MangaBlog

Goodnow (see previous post) has a second article about Usagi Yojimbo creator Stan Sakai that’s also worth a read. Sakai doesn’t regard Usagi Yojimbo as manga, she writes, but as more of an American-style comic about a Japanese subject. What’s the difference?

“It’s like what the Supreme Court says about pornography: I can’t define it,” Sakai joked, “but I know it when I see it. It’s more the pacing of a story. You know how a story has a beginning, middle and end? (Manga) tend to concentrate more on the middle, and sometimes the end is non-existent, almost.”

It is hard to imagine that anyone has an end in sight for some of the longer manga series.
Special bonus fact:

The birth of Usagi coincided with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles craze of the mid-’80s, and a lot of cross-pollination occurred between the two comics. Usagi even appeared on the original “Turtles” animated series and was a Commodore 64 game character.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer starts the week with a nice article on graphic novels for kids that turns the usual cliches on their heads. Far from repeating the hoary cliche that “comics aren’t just for kids anymore,” writer Cecelia Goodnow notes that comics moved up the age scale quite a while ago and are just now coming back down, with manga leading the way.
And in contrast to the usual “comics get reluctant kids to read,” doctoral student Drego Little points out that better readers like comics as well, although he adds, “you have to choose more carefully for them. The proficient readers in my class, I give them stuff that’s engaging and more literary.”
But he has a caveat:

“If parents are going to get this stuff as a way to get kids reading,” he said, “manga would not be my first choice. There’s just not enough text in them. Any kid over fourth grade, they need more text.”

Actually, I find that reading the graphics of manga can be quite challenging. Often I’ll stop at a less wordy passage to try to figure out what’s going on, really see how the art relates to the action, or just savor the visuals. It’s a different problem than interpreting the written word, but I still think it’s a good exercise.
Goodnow gives the last word to Eric Reynolds of Fantagraphics:

“Manga has brought kids back to comics.”

I’ve been away from blogging for a few weeks because of family demands. Normal commentary will resume shortly, but in the meantime, here’s an article I just wrote about Art Spiegelman. Enjoy!

My reviews of Off*Beat and vol. 2 of Fruits Basket are up at Manga Life. Read ’em while they’re hot!

Imagine updating your curriculum vitae to include a paper you gave at Schoolgirls and Mobilesuits. Now there’s something to aspire to! It’s for real, at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Sept. 30 to Oct. 2.

Hayao Miyazaki waxes philosophical in a rare interview in the Guardian. He lets slip that he liked Lauren Bacall as the Witch of the Wastes:

This is fine, says Miyazaki, because Bacall is “a fabulous woman” who brought something to the role that home-grown actors couldn’t. “All the Japanese female voice actors have voices that are very coquettish and wanting male attention, which was not what we wanted at all.”

Take that, you subtitling purists! And this!

In any case, he adds, who is to say that a subtitled print is any more authentic? “When you watch the subtitled version you are probably missing just as many things. There is a layer and a nuance you’re not going to get. Film crosses so many borders these days. Of course it is going to be distorted.”

Having watched a lot of American films subtitled in French, I’d have to agree.
Miyazake reveals that he is not a total purist about hand-drawing; he allows a little bit of computer generated imagery in his films. And he’s philosophical about the fact that he’s really good at a dying art:

Civilisation moves on. Where are all the fresco painters now? Where are the landscape artists?

Working on the backgrounds of his films would be my guess.
But Miyazake remains resolutely old-fashioned about merchandising. No “coordinating all aspects of brand development through a property’s lifecycle” for this guy. The Spirited Away lunchbox and Totoro dust mop remain but a dream (although Totoro plushies don’t seem to offend his sensibilities).
Then the interview veers off into children-are-the-hope-of-the-future and gee, look at the time, (yawn) gotta go…