Some thoughts on some recent comics

[laughing_tree]

These aren't reviews.



Astro City #38, by Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson. None of what I'm about to write is a complaint because this is still a great series, but... does anyone else feels like ASTRO CITY's strayed somewhat from what made it unique? The premise of the series was always a surprisingly difficult one to accurately explain, but I think the best description was one Busiek used once: ASTRO CITY is a superhero comic that treats superhero adventures the way many movies set during wartime treat the actual warfare, i.e. that stuff serves as the emotional backdrop, but we don't really care about the battlefield maneuvers or combat strategies or whatnot.

I feel that this description doesn't really fit some of the issues of the latest volume, though. The Honor Guard members' solo issues are what jump to mind most immediately as examples, and the latest issues sort of count too. They're regular superhero adventures, at least to my eye. Very well-written, very enjoyable superhero adventures, and often carrying a strong emotional core, but still just regular superhero adventures. You could imagine similar stories popping up in the Big Two's superhero lines, which is not something that could have been said for the stories of the earlier AC volumes, I feel.





Scarlet Witch #10, by James Robinson and Kei Zama. When the 90s JSA run began (the one that made the team more popular than ever), they made a big deal about how Dr. Fate had expanded his mystical repertoire, becoming a much more cosmopolitan magician who now knew spells and techniques from cultures all over the world. He'd vocalize some Mayan enchantment while amplifying its effects with some voodoo hand gestures or whatever. This was almost immediately dropped, however. I'm willing to bet that's because the idea was mainly James Robinson's baby -- he co-wrote the first JSA arc before having to drop out -- seeing as how the Scarlet Witch does the exact same kind of thing in her own book these days.

This issue's artist, Kei Zama, has a very noticeable manga influence in her art, which I suppose is fitting given the Japanese setting. Anyway, it's gotten me wondering something that maybe the big-time manga fans hereabouts can answer: Would it be accurate to say there's more diversity in art styles in American comics than in Japanese ones? Or does it only seem that way to me because only a fraction of manga gets translated to English?

Comments

[mizerous]

There is a different not just between the styles of comics and manga, but in general several different kinds of manga look different. You have your usual Shounen stuff like DBZ, Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece. Then you have something like Attack on Titan which has a very different style, and then something like Hunter X Hunter also has a unique flair.

[laughing_tree]

I'm aware of that. But which comics culture has the greater diversity, is my question? Though I suppose it would be better to frame it as Anglo comics vs. manga than American vs. manga. I mean, the British and American talent pools pretty much blend together.

[janegray]

Would it be accurate to say there's more diversity in art styles in American comics than in Japanese ones?

My very personal opinion.

Absolutely not.

There is A LOT of awesome variety in both manga and American comics. Both mediums have their geniuses, both can be incredibly creative and inspiring with great differences and unique points.

But it's my very personal opinion that manga is definitely more prone to experimenting with new styles, and artists are strongly encouraged to develop a "personal" brand rather than working towards some objective perfection.

For example, Akira Toriyama's art is not particularly beautiful, but it might as well be trademarked. You can recognize it instantly, whether it's on Dragon Ball or Dragon Quest or Chrono Trigger. And manga artists try to create their own unique brand when they draw, rather than "just" creating something that looks beautiful. So we end up with MASSIVELY different art styles. Examples:

-Dragon Ball http://fotos.subefotos.com/0dacdea65c0f202f6bde423e3ebda4c1o.jpg
http://harry.buttle.free.fr/wp-content/uploads/DBZ_manga_over8000.jpg

-One Piece
https://d2m2lkhawsaq1u.cloudfront.net/uploads/trial/one-piece-1693039_1418082682.jpg
http://onepiecegt.it/files/gallerie/utenti/usr-4288/Be%20happy%20One%20Piece.jpg
http://13thdimension.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/one_piece.jpg

