Re: [News] Japan's New Export

On 1 Dec 2003 11:24:41 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Scott Dubin)
wrote:

>"S.t.A.n.L.e.E" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
>> http://www.ikjeld.com/weekly/manga/
*snip snip*
>> To call manga 'Japanese comics' is like calling a painting
>> by Michelangelo a picture.  Both are true statements and both
>> are utterly insufficient and degrading.  Unlike Western comics,
>> Japanese manga have a history that stretch back many hundreds
>> of years.  
*snip snip*

>Comics in their modern form were created in America.  Do ancient
>Japanese scrolls actually look like comics?  What were they used for? 
>Martial arts?  Instructions for Tea Ceremonies and such?  I find it
>hard to believe anything in this article at face value.
>
As a form of media, or as an artistic style?  If the former, you may
be partially right, but even then, Manga is published in a distinctly
different format: the insanely huge newsprint weeklies/monthlies, with
the collected edition format months later.

If the latter, I'd argue that Tezuka was the originator of the 'modern
form' of manga, with his cinema-inspired layouts, though for all I
know, someone was doing it in America by then... even then, I'd argue
convergent evolution, not stealing, offhand... for artistic
*influences*, sure, we *could* stretch back to woodprints for manga,
but if we do that, I'd argue we can stretch back to the
representational art of the Greeks for our style...

I blame Marvel/DC, with the shared/corporately-owned universe pardigm
for the stagnation of American comics.  Similarly, I applaud Tezuka
and his odd self-perception/promotion of himself as an individually
unique artist for the rise of Manga, even though I haven't read much
of anything by him yet... his tendency to try to work in different
genres helped too, undoubtably.


Anyone notice how the last Big Creative Work in American Comics,
_The_Sandman_, used so very little of DC's shared universe?   I think
there's a lesson there to be learned...


Jonathan Fisher
----------
paranormalized man, subnormalized otaku

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