldn’t mention myself and the word “pedophile” in the same sentence in any place where alcohol is sold. Not especially when you run the bar (unless you hate your boss), because you would want to avoid anything that may POTENTIALLY spook your customers and make them leave. Once again, none of the content bothered me – just the way it was revealed. So I have a soft-spot for fictionalised bar-keepers. It’s actually a fantastic basis for a story – because the role of good barkeepers are to listen to your sob stories, keep you drinking, make sure you leave before you’re so inebriated you’ll make a mess, and inspire some hope in you (from the stories they here from other people) so you’ll come back for your next drinking binge. It’s a delicate social act, much more delicate than most people realise. Oh, I see a plot bunny running around in my head.

That said: Preacher = good read.

 

Manga – Random Snippets
Both “Bizenghast” and “Van Von Hunter” were pretty much what I expected, and I enjoyed reading both. Bizenghast can benefit from more consistent art, but already I want to do fan stories for the book. I like Edaniel and Vincent, moreso because Vincent seems like the ideal boyfriend and you can always have someone like that around. And “Van Von Hunter” follows on somewhat indirectly from the amusing webcomic, so perhaps it’s better to read the webcomic so you can better enjoy the story in book 1.

 

Manga – “Death Note”

 

I’m going to get flamed for. Takeshi Obata’s my favourite artist, but I was very disappointed by this and I hated the first volume. I may check out the next volumes but I’m in NO hurry. For those who don’t know, “Death Note” is about a boy who finds a special notebook dropped by an Angel of Death – if you write a person’s name in it (along with all these complicated side notes), then that person will die. Sounds like a good premise? Yes, it’s a good premise, but the execution leaves much to be desired. Since our hero Raito Yagami (aka. Kira) ends up killing a whole lotta people (namely criminals) in a twisted bid for global justice, you would think the story would question the morality of his actions, and the guilt he should be feeling for this. Good psycho-drama coming up? But no, Raito remains a pretty apathetic guy for much of the first volume, even when he’s being chased by… Interpol? So, it’s going the thriller route, especially when Interpol gets involved. Sounds good, eh? A good psycho-thriller concept.

Nah. It wants to be a good thriller, but fails miserably because of the author’s failure to ground its supposedly real-life sections in reality. Interpol gets involved because of… 52 criminals dying in the space of one week from heart failure. Why something like that is relevant to Interpol is beyond me. Angels of Death and Notebooks I can believe, but not Interpol becoming fixated on heart failures in Japanese criminals. Has there been any actual sign of criminal activity? And aren’t international terrorists, gun-runners and human traffickers more important (why aren’t any of those guys dying)? If I were Interpol, I would post a list of all the Most-Wanted criminals on prime-time news TV and hope they drop dead too. But wait, there’s more. Interpol, to solve this apparent lack of criminal activity and evidence, decides to call on a mysterious figure known as “L”, who somehow has solved many criminal cases Interpol has been unable to solve over the years. If I were Interpol, “L” would be the first person I’d arrest in conspiracy with said criminal cases. “L”, is ofcourse, a teenager, and more brilliant than any of the top minds that work at Interpol. And so on and so forth.

“Death Note” will appeal to Obata art fans, anyone looking for handsome bishounen to pin on their walls, people who want a real “Death Note” themselves to kill off their classmates, and people who don’t care for realism in a supposedly realistic thriller. Anyone who wants a good thriller to read, go look elsewhere.

Talking about realism, “Ghost in the Shell” by Shirow Masamune has it in spades. We have realistically-drawn robots and cyborgs, realistically-drawn weaponry and buildings, not-so-realistic naked women, enough technical sidenotes to fill another volume, and complicated plots firmly grounded in reality. Perhaps too complicated, because I constantly have to read over the previous pages again to know who is who and doing what and why (I still don’t quite get it). Other than that, “Ghost in the Shell” is a collection of short stories (I think) about Major Kusanagi, a touch female cyborg in charge of a crack squad of government special forces. And… yeah. People used to Western comics will like Shirow’s style – it’s pretty removed from the 10-second a page reading of many manga and much closer to Western comics. If you’ve seen the anime “Ghost in the Shell”, now you know where it comes from.