-Soul Eater
https://animereporter.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/soul-eater-manga-volumes-21_22-6-crona-maka.png
http://i8.mangareader.net/soul-eater/112/soul-eater-4305761.jpg
https://s-media-cache-http://cdn.mangaeden.com/mangasimg/20/20ad2858c2425004d0afb7abfd84334536e417871decc9c878fa77ab.jpg
http://i4.mangareader.net/soul-eater/107/soul-eater-3910093.jpg

-A Bride's Story
http://40.media.tumblr.com/95a4ee2fb68f22ee6e64eb0850ace1cf/tumblr_nxmghsXJXT1ul88h3o10_1280.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-opUFp5TBD8E/Uv-CyLWO4CI/AAAAAAAAVBQ/EUOpAcG6ceo/s1600/tumblr_n0nbi2PtLd1rja04io2_1280.jpg
(NSFW) http://67.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m780sbUZlO1rxh8ilo1_1280.jpg

-Ushio & Tora
http://i9.mangareader.net/ushio-and-tora/103/ushio-and-tora-1208362.jpg
http://pm1.narvii.com/5804/63959582a2dd22679433e95ce396d752ac126b00_hq.jpg
http://i4.mangareader.net/ushio-and-tora/134/ushio-and-tora-1293828.jpg

-Fullmetal Alchemist
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OSn8Mke5c4M/TmVMoCP-ubI/AAAAAAAABdc/m1GU-H7ouAY/001.png?imgmax=3000
http://img02.deviantart.net/64b0/i/2005/331/c/c/fma___manga_pages_74_75_by_kasichan.jpg

-Rayearth
http://i10.mangareader.net/magic-knight-rayearth/1/magic-knight-rayearth-2374347.jpg
http://triplecrit.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/magic-knight-rayearth-23744051.jpg
http://i7.mangapanda.com/magic-knight-rayearth/1/magic-knight-rayearth-2374291.jpg

-Sailor Moon
http://i4.mangapanda.com/bishoujo-senshi-sailor-moon/10/bishoujo-senshi-sailor-moon-1045442.jpg
http://i10.mangareader.net/bishoujo-senshi-sailor-moon/2/bishoujo-senshi-sailor-moon-1045109.jpg

-Death Note
http://www.deathnote.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/death-note-manga-048.jpg
http://www.moveoramag.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/019.png
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/deathnote/images/6/69/Polar_bear_3000.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110121135440

-Slam Dunk
https://d2m2lkhawsaq1u.cloudfront.net/uploads/trial/slam_dunk_v31_c275_140-141_1418107788.jpg
http://i5.mangapanda.com/slam-dunk/262/slam-dunk-130220.jpg

-Detective Conan
http://www.geocities.ws/detective_shidzuka/Images/sc_4.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/XIlvfBH.jpg

-Touch
https://animetics.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/touch-15-1.jpg
http://i7.mangareader.net/touch/10/touch-1663686.jpg

-Berserk
http://i3.mangareader.net/berserk/13/berserk-26454.jpg
http://orig11.deviantart.net/0ffd/f/2012/147/6/3/berserk_manga_by_lalykiasca-d51abvh.jpg

-One Punch Man
http://www.mangiatoridicervello.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/OPM01.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/01/af/f8/01aff8663941861654a116d6526f97b8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/z4f8H.png

-Hellsing
http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/hellsing/images/8/8e/The-captain-hellsing-manga-hellsing-8860531-600-716.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100701151124
http://i7.mangareader.net/hellsing/13/hellsing-317907.jpg
http://i2.mangareader.net/hellsing/6/hellsing-1613556.jpg

-Video Girl Ai
http://i8.mangareader.net/video-girl-ai/31/video-girl-ai-429970.jpg
http://m2.paperblog.com/i/104/1045564/come-e-nata-una-passione4-masakazu-katsura-vi-L-cnNj0P.jpeg
http://i2.wp.com/c4comic.it/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/vga.jpg

-Devil Man
http://img03.deviantart.net/77b9/i/2006/086/f/e/go_nagai__devilman_manga_by_d_matsuyama.jpg
http://i5.mangareader.net/devilman/5/devilman-2214797.jpg

-From Eroica With Love
http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/nomadicwriter/859310/147587/147587_original.gif
http://www.narbonic.com/eroica_makeout.jpg


And I can think of many others, but I'd better stop now before even just the links count as spam :P

Point is, while there certainly are many differences in the many different styles in American comics (just think of how completely different Amanda Conner and John Romita are), manga definitely has got them beat.

