MangaBlog

The news hook, as we say in the biz, is that Asterix is taking on manga, but this article in Bloomberg News is more about the European comics market than the venerable Gaul.

David Taylor at Love Manga, who is always skilled at reading the tea leaves, is interested in the European publishers’ attempt to jump on the manga bandwagon, including developing their own homegrown manga. What interested me, though, was the similarity between what happened in Europe and what happened here: Manga and manwha are dominating the market in part because they are serving an previously under-served customer base: girls. The article quotes a 14-year-old InuYasha fan from Germany:

`We never read comics apart from manga and manhwa,” van Loenhaut said. “Manga has female heroines, and that makes a big difference.”

Exactly. Give the girls comics, and they will read. And I don’t mean Asterix. Here’s what another teen had to say about that:

“I know Asterix, but only because my Dad has all the books,” said Bollin, peeking out from behind her glasses and straight, dyed-black hair. Visitors clustered around the Asterix booth nearby were mostly men over 40.

Touche!

That said, I think the article overstates the importance of girls. Overall, the French comics market grew 12 percent last year, and manga is 20 percent of the total market, which suggests that sales of other BDs have slowed or even decreased. That could mean that longtime comics readers are switching over to manga, or it could mean that they are leaving in droves and being replaced by larger numbers of girls (and manga-reading guys) who are reading comics for the first time. Either way, the problem seems to be that interest is flagging in BDs. Asterix should spend less time worrying about manga invaders from outer space and more time looking in the mirror.

At The Ninth Art, essayist Paul O’Brien has an interesting meditation on the Yuki Suetsugu swiping scandal. The news that some of Suetsugu’s drawings in Flower of Eden were apparently copied from other works prompted Kodansha to pull all 25 volumes of the manga-ka’s work out of print and ask Tokyopop to cancel its planned English-language release of the book.

O’Brien muses on why the Japanese reacted so harshly to what would be simply an embarassing incident in America. His conclusion: We think of most comic book artists as commercial illustrators working for hire, while in Japan, comic artists are, well, artists, expressing their own vision. We don’t expect originality; they do. Of course, he’s only talking about the mainstream here. If one of the “critical darlings of highbrow comics” were to be caught swiping, he says, Americans would take it more seriously.

O’Brien also discusses the ethical shadings of swiping and points out that what your high school teacher told you all those years ago is still true today: cheating doesn’t pay:

Good comic book art is not simply a matter of drawing pretty pictures, but of arranging them to cumulative effect. The panels need to have some kind of flow to them. A bunch of randomly swiped panels may look good individually but generally won’t work too well as a whole. I suspect most artists who make extensive use of swiping will never break out of the pack for that reason.

And that’s why there are no big swiping scandals: If you’re good enough to be noticed, you’re probably too good to cheat.

In Anchorage, Alaska, Native American sculptor Donnie Varnell has used manga style in a pair of totem poles. The unusual idea raised at least one eyebrow:

Anchorage School Board member Mary Marks, who’s Tlingit, remarked at the time that the images Varnell had proposed — a boy and a girl each interacting with a wolf in an almost cartoonish rendering — were untraditional and “caused the hairs on my neck to go up.”

But Varnell, who is part Haida and studied with several traditional pole-carvers, hasn’t exactly thrown tradition to the winds. Many Native American art works include references to contemporary culture.

The poles, which combine the manga style with a more “traditional” look, will be installed at Ptarmigan Elementary School in Anchorage.

The Honolulu Star Bulletin has a positive review of the anime version of Kodocha, which my kids love. The opening credits even inspired my younger daughter to do a “Sana dance,” to the puzzlement and amusement of the adults.

The manga was one of the first that my kids read, and they literally laughed until they cried as they read it. I found the relationship between Sana and her chauffeur a bit disconcerting, and the humor more elusive, but I can see why they liked it. The cliff-hanger at the end of one volume meant I got no peace until we bought the next.

I was just looking for the link and noticed that it’s no longer listed on Tokyopop’s website, so now I’m wondering if it’s out of print. No problem for us—we already own all 10 volumes—but I hate to see books disappear so fast.

Newsarama introduces new manga reviewer Sarah Vaughn, who starts off with a bang by reviewing two Dr. Master series, Tori Koro and Hinadori Girl.

Almost immediately, a commenter criticizes her for reviewing “obscure Z-list titles that only 5 people will buy.” This is the opposite of my reaction, which was, “Gee, I’m not familiar with these. I wonder where I can find Tori Koro?” It’s a big world out there, and there are plenty of sites reviewing Dramacon this month. I thought it was interesting to see something new. So, Sarah, keep it up. Find me something else I haven’t read yet.

At Sequential Tart, reviewer Margaret O’Connell takes a close look at Off*Beat and likes what she sees. But that’s just the beginning. Noting that Tokyopop tried to market Off*Beat as the first American shonen-ai (boys’ love) book, she launches into a fascinating discussion of the whole category, and how it differs from other gay-themed comics.

I love her shorthand summary of Off*Beat as “reminiscent of a shonen-ai version of Harriet the Spy,” even though she goes on to question whether the book fits into the shonen-ai category at all. Don’t be scared off if you don’t read shonen-ai; this article is actually a good introduction to the genre and has some interesting points that would apply to any love story. In fact, when discussing stories that don’t quite fit their genres, O’Connell draws on examples from sci-fi and chick lit. Now that’s eclectic!

For the record, I liked Off*Beat. In part, that’s because I missed Tokyopop’s attempt to sell it as shonen-ai and simply read it as a mystery with a touch of romance. Considered on its own merits, it’s a decent book, and Tokyopop does it a disservice by trying to make it something it’s not.