I can’t believe how busy I’ve been in the past 2 weeks. I don’t think I’ve ever been as busy when I’m doing “The Dreaming”, even though I’m just doing promotion work right now. I also have to work on vol2 for “The Dreaming”, as well as a plethora of other things NOT related to “The Dreaming”. For some bizarre reason, the most common reaction I have towards overwork is to take on MORE work. That said, perhaps I’m just stressing out because I’m juggling so many smaller things at once.

 

Buying Binge: I finally got the orders from Amazon – may I pipe in for 3 books I’ll recommend about manga, especially in regard to its history and diversity. This will help me write future essays, so that is fantastic – except that it’s more to add to my reading stack. These 3 books are “Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics” and “In Dreamland Japan”, both by Frederik L. Schodt, and which I read a while back. The information for these two are a tad outdated, especially considering Tezuka did the forward for the former, but they are still a valuable resource for people looking for a one-stop insight into manga AND especially its role in Japanese culture. I bought these book on discount, which explains the third book, by Paul Gravett, called “Manga, 60 years of Japanese Comics”. I have not read this book, and I admit I bought it off Amazon for the pretty pictures, but here’s hoping it will be as good a resource as the former two books.

 

Comics/Manga shopping list: I bought “Bizenghast” this week, and “Van Von Hunter” too. I also bought a volume of “Ghost in the Shell” by Shirow Masamune, because for some bizarre reason, I don’t own anything by Shirow, though he does fantastically complex art and murky political-thriller type stories. I adored AppleSeed (the anime anyway), so hopefully I can get back into Shirow again after a long absence. This is despite hearing from other sources that he’s gone bonkers lately and is concentrating almost solely on CG art. Ah well, as long as he draws well (meaning his technical drawings, not so much his nubile women).

I also bought the Chinese version of “Death Note”, which I WASN’T dying to read despite it being drawn by my favourite artist Takeshi Obata, but it was for $8.00, so why not. The best thing about Chinese version manga is that it’s print quality is great, but the price is about 60% of English manga. A matter of print runs, so you can’t fault Western companies for that. Now if you can get more people reading manga. I also bought a random volume of “Preacher” from Vertigo – looks good to read.

 

On CMX: After my blabber on CMX in the last post, Love Manga had a different opinion and it was a good one.

This again is one of the things I think that CMX could succeed at. A handful of their titles are not modern works, and their wanting to pick good Manga from previous decades is a specialised niche to fill. In my case where I like to have as many options open to me as possible when it comes to picking my Manga, seeing past titles available is extremely cheering. Whilst that is a little black and white view of licensing, I would like to applaud CMX’s willingness to do this amongst all the less then happy press they have received, justly too.

Good point. I was looking at CMX purely from a money-making point of view, as was the article I read, so I didn’t take into account the historical value of what CMX is selling. I can’t speak for the other titles, but From Eroica with Love IS a seminal shounen-ai work, so the fact that someone providing a throwback to earlier manga is definately not a bad thing. They may not make as much money as the other companies, but perhaps that’s not their goal. If this is the route CMX has chosen, then I’m really surprised, but not ungrateful. But then again, I’m only speculating – but talking about older manga, you’ve gotten me interested. There is SO much good stuff in the older manga stables that would SOOOOO both worth translating. More of Tezuka’s work is a good start – there’s already his seminal works, but I really want to see Hyakkimaru, one of my favourite Tezuka heroes. Not his best work, but I LIKE Hyakkimaru. How about Doraemon, or Sazae-san, or even Tetsujin-28? Any more Leiji Mastumoto… especially Galaxy Express 999? When are we going to see “Candy Candy” by the way, which I love, and “Rose of Versailles” and other works by the Magnificent 49s? Now if only someone would translate “The Heart of Thomas” and “The Song of Wind and Trees” as well, at least in relation to the shounen-ai genre.