[locuatico]

I always felt a key difference between the two is that, in American comics, it is like a photo of a photo in which everything is still. For lack of a better term, there is no "movement" from the characters. Manga, on the other hand, I feel does a better job at giving a sense of "movement" to the characters.

[janegray]

I mostly agree with that. But I think part of the issue is that it's just much more difficult to give a sense of movement to coloured pictures. The "movement" lines, which look great and natural in black&white, would look very weird in colour; whereas blurry borders would probably not be possible at all.

Like, this picture:

http://i5.mangapanda.com/slam-dunk/262/slam-dunk-130220.jpg

How the heck would you colour it to preserve the sense of speed?

[leoboiko]

Coming from a manga background, I've always thought that American comics should use more b&w.

[laughing_tree]

First of all, thank you for that very comprehensive response.

Hmm, I was already aware of most of those works you linked to. See, to my eye, they *don't* strike me as more differentiated than American comic art. To clarify, I think it's very possible there's more diversity *on average* in manga; in American comics, there are an awful lot of Jim Lee clones who draw in that ubiquitous style. But I meant that there's a greater possible range in American comics, or at least so it feels to me.

Thinking about it, part of it is just the presence of color, which creates a whole other field for stylistic variation to take. But even aside from that, to pull a few examples, I feel there's greater difference between Colleen Coover and Bill Sienkiewicz and Mike Mignola than there is between the examples you listed.

[informationgeek]

Color could be that, but here's a few other examples of different series and different art styles. Here's links to some other series, a lot links going to free previews:

Children of the Sea by Daisuke Igarashi

Cat Eyed Boy by Kazuo Umezu

Gente by Natsume Ono

Sunny by Taiyo Matsumoto

20th Century Boys by Naoki Urasawa (no preview, just a double page spread

Vagabond by Takehiko Inoue (another double page spread)

I'll Give It My All... Tomorrow by Shunju Aono

Goodnight Punpun by Inio Asano (this is a link to a post I do since the free preview you have to sign up for on Viz)

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure by Hirohiko Araki

These series should definitely show you a greater difference between artists. There's also Junji Ito I could bring up, but his work is around here on SD a lot anyways, so I'm sure you've seen his stuff.

[laughing_tree]

Thanks for the links! Definitely a great lot of variation there. But the same level of variation as between, say, Humberto Ramos and John Paul Leon? I still don't think so, but then this sort of thing is subjective.

[informationgeek]

To each their own, but I think there's great variation between a lot of these artists, like between of Ono and Inoue and Matsumoto. Just the way they convey a scene, the amount of detail in each panel, how the characters are drawn, the mood, the angles, and such. I just can't see how someone couldn't see the variation between them. Heck, throw in the creator of the Manga Me and the Devil Blues as well.

Now, if you couldn't see the variation in Shojo artists, that's very understandable.

[laughing_tree]

Hey hey now, don't misunderstand me. I even said there was "a great lot of variation there."

[informationgeek]

My apologizes.

But anyhow, I do recommend most of those titles for reading, especially Goodnight Punpun and Children of the Sea. Given the series you post about and mention liking in the past, those two would be up your alley. Give the free previews a full read through.

[janegray]

I think the problem with shoujo is that, along with yaoi/shounen-ai, it's pretty much the one manga genre that encourages the pursuit of some (extremely biased) "objective" standard of beauty. Other genres are like "yo, go crazy!" while shoujo is like "must be ~pretty~."

For example, take the manga FAKE. The original series had a fairly distinctive style that I really loved.

