Manga - Revision

Manga is the term used in japan for their on medium of sequential art. The equivalent to the west’s comics. Manga is widely popular in the current generation’s youth. While I didn’t read any manga when I was a kid, I was heavily influenced by it’s animated counterpart or Anime. I grew up watching shows like Dragonball Z, Macross (or Robotech) and Gatchaman among others that started out as Manga. It wasn’t until later in high school where I actually picked up a volume of Rurouni Kenshin and saw what the main source was all about.

In this post, I’d like to talk about the undervalue of Manga and the stigma that is attached to it as an art student. I’m definitely one of many students who as a kid, enjoyed drawing from shows like Dragonball Z, only to later on pick up a greater interest in drawing and doing so using this style as an approach. However, going into Ringling, one of the first things you’ll hear is to “never draw anime (or manga)”, avoid it like the plague. Now, as a senior, I can understand where this stigma come from. Manga style is very simplified, which is one of the reasons we are attracted to it. However, as artists, in order to draw in a style that simplifies and exaggerates the human figure, we need to understand the figure itself as a whole and with accuracy, so that we make smart decisions and properly simplify. This is what differentiates a good manga artist from a bad one.

Addition:

Even beyond the art style, it's important to note that Manga is very accessible to any demographic in Japan. What I mean is, there's basically manga for everybody. This is different in American comics, as they are thought to be aimed towards a much narrower audience. There's also a stigma attached to comics, though it's greatly diminished with the past decade. This is not the case with manga over in Japan.

Manga style does have some attributes that even contribute to American comics, whether it’s dynamic gestures, or storytelling devices.

Webcomics

I’ve never been a big fan of webcomics. Mostly because I’ve never viewed them as a source of serious story-telling. It’s not that I ever thought it wouldn’t be possible to achieve good story-telling in this media, but just that I completely neglected the idea. It never occurred to me. I was introduced to webcomics as gamer. The first one I remember reading was called VG Cats, updated weekly, if I recall correctly, as a one page strip showing a small gag, a parody of a current video game. Shortly after that I started reading CTRL ALT DELETE which also had many video game references, though it later developed an underlying storyline. Octopus Pie is my first experience reading an ongoing story through a webcomic… It’s been very addicting.

In a single day, I sat myself down and read from the very first strip to the most current one. That totals to 497 strips. I kept telling myself “just one more”. Well, that led on to another and another and so forth. It’s not very surprising that this happened though, as the story kept me interested in every single page. I think what makes this comic so great is how realistic these characters are and how they develop. The art style reminded me a lot of Scott Pilgrim, which I loved. However, unlike Scott Pilgrim, the themes in this story are very real. One of the most recent story arcs implements the Occupy Wallstreet movement and how the cast reacts and how it reflects upon their relationships. I have to say I wasn’t very thrilled for the topic of webcomics, but this selection has made me look at a lot of webcomics in a very different light.

Reconsidering the Super Hero

For this topic I decided to read “Arkham Asylum” and “Kingdom Come”. What’s so interesting about these two graphic novels is that while it deals with Superheroes we’ve grown up with as kids, it depicts them in a very realistic and human way. It is also important to note that both of these pieces of work show how visual graphic narrative can be seen as a highly valued art form. Both of these are beautifully painted. These, to me, are Dave Mckean and Alex Ross at their best.

Arkham Asylum, written by Grant Morrison and illustrated by Dave Mckean, is one of my favorite super hero stories of all time. Batman must enter Arkham Asylum, a mental institute housing the most dangerous criminals in Gotham City, which has gone in riot thanks to the Joker. What makes this story so great is that it has forever altered the way I look at Batman. Our hero is in the same institute as Gotham’s most criminally insane. However, the big psychological twist comes when the viewer faces the question: Isn’t Batman just as insane as the villains are? The work strips Batman in a very realistic light. All of these villains became villains because they had a traumatic past, just as our hero has. The only difference is their methods to deal with the trauma. When we look at Batman in this light, in the most realistic sense, we can say he’s a man with a traumatic past who has grown up to cope with it by dressing up in a bat-suit and going out to the streets to fight crime.

Kingdom Come is up there with Arkham Asylum as one of my favorite reads. Just like the previous read, we see classic super heroes like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc. in a realistic light (though not as drastic as Arkham Asylum) and make questionable moral choices. The story takes place in a future where most of these heroes have retired and later form their league once again to save their people. The main theme deals with their use of power. It is important to note that the entire story is narrated through the eyes of an average civilian. This creates contrast between a normal human being and how these super-heroes are viewed as gods. And that is the main conflict in this story, that even though our heroes have the power to stop evil, they still encounter the same moral conflicts that normal human beings do, which makes them no better judges than us.