 

Artwork: I did a pic of Amber for “The Dreaming”, and an Opera Singer pic is required for the art exhibition coming up for Electrofringe next month. I’ll be posting the opera singer pic by stage, to see the progression of colour *weeps*, so watch this space.

I couldn’t resist posting up all these bits and pieces of news today. There’s alot of work that needs to be done, but ofcourse I’m online scanning article headlines. What will we all do without the Internet? I’m also working on a Block 6 page – or I’m SUPPOSED to be working on one, but instead ended up contemplating The Meaning of Life. Here we go again…

 

Article on CMX: For those paying attention to CMX’s misadventures in the manga market, there is a new article detailing the successes and failures of the manga market. It’s analysis of CMX is pretty good, and I can understand the author’s frustration. A few entries ago I posted up a brief essay on the direct market and the manga market, namely on the cluelessness of the Big Two to come up with any valid response to manga. But ofcourse, I’d completely forgotten about the CMX label from DC, which IS an actual attempt by one of the big ones in the manga market. So you can’t fault them for trying – though you can fault them again for their cluelessness.

If it weren’t for this article, I would have completely forgotten CMX existed, if it weren’t for the Tenjho Tenge fiasco. Their CMX line of manga has failed to make any big splashes, despite being backed by DC (and therefore Warner Bros). It’s not necessarily because they’re releasing bad work, though perhaps the reasons for this is related to my essay on the J-pop culture community. You can’t discount the power of anime and fan-community tie-ins when it comes to moving volumes of manga, and currently none of their works released has the associated paraphernalia that accompanies alot of manga series. It’s harder to appeal to the casual manga fans without it, and if you were to appeal to the hardcore manga fans, you will have to be hanging around scanslation sites to know what the fans are reading (not what CMX has put out). And if you want to appeal to the normal bookstore browsers, then you’ll need a huge, smart marketing campaign. Currently, CMX doesn’t seem to have that either.

But perhaps the releases of CMX seems to point to another problem with the growing manga market – the shrinking pool of good manga in Japan available for translation. The article mentions Viz and Del Ray (aka Random House), and the fact that they’re aligned with Japanese publishing giants. Good move. Certainly being affiliated with a giant publisher will ensure you get the cream of the crop that publisher has to offer – namely work that has a fanbase already and several anime/game tie-ins. Who is CMX associated with? No one, as far as I’m aware; but with DC and Warner Bros behind them, striking a deal certainly can’t be difficult.

Perhaps the lack of a deal itself says something – that DC/Warner Bros isn’t fully committing themselves to publishing manga. That they’re only testing the waters and toying with the idea, to see how things go. Well, if this is the case, then it’s an approach bound to fail. There are already alot companies in the manga market, many with better reputations and contacts than CMX. If CMX wants to be a serious competitor, then not only will it have to throw its full weight behind its manga releases, but DC and Warner will have to as well. And right now it doesn’t seem to be happening.

The author of the article is right to be frustrated. There ARE alot of resources CMX has that aren’t being used, or used properly.

Through Love Manga, here’s another 2 articles about Manga written from a Direct Market perspective (read: Superheroes/Western Comics), called The Growing Manga Threat, and The Growing Manga Opportunity. I always like reading these articles (and writing them), as I find them fun and informative, but I had alot of thoughts on the perspective the writer had on the success of manga in the US. You’ll have to read the article to see where my reply comes into it, but BOY do I have alot to say.

To be honest, the ignorance of the Western comics market when it comes to “What Makes Manga Sells” can really baffle me. There’s no doubt these people are well-meaning, and generally wishing to emulate manga’s success, but sometimes they seem to miss the mark completely. When speaking about the differences between manga and comics, it’s easy enough to point out the story-telling, and the emphasis on cinematic emotion (most articles do that), but personally I believe in terms of MARKETS, the differences run even deeper than that. I’m not the first one to suggest there is something FUNDAMENTALLY WRONG with the Western comics market (dominated by the spandex brigade), but perhaps I can outline why the US superhero market and the US manga market don’t even exist in the same universe. In fact, these two universes aren’t even structured in the same way.

