Digital Comic Museum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Lady Sky Skipper on February 24, 2012, 04:47:53 PM
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I read both American and Japanese comics and I was just wondering if anyone else did the same. :)
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I have read some manga. I enjoyed some Ranma. I found the problem with manga for me is that they drag things out far too long. Hundred of pages with very little story.
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There wasn't any Manga in America in the "Golden Age", LSS, so most of us didn't experience it until VIZ comics in the 1980s. Rather late to the party, us.
Narf - did I ever tell you the story about Jean-Claude Mezieres? He's a French comic artist who was invited to lecture and teach at a seminar in Japan. One of his final exercises for his class was to tell a short little story (the student could pick the subject) in only three pages. Several of the more experiences Manga artists in the class simply COULDN'T do it! You're right, three pages was just not enough to tell a complete story about ANYTHING.
Still Manga is much better in Japan where it doesn't cost so much and 100 pages in both affordable and an easy way to kill about the same time as an issue of U.S. comic.
Welcome, Lady Sky Slipper
Peace, Jim (|:{>
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There wasn't any Manga in America in the "Golden Age", LSS, so most of us didn't experience it until VIZ comics in the 1980s. Rather late to the party, us.
Eh, JVJ, in Italy it has been even worse. Not only we have not had any US comic books of the golden age (very sporadic exceptions for Superman and Batman, pretty maimed and often retraced, mildly published from 1939 to 1947), but we have not had any actual japanese comic published with consistency until 1992.
In fact, having studied very, very little their historical production, I think it can safely be affirmed that – since in Japan they did not have a proper "golden age" because the modern conception of manga emerged slightly afterwards the war, more or less the late 1940s and 1950s productions, can be compared to relevant degree to the "golden age period" productions of other "comics-literate" countries.
E.g. there are interesting parallels between the early Tezuka production (late 1940s) and the early Tintin stories by Hergé (for France/Belgium), while war themes had been occasionally addressed in a large inter-war production (before "modern" manga) which is almost entirely known in the West.
A thing worth stressing is that the original Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy) stories appeared in an antologic magazine (Shounen, which means "Boy"), in a very similar fashion to the one of many antological golden age comic-books, and the original version has a stile and quality pretty influenced by the classic syndicated strips (Mickey Mouse and the work of Geo McManus were favorites of Tezuka which had the opportunity to watch Mickey Mouse and other B/W shorts as a child).
I have purchased an anastatic reprint of the first six years of Atom stories (published in two colors) and they aren't the same thing of the redrawn versions which became "definitive" and were published by Dark Horse in recent years in english language. A pity I don't understand the dialogue, since I don't know japanese, because there are often also remarkable plot differences.
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Good one Jim and I can sure see that. I think a lot of current story arc writers would have the same problem. They could not write a single issue story, let alone three pages.
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I like some of the old school stuff from Japan quite a lot. The last few years have been good for this in North America, with English translations of a lot of Tezuka's work and of Lone Wolf and Cub (quite possibly my favorite comic ever) coming out. A lot of great stuff is still only available in Japanese, though. It's a damn shame that non-Japanese readers can't enjoy the work of people like Ishinomori Shotaro.
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@Narfstar: In fact, in the early decade, characters were serialized in magazines like Shounen, with a limited amount of pages each, in a similar fashion to the features you have in american golden age books, with the only difference they were continuing episodes.
Also, the storytelling approach was for this reason quite more relaxed (I am speaking for Tezuka), than in the final versions he started to draw for the paperback reprints. In fact, there is a huge difference, and to reply to kusunoki I would venture to say this goes for most of the late 1940s, 1950s and 1960s productions.
Reading Ishinomori or Tezuka in the recent editions issued by Dark Horse & al. is slightly misleading, as a key ingredient, which is a lot of spontaneity and raw fantasy and sense of wonder came to be a little reduced in "polished" final versions.
To give you an idea, I attach the cover to an original Shounen supplement (from 1957), the only one from my own collection, whose story has been totally redone in the final versions (as in the Dark Horse complete edition). And the magazines were even more fascinating and attuned with that "golden age" (coinciding with the flourishing of comics towards the end, and immediately after, the war).
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Side-note: The story presented here is the second part of the "Yellow Horse" adventure, which is entitled "Duel on the [Japanese] Alps", and features the kidnapping of Atom parents by a gang of drug-smugglers. The scene depicted on the cover is the final showdown of Atom with the giant brain-robot which remains mostly unaltered in the final version (although the ending is pretty different).
