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.

I got interviewed an interview up by Park and Barb at Silver Bullet Comics and it’s new sister site, Manga Life. Manga Life is going to be a news site much in the vein of Silver Bullet Comics, but concentrating on manga (ofcourse). The interviews are near-identical, with the Manga Life one being editted and with additional graphics, while the extended version is at The Park & Barb Show. For those who don’t know, Barbara writes Gun Street Girl for Graphic Smash, which those who like action with a supernatural twist should check out, and she and Park have a regular column at Silver Bullet Comics and now Manga Life. Manga Life is looking for a news hound, so if you’re it then checkout the site and contact the webmaster. Meanwhile, I’m intending to do some articles on manga for Manga Life, and maybe write a bi-weekly column on manga and/or anything else that is relevant. Since I like to write ham-fisted essays so much.

 

Donation News: Greenpeace it is. Save the Earth. My Taoist sensibilities won in the end over my humanitarian impulses. Not saying that World Vision doesn’t deserve money – but just next time I get my payouts.

 

New Manga Publisher: Checkout GoComi – a new manga publisher, who also did a US-Japan collaboration effort called “The Almost Legendary Shannon”. Gotta love anything to do with the Excalibur. After Seven Seas Entertainment, this can only bode well for the non-Japanese manga industry. Interestingly enough, it’s established by the same person, aka Jake Forbes, that was a former senior editor at TokyoPop. The work itself is the brainchild of Audrey Taylor and David Wise. More stuff to buy!

Yay! Chapter 4 inking is complete!! Now I either start toning chapter 3 or start inking chapter 5.

 

But first: Wirepop: Papercuts!!. It’s an anthology collection by Wirepop.com artist, including myself, which will be on sale at Anime Boston and online thereafter. I contributed a 10-page story called “Ten Years Ago Today”, which is currently on my site, but I’ll be VERY happy if you’d pay US$7 + shipping to buy the anthology. Because the other works are by very talented artists and writers, and US$7 for 96 pages is a BARGAIN.

 

Manga as a Loan Word
Last time I got bogged down in the history of the words, but this time I get to side-step the history and get straight to the point. And the point is: to explore how the word “manga” is being used in English-speaking countries. In the mainstream at least, it’s not difficult to track; the word “manga” has only very recently began to seep from the anime subculture into mainstream consciousness.

Now, “manga” in English is ofcourse a loan word. A loan word is a word borrowed from another culture to fill a conceptual gap within the “host” culture. English itself already abounds with loan words, as does Japanese – The word “anime” is loaned from French, as is the term for apartment block: “Maison”. Clearly, loan words are an important way of introducing foreign concepts, and plays a pivotal role in diffusing new ideas across cultures and continents. If a loan word is used enough in a culture and language, then you can say the once-foreign word and concept has become part of that culture, and the culture reacts to it no longer as an alien idea, but as a home-grown products. “Manga” hasn’t reached that stage yet, but there are already things in motion that will, for better or worse, integrate it into English-speaking cultures.

 

Manga as a Marketing Tool!
It’s inescapable that the first thing to happen to the word “manga” is for it to be seized upon as a marketing tool. It’s the hyper-commercialised world we live in – not only is “manga” touted around as if it were marketing gold, but the word is often used in connections with things that clearly AREN’T manga. Manga Entertainment used it to sell anime, and the stampede by publishers to release books claiming to teach you “How to Draw Manga” which DON’T tell you how to draw manga is prime example of this. Not only do ordinary consumers confuse manga with anime, but they have been led to believe that the term “manga” refers to a style or drawing, when in fact the word simply means “comics” in Japanese.

The confusion around the term “manga” created a situation where people believed “manga” referred to the “big-eyed, small-mouthed, large-chested mult-coloured hair schoolgirls” stereotype that still pervades despite the invasion of REAL manga into bookstores. That many manga didn’t have such things is somewhat lost, since the stereotype is self-perpetuated by the type of manga companies choose to release in America and much of the English-speaking world. Most of them are aimed at teenagers, who DO tend to have this stylistic look to it, which perpetuates the belief that manga = big eyes. The perception hasn’t been helped by the contrasts between the traditional superhero comics and manga – manga looks so different and stylised to the realistically-drawn superheroes that people can’t help but accentuate the differences. Luckily, more and more companies are diversifying in the titles they choose to release, so the big-eyed stereotype is diminishing and will probably be rendered moot over time, with people concentrating on genre and story-telling instead to differentiate it from “comics”.

 

Semantics Semantics
Instead, a new debate rages over the Internet over the use of the word “Manga”. The crux of the debate is this: since “manga” is a Japanese word, shouldn’t it ONLY be used to describe sequential art drawn by the Japanese, and not by any other culture? You have “manhua” by Koreans, “manwha” by the Chinese, and “comics” by the Americans – point being, since there is an equivalent word in English, we shouldn’t be borrowing words from another culture when we already have one. Therefore, an “American manga” is a non-existent concept, because “manga” is Japanese and to call something American-made “manga” is ignorant at best and sacriligious at worst. Or so the argument goes.

I’ve never paid much attention to such arguments, largely because it’s nullified by the fact that the Japanese often call their manga “comics”. Many Japanese department stores have “comikkus” signs, largely because it’s cool to use English in Japan and they could care less about linguistic purity. People in Hong Kong also sometimes call their manwha “comics” – though in this instance it seems to be because the world is getting smaller and people switching from one language to another is common. Obviously, while some people maintain that the wording must be correct, globalisation tends to just steamroll over these instances as the speed at which cultural concepts migrate from one culture to another. Clearly, the hybrid creature that is emerging from the mixing of styles globally means that you can only maintain the “manga”/”comics” battle for so long before pop culture decides for you.

What is perhaps more interesting is whether the word “comics” will impact negatively on the sales of English-language produced manga. While I may be exaggerating here, there is no denying that the word “comics”, as mentioned in my previous post, carries a certain stigma. It conjures up images of adolescent boys absorbed in testosterone-fuelled stories, and despite the best efforts of independent comics, can’t seem to shake that image. In that sense, perhaps it may be better to use an unfamiliar word to refer to this new breed of manga-ised comics, simply because “manga” has less negative connotations attached to it (however, the manga stereotype of big-eyed porn still persists amongst people who saw the Urostsukidoji anime in 1998 and is still mired in their preconceptions).

It is still too early to decide what role the word “manga” will play in the English-speaking world. Will it exist side-by-side with the word “comics”; two words to refer to the same conceptual thing, but referring to different stylistic schools? Or will it refer to a certain type of story, whereas the word “comics” will become associated ONLY with superheroes and 4-panel newspaper strips? One thing is certain: it’s a word that is here to stay, as it describes something that has no precedent in English-speaking cultures; so even if it ends up circling the fringes of mainstream culture, it is bound to remain there. Only time will tell how influential it will be.