 

Here’s what I wrote in reply to the articles:

 

Nice article. But to be honest, a bit incomplete when you look at the attraction of manga to the average teen.

First of all, alot of the current manga fandom came through to manga by way of other mediums – namely the anime and the gaming communities. The real trouble with people in DC and Marvel besides their cluelessness about what makes manga sell, is that they assume that most manga fans came to manga out of the blue. No, they didn’t. Many of them were submerged in other aspects of Japanese popular culture before they came onto manga (and stayed there). The whole “manga” phenomenon is not a standalone thing – it’s in actually an entire popular culture juggernaut that comprises anime, gaming, J-Pop, fan-arts and doujinshi, fashion culture, and so on. It’s so large that you can’t even call it a “sub-culture”, because it’s multi-faceted, and is basically importing the entire popular culture of another country.

You can see why alot of these manga fans have zero interest in stuff like Batman and X-men; especially the casual readers. Generally speaking, the US comics industry doesn’t come with half of the accessories and diversified fan communities that manga does. You like a particular manga? You can go check out the anime and games for starters, and these two communities are large enough and separate enough from the hard-core manga readers to be counted as completely different communities. An then you have the doujinshi market, and the cosplayers, who are also large enough to count as separate communities. What manga-fandom really is, is a part of a much larger group of interlinked communities with cross-over interests.

It certainly beats the Direct Market scene, where it’s mostly the same names, the same people and the same product being tossed around. Deja vu abounds when you keep seeing the same people over and over again – the community itself becomes closed as it only has ONE inlet for people to get into it. Whereas the Japan pop culture community has dozens.

I sometimes wonder whether US Comics will go the same route as the Hong Kong market – who 20 years ago was flooded by cheaper Japanese manga. They survived, but now thrives in a small niche, so it’s not as if manga killed Hong Kong comics off. However, HK comics sells nowhere near what manga sells, and looking at it, it probably never will. 

 

I enjoy reading indy comics, but you know what? I NEVER read superhero comics. It’s not for lack of trying. Perhaps here’s a good chance to explain why some rabid manga fans (aka me), will never touch superheroes with a 10-foot pole. No matter how bishounen Batman looks, or how manga-ish the story-telling of the X-men gets, I WILL NOT read superhero comics.

Before I sound like a snob, there is a very simple reason why I don’t read superhero comics. I DON’T LIKE the superhero genre. Just like I DON’T LIKE the manga sports genres. You can’t pay me to read a sports manga, in the same way you can’t pay me to read superheroes. There are exceptions ofcourse, such as “Slam Dunk” in the sports genre, and “Watchmen” in the superhero genre, but I read both not because of their genres, but because they manage to TRANSCEND their genres and be more about their characters than about what that genre dictates them to be doing. Other than that, there aren’t many exceptions. I hate the whole Japanese “sports philosophy” thing that underlies sports manga, and I hate the whole “vigilantes in spandex” thing that underlies superhero comics. Quite frankly, no matter how you package these two pet peeves, I still won’t like it because it’s the UNDERLYING STRUCTURE of the genre that annoys me, not even any of the content.

Perhaps that pretty much points out the deficiencies of the dominant superhero genre in Western comics. The indies are doing fine, but let’s face it, superheroes is a SINGLE GENRE, and one that alot of people find too idiotic to spend more than 2 hours at the movies on. No matter how you re-package Superman, there are always going to be people who think that masked vigilantes with superpowers is the most stupid concept they’ve ever heard of. It’s harsh, but superheroes thrived in a world that was more simpler, and more naive – NOT the world we live in today. Perhaps it’s time for expansions into completely different GENRE. I don’t know what strategy DC and Marvel have in mind, but I do hope they succeed, for the sake of the Comics World.