Introducing the Manga forum

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I personally don't have anything to contribute, but here it is.

If anyone can point out existing manga threads or if a mod wants to go ahead and move them here, that would be great.
 
Ooooooh

I just thought of a delightful dilemma.

Where do you talk about Marvel Mangas? It's marvel yet It's manga :lol: I know someone else must of thought about this
 
Ooooooh

I just thought of a delightful dilemma.

Where do you talk about Marvel Mangas? It's marvel yet It's manga :lol: I know someone else must of thought about this
No matter what Marvel tells you, Mangaverse and Tsunami are NOT manga. End of story.

(That means they go under the Marvel section.)
 
And that's OK - it's one of those things that is big enough to support itself in time, unlike character-specific forums (i.e. Daredevil, Blade).

I was just kidding about Blade! I couldn't even make a whole thread about the guy, as much as his comic rules.

Tsunami and Mangaverse aren't manga, but Marvel has published Japanese Manga based on Spider-Man and the X-Men.
 
I was just kidding about Blade! I couldn't even make a whole thread about the guy, as much as his comic rules.

I know, I was just using it as an example because it was mentioned.
 
No matter what Marvel tells you, Mangaverse and Tsunami are NOT manga. End of story.

(That means they go under the Marvel section.)

I would say it is. Maybe not like other manga but I count it.
 
I would say it is. Maybe not like other manga but I count it.
No, it's not.

Just because Human Torch is drawn with all sorts of off-beat anime-style angles and just because Ben Dunn can make big Japanese pop culture stereotypes by turning the Hulk into a giant 'kaiju' monster and the Avengers form a giant robot tokusatsu-style, it doesn't mean that the comics they are featured in are 'manga'.

Manga is a mode of comics storytelling that is not quite UNIQUE to Japan, but CHARACTERISTIC of it --- the decompression of moments, the fragmentation of perspectives and the overall dispersal of character-building --- and as such reducing it to a certain set of art-styles and transposing them onto Western characters doesn't mean that those characters now inhabit a manga form.

This is NOT saying that manga can't be done by non-Japanese, but rather that attempts by the Western market to call their pocket-sized black and white comics with big-eyed characters 'manga' are delusional at best. As such, stuff like the Mangaverse and Tsunami are really just Western comics with a anime/manga inspired visual design.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. I can perfectly enjoy an American comic with big hair and speed lines, but a spade is a spade and manga is manga. If the American comics industry really want to emulate manga, then they'd do something more substantial than trying to redress their existing comics with visual tics.

I've written about this before: http://bentophysics.wordpress.com/2006/08/04/thinking-out-loud-even-a-gaijin-can-draw-manga/
 
No, it's not.
Yes, it is.

Manga is a mode of comics storytelling that is not quite UNIQUE to Japan, but CHARACTERISTIC of it --- the decompression of moments, the fragmentation of perspectives and the overall dispersal of character-building --- and as such reducing it to a certain set of art-styles and transposing them onto Western characters doesn't mean that those characters now inhabit a manga form.
This is 100% accurate and perfectly defines what should be called manga. I won't dispute this point but...

This is NOT saying that manga can't be done by non-Japanese, but rather that attempts by the Western market to call their pocket-sized black and white comics with big-eyed characters 'manga' are delusional at best. As such, stuff like the Mangaverse and Tsunami are really just Western comics with a anime/manga inspired visual design.
I whole-heartedly DISagree with this.

It's just not fair to lump in manga-inspired titles like Scott Pilgrim, or Off-Beat, or East Coast Rising, or any other Original English Language digest-format titles, published by Tokyo Pop or Oni Press into the same "Western comics" category as direct-market superhero spandex pr0n. Beyond marketing considerations, they appeal to a completely different audience from, say, most Ultimate titles. They are primarily bought from commerical retail bookstores, as opposed to the anti-socal geek havens of direct-market comic shops.

Stuff like East Coast Rising may not be "manga" in the purist sense you descibe, but they are definitely NOT "just Western comics with a anime/manga inspired visual design".

That's not necessarily a bad thing. I can perfectly enjoy an American comic with big hair and speed lines, but a spade is a spade and manga is manga. If the American comics industry really want to emulate manga, then they'd do something more substantial than trying to redress their existing comics with visual tics.
So if you refuse to acknowlege these titles as "manga" (or even "global manga" or "OEL manga" or "Amerimanga"), then at least accept that they appeal to a radically different audience than most yawn-inducing, continuity-bound Civil War tied-in crap.

They have a different aesthetic sensibility, and feature much more diverse kinds of content than anything published by The Big Two. Even titles like Machine Teen, Sentinel, and Livewires -- which are built solidly within the framework of the Marvel Universe -- are not dependent on its continuity, and have more in common with Off*Beat or Steady Beat than they do with, say The Initiative or Young Avengers, in terms of themes, art style, method of story-telling, etc. The Marvel Mangaverse stuff is just the exception to the rule.

But at they same time, "OEL manga" doesn't necessarily appeal to the people who like stuff The Comics Journal tends to champion either (the Top Shelf/Fantagraphics/Slave Labor type of material).

As such, I think it would be fair to discuss even titles like Corey Lewis' Skharknife (which I personally disliked -- a lot) in this forum, until somebody can come up with a name for them that doesn't have the word "manga" in it. Chances are, they would probably find a more appreciative readership here, rather than in the "General Comic Discussion" forum.
 
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I whole-heartedly DISagree with this.

It's just not fair to lump in manga-inspired titles like Scott Pilgrim, or Off-Beat, or East Coast Rising, or any other Original English Language digest-format titles, published by Tokyo Pop or Oni Press into the same "Western comics" category as direct-market superhero spandex pr0n. Beyond marketing considerations, they appeal to a completely different audience from, say, most Ultimate titles. They are primarily bought from commerical retail bookstores, as opposed to the anti-socal geek havens of direct-market comic shops.
I was talking about Tsunami and Mangaverse.
ourchair said:
This is NOT saying that manga can't be done by non-Japanese, but rather that attempts by the Western market to call their pocket-sized black and white comics with big-eyed characters 'manga' are delusional at best. As such, stuff like the Mangaverse and Tsunami are really just Western comics with a anime/manga inspired visual design.
I specifically did not mention Off-Beat or Scott Pilgrim for a reason. I was singling out Marvel.

DUH.
 
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