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.

How about accurate reporting?

[teutonic_leech]

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

Re:How do we know this is manga?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

The problem is that the style of American "manga" is generally a stereotypical view of manga drawing styles. Sure, a lot of manga do follow the stereotype, alot don't. Besides, my understanding of the meaning of manga as a loan word in English always coincided with the origin, it doesn't make much sense to me to use a foreign loan word to describe a domestic product which there already exists a perfectly fine word - comic.

Re:How do we know this is manga?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bzzt. You lose. There are Japanese comics out there that you would not necessarily recognize as manga. There is not one single artistic style that can sum up the totality of Japanese comics style.

Re:How do we know this is manga?

[badasscat]

Where does the line between manga and comic art exist then, if not by country of origin?

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".)

Anything that is created outside of Japan is not manga, at least not if you're using that word to differentiate something from a standard comic (i.e. you are speaking English and not Japanese). It may be "manga-inspired", but it is not manga.

People do get into arguments about this sort of thing, and yes, there can be questions of degree... a lot of anime, for example, is written and designed in Japan but drawn in Korea. Is it really anime? Probably. Same is true of some manga. But if you're talking about comics written by Americans, drawn by Americans, in America, that's just a comic. That's got nothing to do with manga, however its visual style may look.

Re:How do we know this is manga?

[Golias]

But what is the "Japanese style" of comics???

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."

When I see must American attempts to make things "look Japanese" (such as the Teen Titan series currently on cable), it looks more like a parody of the oddest quirks of japanese anime than anything else.

Re:about damn time

[amliebsch]

Though I was pissed at the time, as time as passed, I have more and more begun to think that Bill Watterston (Calvin and Hobbes) did the right thing, in quitting as soon as he felt like it had become work, not fun. As a result, they are all good.

Re:Blasphemy

[Guppy06]

"If it ain't Japanese it ain't manga."

If it ain't American it ain't rock-and-roll?

Re:Hmm

[Kphrak]

Saying "one is lead to believe" instead of "I believe" is just another form of lying.

I don't know about you, but in several of my high school English classes, using a personal pronoun for anything nonfiction, short of an autobiography, was considered poor style. In one of my college science classes, using a personal pronoun in a lab journal entry resulted in losing 10% of your grade on that lab. I'm guessing that saying "I believe" violates some stylistic rule of journalism.

Of course, I'm replying to a poster who said "one is lead to believe" instead of "one is led to believe", so perhaps you were asleep in English class when this got discussed. ;)

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

rather than carrying only one to the left of Joe Stalin

Yawn. Yet another "waiter, theres a liberal in my news!" troll.

Try finding a news outlet in the United States that isn't owned directly or indirectly by News Corp (other than CNN, yes, we all know they try hard to be liberal), then we'll compare biases. Until then, accept the fact that while you've been wasting the last few years of your life beating a dead horse, the world has moved on.

Re:I guess

[MightyMartian]

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.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

if only it was azumanga daiou

[Sleeping Kirby]

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.

Re:How do we know this is manga?

[MosesJones]

And yet if Japan was to release films claiming to be "Hollywood Films", music that was "New Orleans Jazz" or selling "Texas BBQ Steak Mix" there would be little question of them cynically ripping off an American idea just to make a quick buck...

Manga is Japanese, in the same was as Champagne is French, you can make it the same way, it might even taste the same... but no matter what you do its not the real thing.

Pepsi ain't Coke folks...

Re:How do we know this is manga?

[Anonymous Coward]

The "big eyes" look that people seem to associate with Manga

The drawing technique is merely a fraction of what defines things that people label "manga". Pacing (what, you mean the author actually planned the series to end before he/she died?!), arrangement/flow (panels? What panels!), content (zomg tentacle porn!), character design elements (all heros must be this tall to ride) and so on are quite different in "manga" from "comics" in many cases, yet in Japan all of those elements that we see in the newspaper's "comics" section exist in the form of "4-koma" (see Azumanga Daioh, for an example readily available in English).

The end conclusion is that labels are stupid. Either enjoy it or hate it, but do so based on the actual content, not what label some person stuck on it.

Re:Blasphemy

[Mahou]

see that's why this convo has gotten no where. to me, manga is a medium, as say music, and to you it is a genre or style, like rock and roll. we not even on the same page. i'm saying that all drawn narratives should be called comics regardless of geography but calling comics from japan "manga" was just easier than calling it "japanese comics" or "comics from japan". manga is not a style, as the style of comics in japan is far too varied to be a genre.

rock and roll shouldn't be called country music because it diverged too far away and IS a style which is why the name spreading with the style is ok. How can you still insist that i'm saying a word is american? i already said you DON'T call a car from toyota a kuruma but rather a car just like ford cars, and therefore names aren't nationalistic or whatever.

again you're using "comic" as a style including humor whereas i see it as a medium of images used to tell a narrative. Manga DOES mean japanese, how can you not see that? you even say that mimicking the "style" of japanese manga means an american comic can be called "manga", therefore you ADMIT that manga does mean japanese...

this conversation has no possibility of changing either of our opinions since we're not even talking about the same thing

Re:Like it or not Manga now refers

[Golias]

So the question really is, is Manga about a comic coming from Japan, or is it about the particular style of comic?

And the answer is, it's a comic coming from Japan.