Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Premier wrote:I have to say the original post comes across something like this:

"All Eastern manga is inherently and categorically superiour to all Western comic strips, no exceptions. Yes, even the DragonBallZ level of dreck is superiour, since we're going for sweeping overgeneralizations. No, there are no good Western comics, at all. No, the idea that some (possibly Western) artists might be just plain simply telling better stories than others (possibly Eastern ones) has not occured to me. It's all about publishing and printing. Yay, chibi chibi baka otaku boy pika-pika!"

I've been reading Dragonball Z again recently, and I have to say...

It is NOT dreck!

Honestly, if *That's* what you're calling dreck, I have to wonder what you'd consider "good."

Dragonball Z is, in fact, the perfect example of good comic storytelling:

1. The panels are clear and communicative--you can look at them and see what's happening without the need for a third person to narrate it to you. Not to mention the art's attractive too.

2. The stories themselves are clear, not weighted down with tacked-on angst or bogus moral conflicts.

3. The entire saga has an epic myth-ness about it, gleefully revelling in a tale of humans who can do the impossible.

4. It welcomes itself perfectly to juvenile fantasy--who could read this and NOT wish they could fly around at supersonic speeds or destroy mountains with a punch?--by making the source of the characters' powers something that anyone could have: a large amount of Life Energy which the characters attained through training.

If I had more time, I'd use Dragonball Z as an example of how manga, not just from business but also from an art and storytelling standpoint, perfectly triumphs over the American superhero comic. But as it is, I'm waiting for a phonecall. So, I'll be back.

Don't know about Japanese comic books except that they're written backwards and all the ones my kids have seem extremely light on text. But I do know one thing: I just saw Wall-E, and it full on blows away anything any Japanese studio has ever put out.

- Wheggi

They're written backwards.

I wondered why they always seemed so anti-climactic ...

I'm actually curious as to why they (the Japanese publishers) don't flip the books around for their western audience when they do the translations. J8BS, do you know why this is?

- Wheggi

Wheggi wrote:I'm actually curious as to why they (the Japanese publishers) don't flip the books around for their western audience when they do the translations.

Because they hate you.

Having lived in Japan for a few years I'd have to agree: they DO hate me. And for good reason too!

- Wheggi

Wheggi wrote:Don't know about Japanese comic books except that they're written backwards and all the ones my kids have seem extremely light on text.

I think the only text-heavy manga I've ever read is Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind.

Personally I consider the text-lightness an advantage.

I'm actually curious as to why they (the Japanese publishers) don't flip the books around for their western audience when they do the translations. J8BS, do you know why this is?

Actually, "Flipping" (making manga read the American way of left-to-right) used to be an extremely common practice, but fell out of favor because A) the fans didn't like it, B) the original artists often didn't like it, and C) it turned out that translating them unflipped was actually cheaper.

Anyway... when an American comic is released in Japan, its released in its original left-to-right format. So turnabout is fair play.

(And if you think reading from right-to-left is bad... if you read these things in their parent language you ALSO have to read from TOP-TO-BOTTOM!)

The state of the American comic book industry is indeed a disgrace. If only the whole thing would die (rather than endlessly lingering on life-support), then maybe we could start all over.

My favorite comics are the giant monster comics from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. I'm also partial to The Man-Thing in the 70s.

Adjusting for inflation, the 20 cent comics I bought in 1975 should be only about 85 cents today. Instead, the comics I occasionally see for sale are 3 or 4 dollars. Bah!

If I had my way, 85-cent comics would be ubiquitous, and I'd buy stacks of giant monster comics. Board and bag 'em? Bull****! I'd roll 'em up and put 'em in my back pocket, and read them with little regard for keeping them "pristine". My 3-year-old daughter would be allowed to page through them, too.

Whatever happened to comic books being affordable and fun?

For one thing, the labor (a.k.a. "creators") started to command more. Think how much shirts would cost if they weren't made in sweatshops.

That's not the only thing, but that's one thing.

Another might be that even at 20 cents, comicbooks were still underpriced. They had been at 10 cents for a long time, after all. The next doubling overlapped a period of "stagflation."

