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American Newspapers to Begin Carrying Manga
jonerik writes to tell us The Associated press is running an article stating that several American newspapers are going to start carrying manga with their normal arsenal of comics. The papers feel that this will help boost their readership amongst a younger audience. The two strips that made the cut are Van Von Hunter, and Peach Fuzz which are both created by American writer/illustrators and are being distributed by Universal Press Syndicate.
Now, it if was hentai...
Where does the line between manga and comic art exist then, if not by country of origin?
the layman's guide to computer science
what is this?
Does that mean Penthouse might start carrying Hentai?
Manga has nothing on Ziggy
... huh?
Tentacle rape is not really rape, women enjoy it and so do you.
If it ain't Japanese it ain't manga. They should have picked up Azumanga Daioh.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Aaaah - manga to the rescue! If nothing else this shows how corrupt and clueless the American media landscape has become. After the obvious abandonment of objective reporting we experienced in the last three years, mixed with fabricated reports, a myopic coverage of world affairs, etc. it is manga that will get me to buy the paper now? Give me a break! If I want manga I either buy a printed copy dedicated to that genre, or buy a DVD, or if I'm really broke resort to eMule and co.
I frankly wonder what PR company issued that one - must be the one that constantly claims that 'suits are back!' - LOL
commic strips haven't changed much in genre since I was a kid (i'm 30). With the exception of boon docks every comic is double digit years old. Only being retired when the artists have passed on.
*Some undecipherable japanese characters here*
Seriously, how many people subscribe to a newspaper for the cartoons. How many of those people would still subscribe if there were NO cartoons in the paper? Finally, how many people would subscribe or unsubscribe from a newspaper based on the availability of 2 comics. I would guess no more than 1 out of every 1000 for that last one, with 1 out of 10000 being more likely.
While this is a cool thing, since I'll take a look at any new comic in the paper, I don't see it making any noticable impact on readership. Most papers would do better by coming up with a decent tech section and an Entertainment section with some interesting content. The Onion has a huge following just for their AV section, since they're well written and targeted at the teen-30 crowd. It's a good example to follow, newspapers.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
'...it's long been a hit with the younger generation that grew up on Pokemon, Hello Kitty and Japanese animation movies or "anime" for short.'
No, anime is not short for "animation movies". "anime" is short for "animshon" (Animation in general), but anime is the actual Japanese word, not a daft English abbreviation or French derivation. Though given the quality of translation by those who are supposed to know what they're doing, it's hardly surprising...
I wonder if adding manga would really encourage children to read the newspaper more.
How about filling their newspapers with informative and well written articles that don't contain glaring factual errors? It seems like almost every article on a subject I know something about has blatant factual errors in it.
How about publishing the news as it happens? It seems like most of the articles in the New York Times cover things I knew about a week earlier.
How about not using anonymous sources, or at the very least outing the sources if they are proved to have been lying?
How about not pretending there is such a thing as unbiased reporting? Saying "one is lead to believe" instead of "I believe" is just another form of lying.
Ah, Ziggy! Will you ever win?
Where can I download it? 'nuff said.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
You know, this might be one of the smartest things anyone in the media has done recently. Even if it turns out to be an enormous flop (and I think it might have a chance of succeeding,) at least it's a new direction. They are at least trying to get out of their rut.
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
Guess they weren't ready for serious drawing (aka bande dessinee franco-belge but not only). I don't like too much mangas, at least those I read. But I probably didn't read the good ones.
Million Dollar Screenshot
Being an imigrant in North-America from europe I notice that european comics are completly ignored here.
European comics are not alianated, scapism brain dead super hero comics.
European comics can have complex narrative and complex characters.
European comics can focus on all type of real problems in all types of forms,
comedy, tragedy what ever.
Any half brain, half educated european will have comics references for
his/her life and erudit conversations will often make references to comics
as to any other form of literature.
