Forum - View topicJason Thompson's House of 1000 Manga: The Rose of Versailles
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simside
 Posts: 29 |
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http://www1.dreamers.com/comic/Otras_Editoriales/Azake_Ediciones/LA_ROSA_DE_VERSALLES <-- Rose of Versailles in Spanish. No idea how legit that site is, but it was one someone pointed me to a long time ago. On the topic of American girls' comics, Matt Thorn has an interesting article here: http://www.matt-thorn.com/comicology/romance/index.html I skim old romance comics out of the comic bins around here whenever I see them, and most of the ones I've picked up are just short stories, maybe two or three unrelated stories per issue, all with Very Important Lessons at the end. The British girls' comics discussed earlier sound awesome. I've never heard of any of those. Thanks! |
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Tamaria
 Posts: 1512 Location: De Achterhoek |
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Thanks. Robbins actually lived in the fifties, so I guess her account is as reliable as they can get. I'll track down her books, maybe buy some actual comics from that era, gather up some old British comics from yardsales and compare it all 
BTW I just noticed she wrote the English adaption of From Far Away for Viz.
Even though the language used is almost the same, American comics never made a big impact in Britain and visa versa, I guess. I wonder what would have happened if American publishers had licensed those British girls' comics in the sixties and seventies. Would they have revived that part of the comics industry? Would these comics have been seen as something very foreign, exotic even? Anyway, though I can't remember them all that clearly, I'm certain there are some out there that are still worth reading as an adult. Your best bet of getting a taste of the medium and reading some complete stories is buying a few annuals. These 200 page books usually contain several complete stories, a bunch of funny strips and some other regular content of the weeklies (like quizes). Oh, and this may be interesting to read. The writer spends some time comparing British girls' comics to shoujo manga. "Tohru Honda of Fruits Basket would have been right at home in the pages of Bunty." |
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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Before I try to wade through 5 pages of posts, I just want to jump in and say how excited I am about this column! More manga coverage on ANN is a good thing, and who better to write a column than Jason Thompson? Thank you so much!
Also, thanks for explainingto me what I've been missing in Rose of Versaille. I've heard bits and pieces about the manga and how great it is through the years, but I never could get the skinny on what exactly it was about. I'm glad I know. Now, if only we could get someone to release it in English... |
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ptolemy18
Manga Reviewer/Creator/Taster
Posts: 357 Location: San Francisco |
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Absolutely! You can respond to the thread or email me at "j*[email protected]". (Fill in the "*".) 
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braves
 Posts: 2309 Location: Puerto Rico (but living in Texas) |
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I'm pretty late in saying this, but I hope that you cover Jojo's Bizarre Adventure on this column in the future seeing as how you referred to it twice. I'm pretty sure that's considered "buried" over here since it never took off in the first place. I also had no idea you were an editor on the Viz release; thanks for helping bring that gem over to the States.
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EricMontreal22
Posts: 35 |
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This is pretty late to the game, but since 70s shoujo manga is bar none my fave (Hagio, and Takemiya at the top, but the other manga-ka like Ikeda as well from that group, not to mention the brilliant work of certain earlier manga-ka like Mizuno Hideko and her gorgeous, crazy sex drugs and rock and roll 1969 epic Fire!), I had to add some thoughts.
Great piece. Jason asks why many classic shoujo titles, like Versailles, feel more like a long extended novel than a collection of stories or chapters--I think one reason is many titles, like Versailles, were incredibly *weekly* titles (which is why Versailles finished a fair size run in just a bit over a year!). This seems to have stopped with shoujo titles by the mid-late 70s (it's true that Ikeda's awesome Orpheus Window is twice as long as Versailles, but it took something like *5* more years to be published due to Margaret then being monthly). That said, in the deluxe edition of the title Ikeda did between Versailles and Orpheus, my personal fave Oniisama E (aka Brother, Dear Brother thanks to the fansubs of the great anime adaptation), it's mentioned that Ikeda wanted to do away with chapters all together and with Oniisama managed to for the first time. But comparing some of Versailles to some old Margaret's I have, next to nothing was edited or changed for the collected editions. I'd hardly say Ikeda is a one-hit wonder as some seem to have suggested--Versailles is epic of course, but OniisamaE has never been out of print (and had an anime adaptation 14 years after it ended), Orpheus' Window is nearly as beloved as Versailles (I actually slightly prefer it), Eroika (which included Rosalie and other Versailles minor characters) was a big hit, as was her Catherine the Great manga, among others. Likewise she hasn't actually retire-d-just cut back greatly on her input--a few years back she did an Orpheus sequel, and she's currently doing a comic Chibi version of Versailles (since the 90s much of her manga has had art done by one of her assistants, Erika Miyamoto--with full credit--and not by her--starting I believe with her small hit manga adaptation fo Wagner's Ring opera cycle). I was given by an exceptionally kind online manga friend, both volumes of Schodt's Versailles English translation about 8 years ago. They're brilliant to have, but it should be pointed out that they are *edited*--about a third seems to be missing (so that the end of English volume 2--roughly 400 pages into the manga--falls around page 650 of the Japanese volume). This is mostly well done, you wouldn't notice it anyway, but it has messed up with a lot of the wonderful original page layouts with some of the edits happening literally halfway down a page. I also would argue that Ikeda doesn't completley drop the early shoujosuper cartoony look by the end of the manga--it still pops up. By Oniisama and particularly Orpheus, though, she had completely dropped it even in comic parts. The confusion over the French translation seems to be that Kana is going to be doing new editions--or reprints anyway--in early 2011, according to some listings I found. You can still get them for a reasonable price on amazon.ca (volume three is under 400 pages and consists of the Gaiden side stories, similar to the original volume ten, that were published in the early 1980s. Many fans aren't too keen on these, and I find them cute but nothing more--with Ikeda's 1980s artwork much less appealing). It should be pointed out that Asuka has a similar, gorgeous, one 500 page volume edition of Oniisama E in French. |
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agila61
 Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
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That's Euro57 for the set, or ~US$80 for the set of 5! I'm scared to check out what the shipping will be, but (since they are double volumes), $8/volume is not bad at all. And did I mention I'm scared to check out the shipping. |
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