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NEWS: Second International Manga Award Competition Begins

why she prefers the individualistic approach of Japanese manga (compared to the assembly-line approach of many American comics).

Take the top ten most popular American comic books of all time. Ask the writers and pencilers of those titles if they have any control over when to end the series and yet be assured that the publisher won't resurrect it under a different team. Ask them if they can get replaced from their own creation on corporate whim, without their say-so. Ask them if the copyrights for their respective titles are under their own names. Not the publisher or a syndicate, but their own names.

Now take the top ten most popular Japanese manga of all time. Ask the writers and pencilers (who often are the same one person in many titles) the same questions. Notice the difference in answers.

Do creators of the most popular Japanese manga have complete creative control over their works? No. Have they had far more creative control over their own works than the creators of the most popular American comics books, historically? Yes.

Manga is a medium, a subset of a medium to be precise. As such, it has no concrete style or formula that one can just apply across the board and have it stick.

Monster and Bleach and Fruits Basket and Hagaren are as different from each other as they are from House or Law and Order.

There isn't a "cookbook" on how to end up with manga as the final product.

But this contest, despite its original intentions, perverts manga into a misnomer indicating a style.

How can they have an International Manga Contest?

I understand the thought behind it but it doesn't logically make sense.

Manga is a medium, a subset of a medium to be precise. As such, it has no concrete style or formula that one can just apply across the board and have it stick.

Monster and Bleach and Fruits Basket and Hagaren are as different from each other as they are from House or Law and Order.

There isn't a "cookbook" on how to end up with manga as the final product.

But this contest, despite its original intentions, perverts manga into a misnomer indicating a style.

They're obviously looking to award series that emulate Japanese works, but looking at all the muddy water in their non-clarification of the distinct difference between a "manga" and a "comic," all this seems like is a patronizing back-pat and a confusing mess.

testorschoice wrote:

Take the top ten most popular American comic books of all time. Ask the writers and pencilers of those titles if they have any control over when to end the series and yet be assured that the publisher won't resurrect it under a different team. Ask them if they can get replaced from their own creation on corporate whim, without their say-so. Ask them if the copyrights for their respective titles are under their own names. Not the publisher or a syndicate, but their own names.

That's a broad generalization about American comics, like the one the author makes. Not everything is Batman and Spider-man. There are plenty of exceptions like Hellboy, Walking Dead, Sin City, Demo, Strangers From Paradise, Planetary, Scott Pilgrim, Demo, Fables, Y the Last Man, Queen & Country. I could go on for hours. All thoese creators ahve worked their asses off to get their own creations recognized. The author interviewed there ignores all of those and I find that pretty ignorant if not insulting to many American creators.

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Now take the top ten most popular Japanese manga of all time. Ask the writers and pencilers (who often are the same one person in many titles) the same questions. Notice the difference in answers.

You for get about all the assistants who go uncredited. Plus, is there anything wrong with having a writer and artist or even writer penciler and inker?

She ignores the uncredited assistants in Japan, key to producing popular manga, especially big company weekly ones. At least American comics give cover credit to inkers and interior credit to colonists and other people who work on the book. Though certainly being an mostly uncredited assistant is a shoe in to sell your own idea and start your own series. It's just a different system, with both relative advantages and disadvantages.

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Do creators of the most popular Japanese manga have complete creative control over their works? No. Have they had far more creative control over their own works than the creators of the most popular American comics books, historically? Yes.

Maybe those Japanese creators don't leave their long running books simply because they can't. They've got their one hit and they're sticking with it. The Japanese publishers don't replace the creators on because the authors don't leave. They're in it for the long how. That's just how the industry is structured there. That has its downsides too.

Amen to that. I have this image around whenever I make that argument myself. (Used to have another one, but this new one's neater.)



Can someone tell me how all these wonderfully unique styles are all the same manga style?

Now you're putting words in my mouth. I didn't say, and the author didn't say everything in American comics has the same method. But even today, most copies of American comics sold follow the model of Batman and Spider-Man, not the independent comics. When someone says that American movies or Hollywood is in a rut, he's not ignoring the worthy independent moviemakers who aren't in a rut, much less trying to insult them--he's just commenting on the overall industry.

I think point the author was making is that having one person in creative control of an entire work makes it an individualistic work, which she prefers. Copy for copy, more manga are sold that way than American comics.