It's something I miss here...
sorry i was RTFA when i came apon this line
"Cibos, 23, is a self-taught manga artist who has never been to Japan and speaks no Japanese but grew up on the manga classic "Sailor Moon.""
and at that point i closed the browser window and came here to let everyone know.
Nothing to see here, please move along
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
Well if you like foreigners taking amrican cartooning jobs from hardworking American cartoonists, you'll love this. Yet another example of corporate fat cats taking the bread out of John Q. AmericanCartoonist's mouth, along with mother and baby, by outsourcing his job to some foreign cartoonist. And if Ye Olde Fatte Cats do go ahead with this treasonous plan, they at least could have had the good taste to get rid of Jim Davis. That guy sucks
exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis
In the 1980s and 1990s Belo bought newspapers across the country.
To quash competition in two-newspaper towns, they paid rediculous amounts for exclusive rights to features like comics and Dear Abby and Ann Landers.
People quit buying the competition and now we have a lot fewer two-newspaper cities.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
There are so many great comic artists who have been ignored for so long for the likes of Garfield (yawn) and Family Circus (shoot me). What a shame that they're going for the only genre that produces more cheap overdramatic and entirely unsubtle crap than Fox. There is some irony in the growing embrace of manga by americans though. The style was inspired by american cartoons after all. The only difference is that here we continue to treat comic art as kid stuff while in asia manga grew out of control like worms at chernoble.
useless sig advice - Read Nabokov.
Are they going to post instructions to read it right to left?
This article deserves to be in the anime section about as much as the last one that got put here: "Space Tourism Gets Another Passenger." Perhaps we need a "Americans Who Wish They Were Japanese" section... Now if you'll excuse me I have to go refresh Megatokyo over and over again until the next comic comes out.
First I tried the Katakana, but the whole lot got filtered. Failing that, I went for the above, spelt using the appropriately punctuated "e" (which I can't show, for obvious reasons). Only after I posted, did I realise that Slashdot had filtered the character...
Love Hina? FAKE? I think you want Angel Sanctuary.
:)
The local anime convention was once held at a traditional Catholic school. The completely insane organizers decided to show Angel Sanctuary. I had the opportunity of watching it in a big screen between a giant statue of Mother Mary and another of a saint. The school never allowed another anime convention on its grounds. I think it was worth it
Prescriptive grammar:linguistics
...that is thoroughly annoyed by this?
Yeah, we're hip, we're relevant...
and I've become a fan of it. It has very good jokes, and tries to imitate the japanese narrative style (altho not completely, but that's not a defect). It reminds me a bit of the Slayers series, and also has (very funny) references to anime videogames.
In comparison with american anime-like cartoons like Martin Mystery or Totally Spies (ack! Choke! Cough), VVH is much more anime-like, relatively speaking. And having seen garbage like digimon (eew) or DBZ (ugh), I say VVH has much more quality than them.
So no, VVH is NOT a heresy against the concept of Manga / Anime.
Regarding the inclusion of VVH in newspapers, I can say that it fits the format very well. It's done weekly, and altho it has a story, each strip doesn't need the reading of previous strips to get the joke. I personally recommend it to anyone.
Okay, seriously, that comic (call it what it is) is rarely, if ever, updated. Beyond that, it isn't the best of the online comics. I won't say what the best comic out there is (I read about 10 on a daily basis), because someone will certainly disagree with me--and I don't have my asbestos suit with me today.
Instead, let me critique Van Von Hunter on what I know of the comic, having read all the past strips up to some point in the middle of this summer. The story is interesting enough, but rather, politely put, scattered in its approach. Frequent tangents and odd, rather sudden, inclusions from what started out to be a fairly cohesive storyline all combine for a feeling that the author doesn't care that much about the story or characters. Instead, it feels very much like a part time hobby that he does because he can.
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
Is manga like Final Fantasy? No.. really?
The beatings will continue until Morale Improves!
The examples I gave were just the first ones that came to mind. I like yours better :p
Americans take what is brilliant, run it through a lamifying filter and end up with Fitz US style, Nikita US style. End result: lame, politically correct bullshit.