One for all: in the original version Doctor Tenma has a prominent role (which highlight the complexity of his character, and his love for Astro in continuous conflict with his own mental instability).
Of course, I do not read japanese, but pictures are pretty revealing.
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Wonderful cover. How many pages would you say an original Astroboy story arc would have run during this time?
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The idea of a few pages of continuing story per issue was common in Europe as well as Japan. Something JVJ and I sort of disagree on.
Back to manga. I have tried some English translations as I can't read or speak Japanese. JVJ mentioned Viz but my favourite, of the very few I enjoyed was published by Eclipse - Mai the Psychic Girl. Very powerful stuff, I thought. The first few American issues of Lone Wolf and Cub caught my eye but palled after a while. I was hoping to cite other titles but they made such an impression that I have forgotten what they were.
However, I'm now curious about original Astro Boy and I like that cover.
It is a shame that more early manga has not been translated but, oddly, I noticed in one of the big bookshops in Glasgow a bookcase full of translated manga. A lot of the books I opened were drawn in a style that I just did not like, perhaps do not understand and were about topics that do not interest me. Before you say it, maybe I haven't delved enough. And throughout France and other European countries, there are comic shops with ever expanding manga sections.
As an aside, the argument about not enough Japanese comics being translated into English is also true for large quantities of French, Belgian, Italian, Spanish etc. comics and strips which are of a very high standard and are not translated into English. And in most cases, nary a superhero in sight. For every Tintin, Asterix, Scorpion, there are umpteen marvellous books useless to those who read only English.
I've been desperately trying to remember the title of the huge hit Japanese comic that was made into an animated film, post-apocalyptic thingy, I think. Anyway, when I had the shop, we couldn't keep it on the shelves it was so popular. I tried it thinking, how could so many punters not be right. Did nothing for me.
Akira, that was it.
Thanks, kusunoki, I'll try to find examples of Shotaro's work.
Finally, that bit about telling a story in a few pages. I refer you all to Ragman #3? wherein Kubert delivers an almost wordless story, beautifully done in a few pages and easily comparable to the the Hugo Pratt wordless segment in Les Celtiques, featuring Corto Maltese. Pictures can be revealing.
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Cinebooks has been doing a variety of translations
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Wonderful cover. How many pages would you say an original Astroboy story arc would have run during this time?
Glad you appreciate it. :)
I do not have the original at hand, but the redone final version (available in english in the Astro Boy Dark Horse #13, title: "Shootout in the Alps") is 31 pages. Story length varied, also depending on whether the story run was originally on the magazine or on a supplement (as it's in this case). The first part of this story, for example, run on the magazine from october 1955 to february 1956 (it can be read in the Dark Horse Astro Boy #10, title: "Yellow Horse"), while the second part, this one, was sold as a supplement.
The supplement is pocket-size, in fact I was pretty surprised when I finally got it from Japan. I thought it was in comic-book size, as Shounen was more or less comic-book size (which made it also for a lot better readability).
As an aside, the argument about not enough Japanese comics being translated into English is also true for large quantities of French, Belgian, Italian, Spanish etc. comics and strips which are of a very high standard and are not translated into English.
Hi Paw, allow me to say that coming to the japanese case there is basically a radical difference, which is not related to the quantity/quality of the material, but to the time lapse.
In Italy we did not have manga until 1992 and I think Epic's Akira (1988?) was the first japanese comic with such a diffusion in the US, while – for example – italian comics have been (at least in one case) published in the USA in comic form ("Saturn against the Earth" on "Future Comics", but I think it's incomplete) as early as 1940, but you’re right in saying that USA have been generally reluctant to look outside their own production. Also, manga started to be massively published in english (and in italian) in late 1980s/early 1990s, but the stories presented were mostly, or only, 1980s and 1990s contemporary productions. Most of the 1940s up to the 1980s ("golden age" to "bronze age" loosely equivalents) of japanese comics is unpublished both in english and in european languages.
Cinebooks has been doing a variety of translations
Oh, great. Including Blake & Mortimer, I see. And Yoko Tsuno, too. Just great. :)
Well, that’s what I am speaking about: we do not have a japanese equivalent of this logic. The equation japanese comics = cool, for youngsters & hip people, and golden age/pre-war = old murky stuff still largely prevails. It’s totally uninformed, and very misleading.
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An example: this is an issue of Shounen with an installment of the story "Adventure on Mars" (unfortunately I do not own any Shounen issue, it's just a found image).
As I said, Shounen was more or less comic book size, so the artwork could be appreciated in full, in its wonderful two-color printing.
