Recently, Rivkah (who does Steady Beat for TokyoPop), wrote an interesting essay on what the word “manga” means, in comparison to American “comics”, and how the two differs. It was a great read, and it inspired me enough to write up my own thoughts, though on a different (but related) topic. My interest is in how the word “manga” and “comics” mean different things in their respective countries. It’s very long, but it’s because of the history segments. 😐
A Brief History of the Word “Manga”
Manga, as we all know, is a Japanese word that means “irresponsible pictures” when taken literally. It is composed of 2 Chinese words, the word “lax” and the word “picture”. The term was popularised, though not invented, by the famous wood block artist Hokusai to describe the Japanese tradition of comical and whimsical drawings. Exactly when it was first used to describe what is regarded as manga TODAY is unknown, since what was known as “manga” in Japan in the 18th century refers to someone quite different than what we read in the 21st Century. Nevertheless, the linkage of the word “manga” with what we are familiar with today can be traced directly back to one person.
Tezuka Osamu, known widely as the “God of Manga”, can be accredited for standardising the form of manga we are familiar with today. Up until Tezuka’s time, most “manga” consisted of two-dimensional stage plays, where a single panel will depict an event, and narration will forward the plot. What Tezuka did was introduce cinematic elements into it; he was influenced by the expressionistic French and German cinema movement, and by the early Disney and Max Fleisher cartoons. The combination had Tezuka create big-eyed, cartoony characters; framed by differing-sized panels that are strung together in a sequence to depict the passage of time. It is this manipulation of the reader’s sense of time and pacing that is Tezuka’s strong point – it made the strip appear much more cinematic and more filled with “action” than a traditional “manga” strip. Overnight, Tezuka’s breakout work “Treasure Island” sold 400,000 to a generation of post-war Japanese children.
Tezuka’s influences continued on. He began drawing more manga in different genres; experimenting with different storylines, themes and audiences. Autobiographies, horror, non-fiction, educational, adult; he expanded what the Japanese understood as “manga” and showed, above all, that it was a medium malleable to any sort of subject matter. Before Tezuka popularised Tetsuwan Atom, what was known as “manga” in Japan were single-paneled, two-dimensional stage plays depicting samurais or funny strips. After Tezuka, “manga” in Japan can be just about anything depicted in pictures and panels. In other words, the connotative meaning of the word “manga” in the Japanese language has changed.
Connative NS. Denotive
In any particular society, certain words have two levels of meaning to it when used. One level is the denotive meaning, which is the literal, dictionary definition of the word. The second level is the connotative meaning, which is any unspoken metaphorical baggage a word may carry when used in a certain context. While the denotive meaning of a word remains more of less fixed, the connotative meaning can be altered by time, geographic distribution, popular culture or the introduction of foreign concepts.
A prime example is the word “gay”. 60 years ago, “gay” meant happy in the dictionary, and was used as such. However, in the 70s, the word came be to associated with homosexuality, and while the denotive meaning of the word is still understood, the use of the word “gay” to refer to homosexuals has completely outstripped it’s previous meaning. Nowadays, the word “gay” is generally understood to refer to homosexuals – so much that the dictionary (aka denotive) definition of the word has changed. This is an example of popular culture coming full circle; a word being used in defiance of its original meaning, so much that it has changed the original meaning. And the word “gay” is still changing yet again – this time, to refer to matters of bad taste as well as homosexuality.
In the West
And thus, it has been demonstrated how a single man, through mass cultural influence, managed to alter the popular perceptions of a word in Japan. Tezuka, through his work, managed to expand what the word “manga” encompasses. It is then ironic that in the English-speaking world, the reverse took place. A single man managed to narrow what the word “comics” encompassed in English. A psychiatrist called Dr Frederick Wertham, who published a book in the 1950s called “Seduction of the Innocent”. It would be incorrect to say that Dr Wertham had the same amount of influence as Tezuka, because his legacy didn’t become apparent until decades later. However, the fallout from Dr Wertham’s work DID have profound impact on how American comics developed, and hence what the word “comics” mean to people in the 21st century.
A Brief History of the Word “Comics”
When the word “comics” came to be used in America is disputable, though scholars generally agree that the first true comic book was “The Yellow Kid”, in 1896. Note that this refers to the WORD “comics” in America only, and not to the art form in any other culture. Most of these were humourous, and due to the proliferation of cheap newspapers, became a staple of daily life. The family-oriented nature of the stories, as well as the talking animals, gave the medium the moniker comics. However, it wasn’t until the 1930s that the medium began to flourish – spurred by, surprisingly, the Depression.