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
and now it has a taste for blood.
There are readers who switch newspapers and whine loudly when a single frickin comic (which I invariably don't even like) changes papers.
Comics are about as popular in our lunchroom as sports or the main section, and my first impression of both papers was based on which comics they had.
I often feel like a fool after reading the comics and not being amused even once, but I still read it every time I come across the paper.
Man, you really need that seminar!
News for Losers. Stuff that noone cares about.
"Re have to point it out"
Is that Engrish for "We have to point it out"? How fitting for a manga story...
But what is the "Japanese style" of comics???
Hi. I'm John Q. Public. Japanese style, manga, anime, japanimation, or whatever everyone wants to call it this week, to me, is big eyes, small mouth and no nose. There are other aspect that make it that style, but visually, that is what it is to me, John Q. Public.
------
Now, I'm not a "real" or "hardcore" anime fan. I've seen some series here and there, and it's ok, but not really my interest. But as someone who was on the outside and who gave it a real chance, I can tell you that is exactly how most people see anime - as described above. And in fact, it all looks the same to many people in the same way all heavy metal music sounds the same.
That is one of many hurdles it will have to cross to gain acceptance from John.
-Valiss
just like airplanes crashing on a deserted island is a central theme in a lot of american television. oh wait, that's just a few shows. you'd make a horrible scientist with the way your brain processes quantity.
And when it gets to the point where the newspapers are carrying this garbage, you know your once perfect country's gone for good.
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
Newspaper? Aren't newspapers dead already? I thought that with inventions of Slashdot, Fark, and The Daily Show that everyone born after 1970 gets all the daily information they can use. Even old-school broadcast television is moving to the web. As of yesterday, you can now download NBC nightly news on the web.
For those of you still reading newspapers, STOP KILLING THE TREES already. We need the wood to rebuild Florida, Texas, and Lousiana before next hurricane season.
I did not start reading the news paper because of the head lines or because of the Metro section. I started reading because of the comics. As I got older some of the headlines started to catch my eye and I read less Peanuts and more about the world around me. It is important to have comics kids will like as they are the future subscribers.
Do you realize that discussing the qualities of manga and how it's different from comics means you automatically fail at life?
It's true.
If Eskimos can build igloos from snow and polar bear shit, why can't the cajuns rebuild their homes from swamp mud and gator testicles?
Now if they were going to publish REAL manga I'd do backflips! How about some of the 4 panel manga that appears in magazines like Comic Morning or Action?
I will never give in manga in newspapers unless it is http://sinfest.net/.
Although it's likely never to happen considering the author, Tatsuya Ishida, has been rejected 11 times by the syndicates.
If they really want to show off some good "new" comics, they need look no farther than the hundreds of very good & very creative web comics available. They need not use an american comic masquerading as Manga (or imitating it, whatever). That said; i read the first 20 or so VVH and i have to say i was entertained...it was kinda funny. just not something that should be in the sunday paper, introducing manga to american audiences or introducing them to a new format of american comic strips... DIE HI & LOIS DIE!!
Don't ya hate it when the correct spelling of your favorite screen name is taken?
Perhaps you could do us all a favor and say... back your assertion up!
The reason you may be modded flame bait is that are making a rather enormous generalization that, so far as I can tell, does not in any way represent reality.
So maybe you could do the honest thing here and either admit you're just blowing smoke out your ass, "Feminist Mom", or come up with some actual data.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Van Von Hunter got syndicated?! That one is silly, but it is getting hard to follow. Why not other comics, such as Dominic Deegan, which actually has a semi-coherent plotline? Or do User Friendly for the geek crowd, if Iliad will allow it.
This sig no verb.
This amateur crap:
http://www.vanvonhunter.com/vvh1.html
http://www.vanvonhunter.com/vvh171.html
is supposed to appear in a newspaper as "manga"?
OK, tinfoil hat on: this is crearly a campaign financed by american comic publishers to discredit true japanese manga.