Look at the same story in the reworked, pocket size final edition, and you will see splash pages often omitted and a big penalization.
Imagine Mac Raboy's Captain Marvel Jr. printed in pocket-size… I make this example because Mac Raboy's art is detailed, but it fits to any work.
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I'm a huge reader of manga, despite the fact that I only discovered it less than 10 years ago, and only really got into it about 3~4 years ago. I currently have about 250 series that I've finished reading, about 700 that I'm currently reading, and about 120 that I've dropped.
Manga reading is really a very different experience from american comics. For one thing, manga is almost always tied to a single artist & author unless that person dies, in very sharp contrast to the way american comics change artists & authors with every freaking issue. (Additionally, it's extremely common for the author & artist to be the same person.) Another big difference is that manga doesn't have multi-title universes where all the comics by a given publisher take place in the same universe & interact with each other. Unless a mangaka (manga artist/author) specifically creates some kind of spinoff series or sister series to interact with one of his existing series, or multiple mangakas get together for an intentional one-off crossover, manga series remain self-contained. (Which means none of that money-mongering nonsense that marvel is so fond of, that of forcing you to buy 30 issues each, of 10 different titles each, of 20 different characters, just to get a single story.)
Another major difference is that most manga series are actually pretty short (especially compared to american comics), at around 25~50 chapters, and have an actual conclusion. Imagine spiderman or superman having 50 issues & then stopping.
In contrast to that however, there are a fair number of manga that just drag on & on endlessly. Bleach and naruto are 2 prime examples.
The bottom line here is that if manga seems to drag on & on to you, don't blame manga in general, blame the specific manga you're reading.
There are actually a large number of one-shot manga, which are no more than a single chapter in length. Beyond that, there are a lot of manga which are only 1 volume (typically 5-6 chapters) in length.
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Not if I can help it!
I am more of a classic American comic book buy.
There is way to much already here on DCM for me to read!
Plus, no jingle to put to yet ANOTHER comic to buy.
Though, way back when I was young I do have a vague memory about Astro Boy, sometime in the mid sixities. I was about seven or eight year old.
B.
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When I started reading comics the stories were 18-20 pages long. The character continued but not the story most of the time. Most current comic stories are 132 pages long. The audience has become very art centric and many of those stories may be drawn out and overdrawn. Manga usually has far to many pictures for story. I am not saying that I have not enjoyed enjoyed some manga. But when the anime of the manga is too long and gets boring, then I know the manga must be. Love Hina is a prime example. I enjoy Case Closed where the stories are interesting and conclude.
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While it is indeed true that long animes usually have long mangas & vice-versa, it's not always true.
With most series, the manga & anime will parallel each other, being almost word-for-word the same (for the most part, although you'll often find that the anime has some filler thrown in, or that parts of the manga were omitted). However, sometimes the manga serves as a side-story or as additional episodes. Some examples of the latter include dominion/tank police and ghost in the shell.
Conversely, you'll sometimes find a very short anime with an extremely long manga. An example of this is battle angel alita/gunnm. The only anime for it is a single movie (which has about 2~3 volumes of the manga crammed into it), whereas the manga is currently at 17 volumes/109 chapters, and still going.
If there's a certain type of manga that you like (comedy, action, mecha, sorcerors, romance, whatever), I can probably point you to some shorter series.
You can check outthe lists of series I've read/am reading here: http://www.mangaupdates.com/mylist.html?id=119474&list=read
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I have a pal who's a big anime fan and he's loaned me some films. Most left me cold but I did enjoy Porco Rosso. You'll probably tell me now it's not real anime. It looked rather European, I thought.
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Barefoot Gen is one I read that truly shocked and moved me. A real life child survivor of Hiroshima shows us his experiences. I highly recommend it.
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I have a pal who's a big anime fan and he's loaned me some films. Most left me cold but I did enjoy Porco Rosso. You'll probably tell me now it's not real anime. It looked rather European, I thought.
Nah, porco rosso is indeed anime. In fact, it was made by the disney of anime, miyazaki.
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Barefoot Gen is one I read that truly shocked and moved me. A real life child survivor of Hiroshima shows us his experiences. I highly recommend it.
Barefoot Gen is really awesome! Another similar great manga which unfortunately has not been released outside Japan is RAINBOW- Nisha Rokubo no Shichinin. It deals with the post war Japan and the way kids were treated at the reform schools at the time. Luckily there is an anime series based on the manga and it's pretty accurate as far as I've seen it.