(Somewhat NSFW)
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WvSLvAtqEQk/TeAGQiQ_ieI/AAAAAAAAADY/BGVBIKWslww/s1600/fake_v3_062.jpg
http://manganel.com/chapter/fake/chapter_3
http://www.mangahere.co/manga/fake/v07/c020/8.html
https://cdn.mangaeden.com/mangasimg/600x/01/017e565978f086f86dc5f87b33f510b3566fb0834fbb905aa3d2551d.jpg

Then the author decided to make a sequel, which looks like this:

https://cdn.mangaeden.com/mangasimg/600x/07/0759486947bb914dedd77bd9017d2e82af20ee69ecc34b4cf2aa5e62.jpg
http://cdn.mangaeden.com/mangasimg/600x/25/2588ee36840477314c4a6ee751754c2d80aa73802a0c12e202257a6c.jpg

She basically purged everything unique and interesting about her art, turning it bland as everybody else. And people called it an improvement. I've seen so many comments along the lines of "I didn't like the art in FAKE before, it was so ugly, but now it's much prettier!"

Shoujo & Company are weighed down by the same thing that causes Disney villains to have incredibly different and unique designs while Disney heroines all look similar (the recent CG 3D ones in particular look almost exactly the same). Stuff aimed at girls is put in a small neat box and expected to remain in it.

That said, shoujo still manages to have some variety. Compare and contrast Nana with Rayearth.

And as Laughing Tree pointed out, this sort of thing is subjective anyway. If you ask me, the variation between, say, One Piece and Vagabond is MUCH greater than the variation between Humberto Ramos and JPL, to the point that I'm honestly confused anybody would think otherwise.

That's probably because I grew up reading manga and watching anime since I was a child. One of my earliest memories of watching television is a scene from Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water when I was 5, and then a few years later the teen next door told me that I could use him as a library and he let me read the hundreds of manga in his collection. Whereas I only started reading American comics in my mid-teens, and even then I stuck to current mainstream stories only because I had no way to buy or borrow older issues or niche issues. So I'm far more attuned to the details of manga; I'd make a wild guess that for Laughing Tree it probably was the opposite. So I suppose it's possible that a huge fan of shoujo would clearly see differences I don't even notice.

[sarahnewlin]

I really love Scarlet Witch. :)

Here she isn't going insane, or being used as a pawn, being yelled at and criticized, or wasted.

Plus the magic

[leoboiko]

I like this run, but this particular chapter was tremendously embarrassing for anyone who knows Japanese. I can only imagine what it feels like to an actual Japanese person.

[laughing_tree]

Now I'm curious what you mean. You'd think Zama would have pointed out any errors to the rest of the creative team.

[leoboiko]

They're not exactly errors, just… complete and total tone-deafness. Like, the old wisened Oriental master is drawing the character for "death" ominously… except the character he draws is a printed block shape, of the kind a schoolkid might learn on their first day at calligraphic school (any calligrapher worth their salt would use cursive, or expressionist bokuseki, or something). Then we learn the Japanese counterpart to Scarlet Witch is called the………Aoi Master, and I just want to bury myself in a hole. Aoi Master. Leaving aside the fact that "Aoi" doesn't just mean "blue" but also "green" – n.b.: including the "inexperienced" nuance – it just sounds so… it's as if the Scarlet Witch was called the Red Gal, you know? We don't even get a seiji ("celadon") or hanada ("light indigo") or anything – there's a frigging wikipedia article – but just the traffic-light color, aoi? And Aoi Master, even?