In any case, "all the assistants who go uncredited" is a generaliation. The trend in modern manga is to credit assistants. The top-selling manga artist in Japan now such as Takehiko Inoue and Hiromu Arakawa do it.
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Uh, many Japanese artists can, and have left long-running series, while remaining in creative control. The point is that Japanese publishers don't replace most creators without the creators' permission because they legally can't. Again, most Japanese manga, copy for copy, are creator-owned. That's why the creator's name in the original copyright notice of most manga, not the publisher. The same can't be said of most American comics, copy for copy.

testorschoice wrote:

Now you're putting words in my mouth. I didn't say, and the author didn't say everything in American comics has the same method. But even today, most copies of American comics sold follow the model of Batman and Spider-Man, not the independent comics. When someone says that American movies or Hollywood is in a rut, he's not ignoring the worthy independent moviemakers who aren't in a rut, much less trying to insult them--he's just commenting on the overall industry.

If American films is in a rut, I don't think the answer would be to go publish your film overseas and complain about American films. She's clearly ignoring the many creators in America fighting for smaller publishers and creator owned content. To jump to Japan and call your work by a Japanese name is not a good solution for American creators.

Again, so the solution is to ignore many creator controlled properties like Hellboy or Walking Dead or any of the others I named just because they don't bow down by calling itself manga? C'mon. There are hundreds and hundreds of creator owned American books that you and the nominated author here are ignoring.

Never mind that the awards themselves all of ignore those in favor of one whose title is in Japanese. Excuse me if I am very suspicious of excessive Japanese nationalism.

You're the one that brought up sales. There are hundreds of creator owned books in America. None of those got nominated, but this small one with a Japanese name did? That's mighty fishy.

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Uh, many Japanese artists can, and have left long-running series, while remaining in creative control. The point is that Japanese publishers don't replace most creators without the creators' permission because they legally can't. Again, most Japanese manga, copy for copy, are creator-owned. That's why the creator's name in the original copyright notice of most manga, not the publisher. The same can't be said of most American comics, copy for copy.

Again, if you focus only the big two. If you look at others, no. Why are you ignoring so many titles? The solution isn't turning to Japan and looking for acceptance there by making your book more Japanese and palatable to Japanese judges.

The solution is helping these American creator owned books so America's comics industry can be as strong and creator owned as you point out Japan's is.

Uh, those hundreds of creator-owned books can't get nominated if they don't even apply. Please don't take this out on the author who did apply.
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The reason the focus is on the big two is that the vast majority of the sales go to those two. That's not ignoring the independent comics--just pointing out the state of the industry. After all, you tried to do the same yourself in Japan's situation by calling out Kodansha--the sponsor of that author's contest incidentally.
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Ironically, you railing against an author who doing both: she's publishing creator-owned books though both American and Japanese companies. Give her a break.

I have the dubious distinction of being the last foreign artist working for them into the 21st century, or the first fired by them in the 21st, depending how you look at it. With the exception of the great French artists Moebius and Baru, I was the only foreigner to last more than five years working for them.
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The Japanese editors I worked with at Kodansha were primarily interested in the visual aspects of manga. They really didn't care about what you wrote about of what your intentions as an artist were, so long as whatever you produced looked good and would sell like hotcakes in Japan.
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They tended to treat foreigners as expensive experimental test tube babies, to be tolerated and indulged, at times nurtured, always to be studied and obbserved. After a few years, it became clear to them, while the editors and the artists were happy, the manga done by foreign talent wasn't hitting a popular chord with the usual manga readers. It was just too different, too strange for the maddeningly conservative manga readership.

You have to work very closely with your editors, it's just a fact of manga life. The editor functions much more like a big Hollywood film producer does in relation to a director, very hands on, and a publishing house is like a studio. Even Go Nagai, one of Japan's biggest manga artists, had to work under these conditions. Nobody who makes it big in manga is hands off. It just doens't happen
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Luckily I had good editors who were considerate and cared a lot ab out my projects and who cared about manga, so all the hoop jumping as never a problem, rather it was a benefit.

Though I do wonder why one would feel the need to go over to Japan for their awards instead of trying to get recognized in their local market and community.

I see too many manga fans turn up their nose at domestic American comics. Some of them even turn their nose up at Japanese inspired ones like this one. That disturbs me. It's funny because not that long ago many of those who did read any comics turned their nose up at Japanese ones. Now more kids are reading Japanese comics than American ones. Then again, to be honest, I can't blame them, but I do dislike them not opening to any US books.

Plus, many of these works seem pseudo-Japanese. They seem more inspired by specific anime than by Japan itself. It's just a trend I don't like. Too many young creators try to be manga first and creators second. Instead of speaking of what they know and their voice, they try to be like manga and try to be Japanese. Hell, not even that, some cartoon version of Japanese. I don't think many of these kids have been to Japan even for a vacation.They should be writing about their experience in America.

They should follow in the footsteps of great American comic creators like Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, or Warren Ellis. Yeah.

I'm reminded that American Paul Pope published in Afternoon for a while. I quoted his book Pulp Hope: The Art of Paul Pope for a blog post.

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He also says something against that sterotype that things are totally up to the artist and that manga is more creative than American books as too many fans belive.

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