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There was an anime movie sorta based on Barefoot Gen (but not called that IIRC) that had a super depressing ending. Firefly was in the title, I think. Again, powerful subject matter and film.
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You mean grave of the fireflies?
Most people say it was a real tear-jerker, but I just found it dull & tedious. I guess the difference comes down to whether or not you can sympathize with the characters.
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Yes, that was the film! I thought it very well done but you are right. If you don't connect with the characters I could see it being called dull.
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Not if I can help it!
I am more of a classic American comic book buy.
There is way to much already here on DCM for me to read!
Plus, no jingle to put to yet ANOTHER comic to buy.
Though, way back when I was young I do have a vague memory about Astro Boy, sometime in the mid sixities. I was about seven or eight year old.
B.
@bminor: I am firmly convinced there is no substantial differences when we are speaking of comics which have made history, of classics or generally acknowledged productions which breathe universal values.
If I was reasoning like you, I would snob golden age and read only italian wartime or other periods' comics. Which would be an enormous disregard for the greatness of any national or cultural native production.
Luckily I have been able to read almost all Marvel's silver age, but you americans have been lucky enough to have Atom in his very first animated series aired in 1963 (in fact, Tezuka produced it with high care for the american audience). Only a little more than a hundred of episode have been aired, however, since the original B/W series is of 193 episodes.
@Yoc: Definitely, Barefoot Gen is a must read. I still have to locate a copy of the italian edition but sooner or later I will do.
I am not a big fan of Miyazaki, although I appreciated quite a lot My neighbor Totoro.
Right now, I’m totally into those darn "classic american comic books", an unknown territory as much as mangas of the same time for us italians. ;)
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I've read manga and I think some of it is very good, especially "Barefoot Gen" and "The Grave of the Fireflies" but I found most of it either so simplistic (e.g. the Naruto material) or so utterly foreign ("One Piece") that I can't get worked up about it. Most of it seems like nothing other than attempts to produce material which will be used for Japanese made-for-television cartoon and I really don't like made-for-television cartoons.
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but I found most of it either so simplistic (e.g. the Naruto material) or so utterly foreign ("One Piece") that I can't get worked up about it. Most of it seems like nothing other than attempts to produce material which will be used for Japanese made-for-television cartoon and I really don't like made-for-television cartoons.
That’s just because most of the more significant material (especially that preceeding the television boom, and the serialization of animated versions, TV anime) has never been properly published neither in the US or in Europe.
I assure you holding in hand a 1950s original Atom suplement makes the same effect as holding an american golden age book or an italian, or french equivalent of the same era. Only, with Japan they got to a modern conception slightly after the war, so it’s a little shifted, but a manga from the 1950s has the feeling of a 1940s western publication (and the same historical weight). Gotta love 'em, like my Lou Fine which I just discovered! :)
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Barefoot Gen is one I read that truly shocked and moved me. A real life child survivor of Hiroshima shows us his experiences. I highly recommend it.
"Barefoot Gen" has to be the pick of the Japanese litter, Yoc. It has been translated and published in scores of countries and there are version in something like nineteen languages. It's a milestone book, in the same way as "Maus." Significantly neither is like the bulk of comics/manga from their respective nations.
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So I gather Jon.
It's annoying my library system only had the first four volumes. It was certainly hard to read at times due to the subject and gore but I'd still recommend it to everyone. I found The Grave of the Fireflies to be even more depressing that Barefoot with the ending about as sad as could be imagined. I guess that was the point though. Having seen fairly recent documentaries on Hiroshima it doesn't feel like Barefoot or Grave were exaggerating on anything.
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Grave of the Fireflies is excellent. The Ghibli-made movie is great too if anyone is interested. It's animated, but very far from a cartoon. EDIT: Sorry. I see now that you WERE talking about the anime and not the live action film.
On another note, I really like Junji Ito's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junji_Ito) horror mangas. That guy writes some really freaky, weird stuff. Uzumaki is a good place to start if interested.
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Yeah I saw the anime film of Fireflies, again from the library. I never knew there was a live action film.
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AH BUT DO YOU READ MANWAH OR MANHWA?? :)
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O.K. confession time. Despite what I've said in various place, I recently had another go at some manga. Like narfstar, I enjoyed the first vol. of Case Closed - enough to try to find more when I'm out and about tomorrow. Also I enjoyed Psyren and D-Gray Man was weird enough to make me fancy another serving. I also tries a couple of issues of Codebreaker, which I read on-line and I think I'll look for a couple of issues at the comic shop tomorrow.