The depression caused an explosion of cheap comic books, inspired partly by the emergence of movies as a form of entertainment. There was science-fiction in the form of “Flash Gordon”, hard-boiled detective fare ala “Dick Tracy”, adventure as in “The Phantom”, and others in their varied genres. However, the one most successful genre was the superheroes, which had Superman, Batman and Captain Marvel as their flagship sellers. The good VS evil stories struck a chord with audience anxieties during World War II, and it was during the 1940s that superheroes enjoyed their greatest success. After the war and the recovery of the economy came an expansion of genres, which at its infancy saw romance, horror, detective, sci-fi, teen comedy (Archie), children’s, adult and a plethora of different stories emerge. Some of these stories made their way to Japan and had some influence on later generations of manga artists. However, this rapidly growing industry was to have it’s ambitions cut short in the 1950s, when censorship and moral hysteria waded into the fray.
In the early 1950s, a psychiatrist called Dr Frederick Wertham observed that many juvenile delinquents read comic books. That many more ordinary people read comic books was lost on him, and he penned a book called “Seduction of the Innocent” linking delinquency to the reading of comics. His theory was that comic books were violent and sexual, and influencing the youth of the nation in a purely negative way. Suddenly, moral agitators concerned about the contents of comic books had an academic voice on their side. Mass burnings and bannings of comic books took place, and the comics industry was forced to form a self-regulatory code (Comics Code Authority) that censored “inappropriate” content in comics. The actions meant that alot of detective, horror, romance and sci-fi stories were killed off overnight; having their contents and themes reduced to a level “acceptable” to the censors. Only a few genres survived the purge: superheroes, and children’s genres.
That Dr Wertham’s book was influential was due less to the theory and more to the communist hysteria and sexual repression of the 1950s. The American 50s was in reality a censorship system waiting to happen; if not comics, then the movie industry. In any case, even though the Comics Code Authority has seen its influence reduced in the 70s, those two decades which were the dark ages of American comics profoundly changed the structure of the industry. By the time the medium reemerged in the late 1970s, it has seen catastrophic declines in sales, and publishers had all but lost interest in pushing the envelope. Superheroes and talking animals had become the dominating genre of American comics, which in the post-modern 80s, was seen not as inspiring but as moribund.
However, the decline American comics is as much due to to the 60s revolution as it is to the subject matter. In the 60s and 70s came the Vietnam War, psychedelic art, rock music, sexual freedom, women’s rights, television and the explosion of movies – things which were to have profound impact on American (and world) culture. Not only do these things compete for consumer’s spending dollars, but they intimately reflect the way the American people has changed in the mere space of 2 decades. When the comics industry reemerged into the late 1970s sunlight, it had missed the MOST important American cultural revolution in the 20th Century. The language and values of superheroes is still embedded in it’s World War II imagery of manly vigilants VS Nazi villains, and has not found much room to expand in this narrow context. If American comics were present as a cultural force in the 60s era, it would undoubtedly be as large and influential as any other element of American popular culture is today.
The Word “Comics” in the 21st Century
By the 90s, the word “comics” had become so attached to “superheroes” and “funny strips” that the two are used almost inexchangeably in everyday life. It has also become attached to a frightfully geeky stigma, that despite the latest “geek chic” high-tech revolution, hasn’t changed in its derogatory meaning. This is another example of the connotative meaning of a word having changed, this time to being overwhelmingly negative. All in all, the denotive meaning of the word “comics” hasn’t changed much in the 20th century, but it’s connotative associations has changed from neutral in the 1900s, to regular entertainment in the 1940s, to demonic influence in the 1950s, and to fringe fanboys in the late 90s.
Perhaps the pervasive influence of the word “comics” is most clearly seen in other English-speaking countries. Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand has very little of the same comics history that America has, yet the word “comics” in those countries carry the same derogatory meaning. This probably points more to the influence of American English than to American popular culture. Non-English-speaking countries like France, Italy and Spain have their own words for “comics”, and their native comic industries are very healthy (though under siege from manga). Certainly, reading “comics” in those cultures aren’t seen as embaressing – it is, however, interesting to note that the word “comics” refer overwhelming to superheroes in European countries as well.
End Part 1
I’ve wandered a bit in the course of this, and perhaps spent too much time talking about history. I’ve also not talked about how the word “manga” has changed in in it’s English context, which I’ll have to do in the second half of this essay. In fact, I can’t help wondering whether the word “comics” has become so stigmatised in the English-speaking world, that if you want to sell something to a wide audience you’re better off calling it anything but “comics”.