From VVH's site:
They will be weekly, "two-page" strips that are basically the same proportions as the book pages from Tokyopop.
Considering that typical manga chapters are on the order of 20 pages, this storyline is going to take forever. I gather it's something of a webcomic, but it's hard to tell an ambitious manga-type story in 2-page chunks.
I'm imagining that they've syndicated Kenshin, and this week's installment is just a breathtakingly drawn smackdown.
Well, it's hard to say where do you draw the line at what is manga what isn't. Manga is really just the japanese (and chinese) word for comics and isn't really confined to one style or another. But there are a certain type of styles that american artists, (including these two mentioned in this article) to a certain degree, haven't adopted/understand. I know a lot of those deviant art people will like to call themselves manga artists and will argue to the end of time that they are, but whether their comic is good or not is another matter altogether. To put things into perspective. I was reading ranma 1/2 while I was reading Batman:Knight's End and in my eyes, they're both just comics. The difference is really in the story line and how the artists perceives the world (i.e. how the shots are set up and the panels). But what a lot of younger readers have found is that the story lines of mangas (comics from japan) are, a lot of times, a lot more intriquiging, engaging and more emotional than say your x-men or spiderman where you find out, yet again, that the spiderman you thought was spiderman was yet another clone. And because, at that time, there was no comics outside japan that had that style (ragnarok comes to mind. Yes, the manga that Ragnarok Online was based on was korean. *gasp*), they've come to associate the manga style with the more engaging and better stories. Of course, this being America, a lot of people have tried to encroach on that space by putting out shotty story lines with manga-like art, hoping that people will read their stuff and associate their comic to the style that associates with good story lines. (Kevin Bacon, anyone?) So, in the end, it's all about the storyline, not the style. That's why I've stayed away from the American authors. Usually the authors that try to associate themselves with the style... that's all they have going for them. And for those artists that say Japanese artist can't draw... you should see the ground work and side work that a lot of these artists do. The infamous Hojo Tsukasa (surname, first name) who did Cat's Eye, City Hunter, F. Compo and Angel Heart, has a really great book out filled with his life drawings. I only wish I could draw that well. Oh yeah, my title. If they wanted a 4 panel manga, they should have just licensed azumanga daiou.
please... let me sleep... a little more... yay, no longer annonmyous coward.
Yah, because US would never have anything that has rape as the central theme.
US is the king of sexual abstinence.
I guess it's not champagne unless it's made in france, either?
Whether its cheap or imitation champagne, youre still going to find it in the champagne section, not housewares.
Manga functions as a classification here. If you saw only examples of the new comics, without names or classification, you would say 'Wow, it's manga.' or at least 'Hey its manga-like'.
The significance to this article is the potentially interesting classification of these new comics. If you disagree with the classification, then it is just not noteworthy to you and you can file it along with the latest baseball scores, or hockey scores, or tennis scores, or soccer scores, or breadmaking tips, or bridge puzzle, or local restaurants found to have slime in their ice machine, or the weekends crappy indie music conerts, or whichever one of these things it is you just dont give a damn about.
Without this potential significance, this would not have been news. You are not permitted to reject something as an article of news because you disagree with its significance. An item is news because it has signifiance to some of its consumers.
Nor are you permitted to reject it as an item of potential significance, because it _is_.
It a new way of getting information. You can get 100's of stories, carry it with you, Fold it up, recyle it, and the ads don't flash or move around! and it cost anywhere from 35cents to couple of bucks!
Also, if someone hacks it and changes the information, it's usually really easy to tell!
Wait, it gets better: NO DRM! once you get one, you can share it with anybody else, and it is completly legal!
You can also reply to discuss about article, but the moderater is really stern and you have to get there approval. On the plus side, it cuts down on the BS found in most forums!
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
... it will be America's version of Manga. As with every other popular phenomenon, America has taken it in, made their own lesser versions, and crapped them out the other side. Look at how many American cartoons are around today that use the anime art style. The same thing is going on with Manga.
