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.

Underground Comics

Underground comics are probably a genre that will never really appeal to my tastes as to what I’m looking for in a sequential art form. Looking through each option we could choose to read, I found it very difficult to be engrossed by the content. Not only did I not enjoy the overall art styles that were depicted through each one, but I also felt offended by some of the themes like racial slurs and untactful, raw, sexual depictions. I ended up choosing “Mr. Natural”. However, I’m sad to say that while this was the one most enjoyed, it really doesn’t say much.

Reading Mr. Natural before being exposed to other underground comics during class has helped me reflect and compare. Mr. Natural has by far a much better sense of depicting its illustrations than every other comic I read during class. The latter was much more crude, lacking rhythm and every other aspect that would appeal to me as an artist. You could argue that the point of underground comics isn’t really about the art but more about the freedom to depict any subject matter you want and to do it in a censor-free environment. However true, I can’t shake off the visuals. Underground comics are still comics. They are meant to be read through images because it is a form of sequential visual storytelling. I felt like this was lacking in both “visual” and “storytelling” aspects. To me it felt more like an outlet of ideas and the fact that these were publish still impresses me. I don’t really see these as good stories rather than an excuse to publish controversial themes.

Contract with God

Will Eisner’s Contract with God completely took me by surprise. This was another case in which the drawing style fooled me into thinking that the content would not actually get too adult oriented. Instead, the cartoony aspect enhanced and exaggerated key moments that were brought to this story. One of my favorite things about this book is that it tells a collection of stories rather than just focusing on one big plot. To make it even more interesting is how Eisner decided to connect all of these stories and characters through the use of one location: The apartment building. This is extremely important as you feel there is a relationship between all of these characters even if it doesn’t seem so direct.

I find it interesting to think that this book is considered to be the first graphic novel, and yet, it doesn’t feel like what we know of graphic novels today. This is especially evident with the panel layout. There is a lack of traditionally placed boxed illustrations. Instead, we see drawings almost as vignettes, framing pages and the words telling the story. However, this isn’t the case with every single page. We do get a series of sequential drawings carried through a page as well, though they still lack an obvious frame around them. This doesn’t bother me though. I found it to be fresh and actually made me feel like the story was being communicated at a faster pace. I didn’t feel confine within each illustration. I’m glad because these are beautiful illustrations and they do a fantastic job at portraying emotions through body language. Will Eisner does a incredible job at making us sympathize with the pain and struggles that a lot of these characters, the tenants, are going through.

The Comic Book

I’ve never read any Tin-Tin comic books before I took this class, though I’ve always recognized the character. For this reading I chose to read The Calculus Affair. I was pleasantly surprised by how serious; yet comical at times the story was portrayed. My initial reaction to the artwork was an expectation of a kiddie story. I did not expect attempts of murder from antagonists via bomb going off in a house and use of alcohol. Now, I’m not going to say these enhance the seriousness of a story, but it does help to a small level keep the story to seem like something that only kids could read.

Now, I found the artwork to be beautiful, but I felt a bit discouraged when some panels would literally be ¾ covered in speech balloons. I understand that in some scenes of the story the characters need to go through some conversations, which will further develop the plot, but I feel the overuse of this ruins the pacing and only slows down the drama when reading this comic book. I’d hope that instead, we could have seen more scenes like the one where they investigate the house where they find a tied up Professor Topolino. What was great about these sections is that we see a development of the plot through actions of characters rather than them sitting down at a table and simply just talking panel after panel with the exact same camera angle.

Peanuts

Growing up in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Peanuts, was one of the few comic strips I remember reading as a kid from the newspaper. Not only that, but the characters, such as Snoopy and Charlie Brown are forever engraved in my mind as childhood icons. I have to admit; I wasn’t too thrilled to be reading comic strips at first. I’ve always found them to be too simple and would just lead to a bad pun or some other form of a lame joke. However, once I read Peanuts again after years of neglecting comic strips, I found the reading to be enjoyable, for the most part.