Graphic Fiction and Non-fiction

I wasn’t really excited by any other readings when I went into this topic; at first I had a tough time deciding on which piece of work to read. After thinking about it for a while, I decided to purchase “Fun Home”. This was actually a pretty depressing read. The only other form of graphic memoir that I had read before this one was Persepolis. While Persepolis had a couple of shocking moments, I felt that the ones presented in Fun Home were much stronger in impact. Everything, from the artwork to the narrative voice felt cold as I read it.

However, reading only through a couple of chapters I can understand why it is presented this way as it has complete relevance over the reading itself. One of the main themes that this graphic memoir deals with is sexual orientation. The main character explains she deals with the realization that she has homosexual tendencies and how her mother reacts once she finds out. While I have respect for the work, I just found it very difficult to relate to this in so many ways. All in all, it was a difficult read.

Wide World of Comics

I had the pleasure of being able to read the comic “Blacksad” in Spanish. Oddly enough, even though its authors are Spanish, the comic is first published in French, as that is the main audience. The Spanish version follows shortly after. Blacksad is represented as a film-noir style of storytelling with a gorgeous collection of watercolor pages to depict its events. I really have to emphasize how good and consistent the artwork is for this series. Beautifully drawn, and dynamically composed, it really is a treat to read as an artist. Unfortunately the first story-arc (the only one I have read so far) isn’t as strong as the artwork itself.

While it’s not a terrible plotline, it definitely falls short to it’s visuals and can become quite predictable. The storytelling itself, though, is top notch and fun to read through. Also contributing to this comic is the play of words used. Every character is depicted as an animal. The main animal being a cat and other characters like bodyguards are depicted as huge rhinos. Often you’ll see jokes about the main character’s nine lives. Another example is when one character, a lizard, being followed into a bar by a spy, depicted as a rat. As soon as the rat enters, he sees the place is full of other reptilian characters who later tell him something along the lines of “we don’t take kind to your furry kind” reminding the viewer that these aren’t just people drawn as animals, but that it is a conscious fact in this world.

Manga

Manga is the term used in japan for their on medium of sequential art. The equivalent to the west’s comics. Manga is widely popular in the current generation’s youth. While I didn’t read any manga when I was a kid, I was heavily influenced by it’s animated counterpart or Anime. I grew up watching shows like Dragonball Z, Macross (or Robotech) and Gatchaman among others that started out as Manga. It wasn’t until later in high school where I actually picked up a volume of Rurouni Kenshin and saw what the main source was all about.

In this post, I’d like to talk about the undervalue of Manga and the stigma that is attached to it as an art student. I’m definitely one of many students who as a kid, enjoyed drawing from shows like Dragonball Z, only to later on pick up a greater interest in drawing and doing so using this style as an approach. However, going into Ringling, one of the first things you’ll hear is to “never draw anime (or manga)”, avoid it like the plague. Now, as a senior, I can understand where this stigma come from. Manga style is very simplified, which is one of the reasons we are attracted to it. However, as artists, in order to draw in a style that simplifies and exaggerates the human figure, we need to understand the figure itself as a whole and with accuracy, so that we make smart decisions and properly simplify. This is what differentiates a good manga artist from a bad one.

Manga style does have some attributes that even contribute to American comics, whether it’s dynamic gestures, or storytelling devices.

Maus

Maus, by Art Spiegelman, is probably one of the best pieces of work that I have read so far in the semester. At first glance, I thought this was gonna be just a graphic novel about the holocaust with a visual gimmick (Jews being mice and the Germans as cats). But I was glad to find out that Maus is a very deep piece of work in so many aspects. The art style is simple but enjoyable and does a fantastic job flowing from panel to panel, the storytelling is engrossing and unique, and you can feel attached to these characters.

When discussing Maus in class a very important question was brought up which made me appreciate this book much more than I originally had: Just what is Maus’s story about? What makes Maus so intriguing is that you’re not just following a holocaust story. Instead, the reader is witnessing a story about a man being told his father’s struggles through the holocaust and through his point of view, and in turn trying to make a graphic novel out of it. Now, it is very important to note that the fact that the holocaust sections are being told through his grandfather is a big deal to the main character. Artie feels that it’s important to view this from an objective angle and he insists on reading through his late mother’s diaries to get her side. Needless to say, he is angered when he learns his grandfather has disposed of them. Because of this, Maus becomes something much deeper, and tells us a story about the main character and his struggles with his and his grandfather’s relationship.

Maus is such a visually striking book. Depicting each nationality as different animals is such a clever device. At one point, Artie’s grandfather and his wife are in hiding and because of these they, as mice, are seen wearing pig masks. I thought this was so clever because it’s a visual representation of what they really had to go through: Hide who they are in order to survive.