A block of code, sufficiently well-written, is indistinguishable from magick.
So, let me get this right: they're going to broaden the appeal of the funnies by combining manga and ferrets. And to give the offering more mainstream appeal, maybe some color commentary by Ralph Nader and Pat Robertson?
Why are Japanese cartoons so popular? I don't mean to troll, i just don't see what the attraction is. They look like low quality garbage to me.
You can take something that is specifiv to one culture, and if you market it right, a different culture will adapt it.
Take wedding rings in Japan as an example. Japanese women did not get diamond rings for a marriage until after a large diamond organization marketed it to Japanese women, post WWII.
Now, Manga has been targeted at young kids in America for some time, and the newspapers are just leveraging that marketing in hope of increasing readership base. It is well know that is you get kids to buy somethng reguarly, there is a strong chance that they will keep making that purchase for life.
Also, something from outside ones cultural is often considered 'cool' to youths.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
to a certain style.
Deal with it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Well it's nice to see the cutepet.org guys have made the leap from drawing furry video game porn to doing weekly Sunday comics. The Chugworth dude must be jealous as hell.
Wasn't there a filter at one point that hid this crap from me?
The "big eyes" look that people seem to associate with Manga (even though it's not always used) is something that Osamu Tezuka stole from Disney's "Snow White."
The dwarves in "Snow White" may have been influential, but the clearest precursor of the cutsey anime 'look' was Betty Boop.
The Betty Boop look: big head, big eyes, small mouth, highly stylized hair. Plus, in some cartoons she was part-human, part-dog (similar to the 'cat-girls' of Japanese cartoons), and she sometimes had disproportionately large breasts.
Okay, so first of all, my head would have to be a little bean. With real, real big eyes. Get rid of my thumbs, make me all shiny {clean noise that sounds like a harp, or bells, or both} ...my boots would be a whole lot cooler. Like robot boots. {robotic 'shooo' noise} And for some reason, I got blue hair. You gotta have blue hair. Then there's my mouth. Real tiny when it's closed; ridiculously huge when it's open. And then you basically just put me in space and let me fly around in cool poses!
Anyway, I doubt that distributing a fruit subject to severe seasonal supply shortages is going improve a newspaper's popularity. And I can't remember the last time I saw a teenager eating a mango. It's all fries and candy bars with the younger set nowadays.
...but he comes back to haunt me. I cannot resist his lure...
I guess it's not champagne unless it's made in france, either?
0 2582914_winecol26.html
Correct... and not just anywhere in France; it has to actually be made in the Champagne area (duh!)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/foodwine/20
Yah, because US would never have anything that has rape as the central theme.
We're talking about comics, here, jack ass. You know, for the kiddies?
I was thinking the same thing when I read that last sentence in the submission. "Manga" is not a style, it specifically refers to Japanese graphic storytelling. Otherwise there'd be no reason to even use that word. We use that word to refer to their comics/graphic novels because they use that word to refer to the same material. (It is the same with "anime".)
If anything, TOKYOPOP has been heavily pushing the idea that manga is a "style" more than a genre and descriptor of origin. They seem to be quite happy to call their American-drawn line "manga." They continue to push this idea on the consumer at every convention, and in every press release. They like to call this phenomenon "the manga revolution." Of course, this is also the same company that heavily edited most releases they got their paws on when they were still Mixx Publishing, so I'm not really surprised.
In Japan, Manga just means comics and anime refers to cartoons. When the Japanese talk about American comics or cartoons, they call them American Manga, or American Anime. Batman is American Manga. Disney movies are American Anime. There is no distinction like there is in the US, they don't use a different word.
When US comic book fans talk about European comics, do we use a different word? No, we don't. We refer to Japanese comics and cartoons as manga and anime as a way to differentiate between the two styles.
When Manga was first starting to come over to the US, DC and Marvel zombies looked down on it and made fun of it for the most part. Calling it Manga and Anime was just another way to say it wasn't as good as American comics, "real" comics.