While I still love these characters, I dove into this reading expecting some repeating themes a couple of bad jokes. I have to say that I found no surprise regarding this. I expected (and received) Lucy chasing after Schroeder as he is still mesmerized by his passion for Beethoven and playing the piano. Snoopy is still sleeping on top of his house, and Charlie Brown will still fail to kick that football. Now don’t get me wrong. This isn’t really a problem for me. I’m in love with these characters. I love that Snoopy is still a silly dog that gets or causes trouble form time to time. In fact to this day, he is still one of my favorite characters in comics. I do have to say that I preferred going over strips that had little to no dialog and just relied on character actions. I thought these were the funniest and impacted me the most. I don’t think I’ll ever stop smiling at the thought of Snoopy sliding across the ice, skating about, only to find himself in the way of a pack of kids ready to whack about a puck right next to him.

Understanding Comics

Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art was an interesting read for me. As a kid, I grew up reading comics, so it was a bit of a bizarre experience for me to read a comic that was informative about the medium itself. When I first started reading, I couldn’t help but simply nod at ideas that I whole heartedly agreed with, like for example, the definition of comics as a visual narrative medium. These were concepts that weren’t new to me but help establish the entirety of the book. However, Scott McCloud brings to light certain aspects about comics that I never wondered to think about as it relates to the subconscious aspect of our minds.

One of these concepts was about the story-telling transitions from panel to panel: Moment to moment; action to action; subject to subject; scene to scene; aspect to aspect; and non sequitur. Now, again, these concepts deal heavily with one’s subconscious and you have to be looking for them to really appreciate them and become aware of how they progress a story. As an artist and storyteller, I found this to be the most crucial and important section of this book.

Another concept I found myself interested in was the discussion about icons versus the use of rendering. I can agree with McCloud that the use of icons can drive an image forward to the viewers mind in a far more effective manner that a rendered image can. The reason for this is because as humans, we abstract images and shape them into symbols and thus they become easily more relatable to us as readers.

Sequential images in class

The first panel contains a female character facing a bird. She seems to be doing some kind of performance as if to entertain the bird. There also seems to be a dish full of eggs which I interpret to be some kind of income in this world.

There is a very dominant central figure in form of a humanoid bird looming over a woman laying in a bed. It seems to be examining her.

Two bird-like men bury a dead deceased woman. The scene feels like that of a funeral. The rooster men seem to be dominant figures throughout these panels. They always seem to be in control.

I feel like perhaps these two bird people are mourning over the female. Once the woman is buried, these two are paying their respects. Other human figures around the scene feel like ornaments or pieces of art. Like scupltures.

This panel seems to be a flashback of the female's death while her companion, perhaps husband finds her laying on the floor. This person however is a rooster man.

Perhaps this man is experiencing a metamorphosis and turning into a rooster himself. The female figure in the background seems to be shocked by this occurrence.

The Arrival

The Arrival, by Shaun Tan is probably one of the most interesting sequential art books I’ve read so far this year. It’s compelling how a series of images, without need the aid of written words can communicate such gripping narrative. This is the first time I’ve ever read storytelling without the use written words. However, the illustrations are so amazing composed that it could never have the same impact it did by adding these. Every single page seems so carefully throughout, from the use action-by-action panels to the use of full page illustrations showing establishing shots and dramatic key points in the story. The images themselves are extremely well depicted, using a style that captures character expressions, showing their struggles along with the use of surrealism and beautiful creature designs.

I loved the character development. Although The Arrival’s main character endures his own struggles, giving resolution to his problem by the end of the narrative, there are also other characters introduced, each whom has a different story to tell and different kind of visuals to carry them with. It’s through these characters, who share the same struggles the main characters is going through, that is, immigrating to a new country and settling, that make this wonderfully surreal world that much more believable. Not only that, but the narrative, through the use of an invented language shown written throughout the story, allows the reader to relate to the main character, who also has no clue how to read this. This allows to not only see what the character is going through, but to sympathize with him and root for him until the very last page.