Add in paper costs rising faster than inflation, and higher quality paper and printing.

Consider successive takeovers by corporations looking only to maximize short-term profits (even by destroying their acquisitions).

Dwayanu wrote:For one thing, the labor (a.k.a. "creators") started to command more. Think how much shirts would cost if they weren't made in sweatshops.

...

Add in paper costs rising faster than inflation, and higher quality paper and printing.

I think these two are the main things. American comics have gotten this idea that they're "fine art," an idea they reinforce by taking superheroes and trying to turn them into social commentaries, and by printing their "art" on this ultra-glossy wax paper that is supposed to stand the test of time (which is bull--any acid-free paper can stand up to the rigors of time).

Nothing says "this is so WRONG" quite like owning a signed-by-the-artist issue of Captain America which takes place in the Middle-east, and on one page features a panel where a Muslim drives a truck full of explosives into an army platoon while screaming (I kid you not) "Yaaaa! I'm going to go to heaven and f*** seventy-seven virgins!" and the entire story is printed on the afformentioned "preservational" paper. And this isn't an album or anything, its a standard ol' off-the-rack comic book.

I'm no big fan of the Golden or Silver Age comics by any means, but I readily agree with anyone who says comics then are better than comics today.

It's kinda why I'm into manga really. They're the only thing we have that even approaches (though in most cases, surpasses) the quality of the bygone eras. The Manga Age is the new Silver Age.

I have to say as much as I am into weirdness and such that my biggest turn offs for manga is the art style (I just can't stand it, I appreciate it but just can't stand it personally but than again I can't really stand anime with the exception of three movies) and reading backwards through the books, my mind can't wrap around it and I always come away from it with a headache from forcing myself to read in that direction, to me its not worth the headache.

I like Manga for their wide verity of fiction.

I dont read a lot of them, as I mostly like the hard sci-fi stuff (like cyberpunk and real robot fiction), but they like to throw mystical elements into the fold way to often for my taste. I also have a hard time finding high-fantasy manga that I like besides BASTARD!

As for American, we do like to focus a lot on superhero stories. I have not read a good superhero comic since Excalibur ended in the late 80s (after that, most superhero comics became really stupid). The Uncanny X-Men stands as my all time favorite superhero comic. I now like to read more narrative graphic novels, like Neil Gaiman's Sandmen and Danial Clowes' Ghost World. I'm also a fan of European science fantasy comics (unlike japan, when they do science fantasy, they dont take themselves to seriously).

I still like to read comic books, and I like to read a wide verity of fiction, I just have particular tastes in what I read.

Wheggi wrote:I'm actually curious as to why they (the Japanese publishers) don't flip the books around for their western audience when they do the translations. J8BS, do you know why this is?

Back in the early-mid 90s when I was reading occasional translated manga they did it this way -- everything was printed as a mirror-image of the original art, which led to occasional weirdness. It never bothered me, but I know it was a source of constant fan-geek-rage among many many others. I'm actually a bit surprised to hear that the publishers have "reversed" themselves on this. Shows how long it's been since I read a manga book, I guess...

Yeah, they used to really localize the hell out of manga.

Besides the flipping issue, they also used to publish them in issue format just like an American comic.

Fun fact: Marvel actually did a translation of Akira this way in the 1980s. Not only was their run heavily localized, but they actually hired the original author to re-write the last six chapters!

In all honesty I never minded the flipping. Manga on the whole tends to be localized pretty well. Its anime that tends to get shot to hell in the localization (the much-maligned DBZ for example).

JamesEightBitStar wrote:

Premier wrote:I have to say the original post comes across something like this:

"All Eastern manga is inherently and categorically superiour to all Western comic strips, no exceptions... (snip for space) ...Yay, chibi chibi baka otaku boy pika-pika!"

I've been reading Dragonball Z again recently, and I have to say...
(snip for space) ...But as it is, I'm waiting for a phonecall. So, I'll be back.

I think his perspective may actually be influenced by the anime DBZ, which IMO didn't make the transition well -- thats just a guess though. Not that I like DBZ the manga either, but the anime is much, much worse....