If comics are truly to become a respected medium like books or movies, we need to get rid of these stupid distinctions. We don't call Japanese novels "Hon", which is the Japanese word for book.
Comic books are comic books whether they come from the US, France, or Japan. If it's a Japanese comic, call it that. To argue that something that is from the US, but drawn in the Japanese STYLE, is or isn't manga is stupid. Of course it's manga.
ALL comics are Manga.
OK, am I the only one that didn't have a clue what Manga was? Two seconds of googling solved that particular mystery. God, I hate Japanese animation.
Except that Azumanga Daioh in English is not funny.
My other first post is car post.
So tell me, whats the ranking of CSI, or better yet Law and Order: SVU? If you think that Japan made rape into entertainment, you haven't turned on the TV recently.
It's "animeeshon".
The same artists run cutepet.org, although I doubt that will be in the papers.
America has taken it in, made their own lesser versions, and crapped them out the other side
The whole reason you think this about us is because the Corporte poobahs can't do anything without their thrice-damned focus groups. Focus groups (or f^%&-up groups) just result in bland, lame, products that just bite. Anything that's sufficiently bland as to cause exactly 0 controversy in any given group of people simply CANNOT be worth having.
When the marketing wonks wake up and realize this, we'll all be orders of magnitude better off. As a fan of manga and anime myself, I'm sad to see it getting the full corporate marketing pre-processing. You're right, they'll ruin it because they are unable to do anything else.
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank
Based on a Grand-Prize winning entry in our Rising Stars of Manga competition,
Peach Fuzz opens with a lonely nine-year-old girl named Amanda.
Am I the only one that sees something wrong with that?
They don't have to buy the newspapers to read manga. They download the manga.
Thank christ there's finally someone who understands this.
Mod up +5 insightful please.
I went to the united press web site - prominently featured are Dear Abby and Anne Coulter.
Evidently their stock in trade is biased reporting and factual errors...
Neither are "Peach Fuzz" and "Van Von Faggot"
That reminds me of my mangina you should check it out - it is very sexy...
I don't know about you but I've read quite a few manga... Though I've never read this "Peach Fuzz" or "Von Von Whatever" I have to say that manga is hardly anything that is for kids. I would say that the normal comics you see in newspapers today actually appeal more to "kids" than manga ever would. In Asia mangas may be read by 10-14 year old kids alongside the older readers, but that is only because Asians are more... For lack of a better word... "Mature," and are exposed to more "mature" content (not as in pornography, but as in complex and hard-for-kids-to-understand) at a younger age. If anything, adding manga to the Sunday Funnies will likely draw more adults.
neko ga nai
I would agree if the each-to-his/her-own applies here. The point is (and I think it's evident by some of the passionate voices we've read here) us anime fans *do* give a damn when some company tries to bait and switch us (because us older anime fans remember when Anime was a taboo thing and how much effort we had to go through just to bring a little quality anime to our part of the US. We're not ones that'll let that go to easily.). I think what most people are slight to majorly upset about this is that this is another stab from the major media (in the US) to sell us something that really isn't. Let's pretend that you were given free tickets to a rolling stones rock concert (and thus, we pretend for a moment that you like the rolling stones.), and when you got there, you found out that when they said rock concert, they mean polka concert, and when they said rolling stones, meant an crappy indie band (as you put it) called passing stones. Now, if you were a rolling stones fan, you'd be pretty pissed. Just like some people here are anime fans, and someone is trying to sell them on this as real, authentic, japanese made manga instead of something calling it as it is, manga-style-like.
But you know what? I suppose we can just let this slide. I mean, after all, the music industry does well by labeling something that it's not and/or putting out shotty content in place of quality ones. And the TV industry has done so well by putting on these survivor-type shows instead of shows with quality writing. I mean, one more can't hurt, right? Right?
please... let me sleep... a little more... yay, no longer annonmyous coward.
