There’s a lot to like about this article in PingMag – The Tokyo-based magazine about “Design and Making Things” about Gez Fry, an American illustrator living in Tokyo. There’s the guy’s art, which is great, and his discussion of technique, which is interesting, and his account of how he gave up his plans to be a diplomat so he could be a freelance illustrator and follow his wife to Japan. And there’s some interesting commentary on manga versus American comics. It starts with his reflection on the throwaway nature of Japanese phonebook manga:
I think that there are big fans out there who buy the whole collection of a particular Manga artist, but the majority of the pieces don’t get collected, that’s true. But I think that this disposable mentality is one of the reasons why Japan’s comics market is so healthy!
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In America for example they treat comics like artwork. They keep it really clean and collect it, which sounds cool from an art point of view, but the whole industry is completely deteriorating because it takes too much time and effort to create the pics. They can’t ever get a long story like this and have to keep it really simple – therefor the reader’s finally lost interest! Compared to 20 years ago the American comics in the market are a small percentage of what they used to be.
Fry also contrasts the American and Japanese approaches toward creating comics:
First of, they have an assembly line to make the comic: 6 different people each in charge of different aspects of the comic, which then often feels a little disjointed. In Japan there is quite a hierarchic system: one boss having a vision and a style telling all his assistants exactly what to draw… which seems to work better for the story in the end.
But he admits he couldn’t work the Japanese way. Fry also talks about his other projects, designing game characters and the stuff he does just for fun. Well worth a click!
Interesting that Fry comments he couldn’t work the way a Japanese mangaka does. This may be the case for European/US artists who grew up with the conventional “Western” paradigm, but an article in the May 2006 issue of the French magazine “Animeland” suggests it may not be so for a younger generation, who’ve grown up reading about manga creators and their assistants. Manga really took off in France about 1995, with the result that the kids who started reading DRAGONBALL or SAILOR MOON at 12 are now young adults (with young-adult and mature manga titles duly provided for them). Not surprisingly, some have turned to creating “bandes dessinees” with a manga cast. Most adopt the usual French format – a hardbound album of 48-60 pages in full colour, with yearly installments – but it seems a few are breaking away. The article I mentioned discusses Jenny, a young woman (no relation!) who’s begun creating a series called PINK DIARY – yes, that’s the original title. Each volume is 192 pages, B&W, and appears every 3 months. And, to keep up the pace of work, she has an assistant who helps with the inking and lettering – an entirely new work pattern for this market. It’ll be interesting to see if anyone else follows her, on either side of the Atlantic.
However, the article wasn’t really about Jenny, but about a new publisher, Guillame Dorison, who’s hoping to launch a line of “manga” created entirely by French authors/artists in September of this year (starting with shonen and seinen titles). This will be a new step for the French and, although in some ways it’s a natural development, I wonder if they’ve had their eyes on what Tokyopop et al have been up to?
From the creator blogs I’ve read, it seems like Tokyopop’s OEL artists do most of the work themselves—writing, penciling, and inking—but I think the lettering is done in-house. I wish they would adopt the Japanese system and get some assistants, as it would speed up the pace of releases.
Although I have lived in France and Switzerland, and read the language pretty well, I have never been able to warm up to BDs (except Tintin, bien sur!). I posted last October and mentioned that at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the teenage girls were big manga buyers and the Asterix booth attracted only middle-aged men. So I’d say the French are wise to jump on the bandwagon. But do we have to call it OFL manga? LOF manga? “Global manga” is starting to sound better and better.
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I’ve seen some french dojinshi mags with “franga” on them, but I don’t think that really caught on. Up to now there wasn’t really any need for such a term, I think, since there were virtually no (officially published) manga (in manga format, not counting the many manga-style-inspired color albums) by French artists. Don’t know what took them so long. Only this year two titles came out from Pika (Dreamland and DYS), and the aforementioned Pink Diary at Delcourt. There is one other series from last year, which I can’t remember title or publisher of ATM, but that’s it.
BTW, Pink Diary by Jenny is actually quite good. Better than most of the original German works IMHO, and better by far than any of the other French ones (art *and* story). On par with many OEL works.
Didn’t know she used assistants. Makes sense though and even shows a bit in the style and compositions, if you know it. Interestingly, Delcourt did not group the title into their manga imprint, Akata, but published it in their main line.
http://www.editions-delcourt.fr/album.php?id=1357