And his real name is Hiroshi Tanaka, which is more or less the same as saying Master Greenie's name is Jack Smith. The same goes for the other character names; the whole thing reads like something scrapped together from a dictionary. Then during the battle the Witch says Jōka suru… how can I express this? It's literally "to purify" in the most noncommittal possible way. In a language as rich as Japanese is with imperatives and classicisms and multiple levels of social and mood markers, with the expressiveness of highly dynamic manga language as a template, to brush aside all that and cite the dictionary form is more or less like reciting the abstract infinitive verb "to purify" in a classroom monotone. And then there's a "pact" with a "demon" oni. And then she purifies the demon—we're in the country of shintō, we're in the country of harae and misogi and demon-expelling sutras and dances and yamabushi kujikiri gestures and onmyō sorcery rituals, there's like an entire buffet of supernatural to chose from, including specifically water-purifying rituals, and she makes holy water by the incredible powers of… JAPANESE SHIRO MAHŌ (=absolutely the most pedestrian way of saying literally "white magic") (-__________-)

And all of that is wrapped in the worst excesses of orientalism – gratuitous exoticization – from the "Japan is old and new" clicheted bullshit (please realize I hate swearwords, but I'll allow myself an exception for this specific king-of-clichés right now – I swear the next person who mutters something about Japan being a magical interweaving of tradition and modernity next to me will be whacked by all six volumes of the Cambridge History of Japan) to the unsourced haiku typeset in some completely ridiculous generic "Asian" font. Overall I'm just glad this filler story is over and we can get back to the main plot.

[mizerous]

...But Japan is a magical interweaving of tradition and modernity. :V

*Covers head with arms*

[leoboiko]

Well… what can I say… it is. You walk around Japan, you'll see old-fashioned buildings and centuries-old traditions living side-by-side with the latest gadgets from the modern age. Japan mixes old and new… just like every other place on planet Earth (save, perhaps, certain hunter-gatherer tribes who have managed to stay away from industrialization). We're all living in modernity. And we all walk in the shadows of history.

The exoticizing tone people take when talking about Asia would be like me traveling to America, writing a narrative about it, and stopping the plot to writ "poetical" like this:

Ah, The United States. Home to those fascinating, mysterious. exotic clear-eyed Americans, who lead their lives seamlessly mixing modernity with tradition, without bating an eye: ancient rituals from Jewish desert tribes somehow coexist happily with electric Tesla cars and self-driving Google vans; mythical figures like the Founding Fathers or Indian warrior-chiefs are printed and pasted and enacted everywhere, from serious arguments in the information superhighway to cartoons to Superbowl mascots; witch-cult pumpkins turn into Starbucks lattes, seventeenth-century Quaker temples stand side-by-side with Apple stores on Queens… yes, these are the United States.

Except everyone talks like this every single time in every story about America ever, and by the 500th time you've heard it, you start wishing you could just make everyone live abroad 10 years to demistify other cultures and make everyone realize our shared humanity.

[laughing_tree]

Wanda's comments are in the story are explicitly about just Kyoto, not Japan as a whole. You'll know more about it than me, but my understanding is that Kyoto is well-known for its strong ties to tradition.

[leoboiko]

The city is particularly historically relevant, yes, (and in all honesty it's the prettiest place I've ever seen); but it's just the same problem in microcosm. I used America as an example, but you can easily imagine similar mystifications for Rome or Istambul or Athens or Cambridge or Boston. Recall that this is a character living in 21st-century Kyoto who regrets dying without tasting a hamburger.

[laughing_tree]

What he says is he's never eaten an American burger, which would imply he has eaten burgers before because otherwise there would be no need for the adjective.

[leoboiko]

Isn't any less exoticizing. I live in a third-world country and there's a place with "authentic American burguers" not twenty minutes from here. But let's assume, for the sake of argument, that McDonald's and other American chains don't count as "American hamburguers" for some reason unless eaten on American soil (even though they're standardized). How exotic could an America trip be to a modern, wealthy Kyoto-residing Japanese citizen? In 2015 alone some 16 million Japanese traveled abroad – about one in every seven of the total population, in a single year.

[laughing_tree]

I don't think chains are generally what people mean when talking about eating authentic local cuisine, no.

He also talks about never getting around to reading War and Peace. I don't think it's necessarily a lack of *opportunity* he's lamenting.

Oh, and since I was remiss to not mention this earlier, thank you for the informative post about the Japanese language.