Tokyopop is one of the companies that started the whole manga boom. They weren't the first, but they definitely contributed to the market. They started out being called Mixx, and originally published the Sailor Moon manga in english. They started releasing other Shoujo manga (manga for girls) and did well initially.
Eventually, they saturated the market with a lot of titles and started seeing diminishing returns on their profits. Naturally, they looked at other markets to expand into. One of the things they did was to run a regular "Rising Stars of Manga" contest where they encouraged artists to submit material to them in the manga style, with the winner being offered a publishing deal.
I've been told that terms of the contract heavily favor the company, and that they own the rights to all the material that gets published. They've been calling this product OEL manga, or "original english language manga" and are trying to differentiate it from the so-called "ameri-manga" that is published in the comics industry.
There's really no difference between OEL manga and Amerimanga, and it's basically a marketing tactic. Make no mistake, this is OEL manga, not the stuff published in Japan. But like manga, it's very free in it's layout of the various panels. Moving to the standard 4-panel (or 4-koma in Japan, which is published vertically as opposed to horizontally) format will be difficult. It'll be interesting to see how they accomplish this.
Even though they refer to it as manga, Japanese people make a distinction between the stuff published domestically and abroad. American Comics are usually referred to as AmeComi, and OEL manga probably falls under that umbrella. So while it's nice for the marketing folks to say that manga is being published in newspapers now, it really shouldn't be considered manga.
AnimeNEXT anime convention
Hey Jackass, you know what the target audience for manga is in Japan? You know, not the kiddies? Wake the fuck up.
I mean, comon, most of these shows often times don't even mix things up sometimes. The only show that attempts to change things a bit is Battlestar Galatica and even THEN you could argue its just an extention of the original show's 'we lost, we run, who knows what'll happen next' formula.
And thats not even counting all the documentaries (war, medical causes, etc), history shows (an insane amount of footage from the WWII concentration camps is virtually banned from television) and then theres the media whos always willing to show 'the dark side' (whether its the hurricane aftermath, Iraqi prisoners (of war depending on who you ask), or the recent riots in France.)
Does anyone know if there's a way to completely disable anything with "Anime," "Manga," or "Hentai" in the title on the frontpage? These are getting really, really annoying...
Ninja High School by Ben Dunn(?) is one of the best "american manga" I've ever seen! I remember laughing so loud at this comic it's embarrassing!
When are we going to see that episode of Quantum Leep: where he is in a hooker's body handcuffed to his ankles, with the arse in the air, and then Sam hurries through the wall and says someone with a 20 inch penis is about to enter from the next room?
I think it was a Robot Chicken episode, but I don't remember clearly -- Chocolate-dipped hashish does that to you, man.
but those two comics also look like shit as well. not to troll, but seriously, they arent all that great, want another "manga"? try sinfest. the creator has been trying to get syndicated for years, but the problem is, the major syndication companies are out of touch with their "demographic" and dont really give two shits if what they put on there is actually good or not, half the shit I see in the sunday comics isnt even worth reading, I skip over it these days. They dont care, as they dont get much feedback on what comic sucks until one that strikes up controversy gets them loaded with complaints, they'll remove it and put one that isnt controversial. The people who run UPS (Universal syndicate press) seem to be soccer moms and old people. Sinfest would be a JOY to have, but it would be too "controversial" so, back to more mediocrity. But then, why am I surprised? UPS has been publishing a long line of mediocrity for decades.
I don't know, I quite enjoyed it. Unfortunately, ADV (surprise) felt it necessary to alter most of the cultural references to American ones. Being British, that doesn't make things much clearer, and is just annoying. I can see it pissing off most American purists as well.
No, a list of translation notes at the end of the book doesn't make things better.
"Japan, is it just me and the rest of the world that think pre-pubecent guntoting blonds are not good national mascots" - Crow T. Robot
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
I know that this is said in just about every topic in Slashdot, but this is really a non-issue. There is no major difference between Peach Fuzz and most of the American newspaper comics other than age.
While, I'd love to argue about the concept of American drawn "manga" and if it really is "manga", I'm probably too much of a fanboy to give the American artists a fair shake. What I can talk about is the constant adoption by western artists of what some (true or not) consider the "manga" style seems to mark the slow death of western comics. I mean, look at Cartoon Network, they've pretty much all but stopped trying to make new American cartoons and when they do it's something like Teen Titans, which seems to desperately try to immitate the "anime" style (terribly I might add) rather than develop its own. Heck, have you seen the new Batman animation? ;_; (Off point, but the original Batman cartoon, the good one, was done by the same team that did the anime Big O. I just find the irony humorous; thought you'd all like to know.) We're seeing this more and more in Western animation (trying to avoid the anime or cartoon arguement) and it's starting to ramp up in comics. I've seen Spiderman, Xmen, and tons of other staple and new original "comics" trying to immitate the "manga" style, rather than adopt their own, heck, they'll even use actual Japanese Mangaka. Everywhere I look it's seems like westen art is dieing out, with Japanese replacing it. Japanese movies are being remade, animation is being immitated, manga is being imitated, games are being immitated... the only thing missing is music. While, I love pretty much all things Japanese entertainment myself, I'm really sad (and kinda annoyed, to be honest) to see the western arts trying to immitate the Japanese, rather than further develop their own identity.
Nice pun.
I particularly liked the way the teacher was a Spanish teacher for the first chapter, and an English teacher for the rest of it.
Now I know what not to read. I miss the old days before quality American materials were bumped of the air for this crap. I've seen enough anime. I can say without any reservation that American animation is superior in style, quality, and plot.
This is "stuff that matters"?
Oh please...
If the newspapers want to inprove readership they should carry Rumiko Takahashi's "Urusei Yatsura" manga. Its the manga that single-handedly created the Teenage Sex Comedy genre of anime/manga in the 1980's. We could all fall in love with Lum all over again. :-)
By the way, Takahashi-sama also created "Ranma 1/2" (my #1 favorite manga, I have scanlations of the whole series), "Mermaid's Scar" (surprisingly dark considering her previous works), and Inu Yasha (the anime is still being shown on Adult Swim).
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
thezorch@gmail.com
http://thezorch.googlepages.com/home
There's really no difference between OEL manga and Amerimanga, and it's basically a marketing tactic. Make no mistake, this is OEL manga, not the stuff published in Japan. But like manga, it's very free in it's layout of the various panels. Moving to the standard 4-panel (or 4-koma in Japan, which is published vertically as opposed to horizontally) format will be difficult. It'll be interesting to see how they accomplish this.
Well, considering that they're taking two american drawn comics, it's probably not going to be very difficult. Besides, a number of newspaper comics cary from the four panel design, and are still published(far side and their ilk). While I don't read the paper much, I've noticed many papers have gotten creative with the layouts of their papers, and have shrunk the comics to fit more onto the page. A little annoying as they haven't upped resolution any, often making it hard to read the text. A little shrinkage and you can fit a couple vertical comics in there just fine.
I don't read AC A human right
Disclaimer: I am making some unverified assumptions here for the sake of argument.
Ranma 1/2
By Rumiko Takahashi, from Japan, raised in a home that spoke Japanese
Published in English, reading from left to right, in the United States
Is it manga?
Peach Fuzz
By Jared Hodges & Lindsay Cibos, from New York & Florida (respectively), raised in homes that spoke English
Published in English, reading from left to right, in the United States
Is it manga?
Sinfest
By Tatsuya Ishida, from Pennsylvania, raised in a home that spoke Japanese
Published in Engish, reading from left to right, in the United States
Is it manga?
My own answers: yes, yes, no.
I guess you've only been paying attention for the last 3 years.
Virtually no reporting is "objective" because it's almost always slanted to give credibility/righteousness to one side or the other.
Too many journalists form an opinion, then gather evidence to support their opinion, rather than approaching it without bias, and forming an opinion based on all the available evidence. It's usually either that, or a money issue that ruins U.S. journalism.