Forum - View topicWhy is manga so easy to read?
|
Goto page 1, 2, 3 Next |
| Author | Message | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
v1cious
 Posts: 6286 Location: Houston, TX |
|
|||
|
Strange, but I was just thinking about it, and I can't figure it out for the life of me. I and i'm sure most other people are reading at least one manga that's 200+ chapters, but for some reason, I can't get into any american comic that long. Don't get me wrong me here i'm not a die hard otaku. I read pretty much everything. Not only that, but the page counts are pretty much exactly the same as American comics.
to compare, I'm sure a lot of people here are completely caught up on the big three. (One Piece, Bleach, Naruto), and all of those books are currently 400+ chapters. One Piece alone is at 603 chapters. Now, compare that to the american big three: Spider Man is currently at 653, Batman's 704, and Superman's at 705... which means One Piece will pass probably all of those next year. That should be intimidating, yet there are people who will sit down and read that entire thing in one week. So what's your opinion on this? The only thing that comes to mind for me is ease of access, but even that doesn't seem right. Last edited by v1cious on Sun Nov 07, 2010 8:48 pm; edited 5 times in total |
||||
|
||||
ZeroDemio
 Posts: 75 |
|
|||
|
The reason why manga is so easy to read is because you don't need to read. Manga use a different style of comic presentation that just makes it easy. Just by looking at the characters facial expression you can pretty much tell whats going on.
Comparing US Comics and JP Comics, is... well... idk. My thoughts are probabely wrong but, US Comics are different. The style realizes on the reading of the long text. SO MUCH HAPPENS IN JUST ONE PAGE, OMG, BBQ! but reading 400 chapters of a common superhero comic is impossible to the youth, reason: takes more time to read, targets male audience, and hard to access illegally. The format of manga is just better made for the young people, and young people are on the internet, affecting your thoughts, making v1cious post a question on ANN. P.S. Can someone please tell me if I'm correct when I say that U.S. Comic book reader are all men above the age of 30. thanks |
||||
|
||||
|
Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
|
|||
|
Scholastic's multimillion selling edition of Bone would tell me "No" to all your questions/misunderstanding about kids not reading domestic comics. As would their great line of books like the Babysitters Club GN's, Amulet [which is getting made into a movie], Smile and other publishers all-ages works. I know PaperCutz is having excellent success with Smurfs, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys and Tales from the Cryptkeeper http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/book-news/comics/article/45031-papercutz-makes-big-splash-with-kids-graphic-novels.html They're apparently selling hundreds of thousands of Nancy Drew GN's [most of which drawn by ME2's Sho Murase]
Anyhoo, younger kids do read superhero books, but for the most part, they're popular with older teens and young adults. There is a lot of older fans too, but they're not the entirety of the fandom. And as I pointed out above, if you look outside of Superhero offerings, lots of diversity out there. Last edited by Paploo on Sun Nov 07, 2010 8:38 pm; edited 1 time in total |
||||
|
||||
Moomintroll
 Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
|
|||
If you insert the word "superhero" in there somewhere and change "all" to "most", then, yeah, I'd say you're correct. But then, as Heidi MacDonald recently pointed out after looking over the latest NY Times graphic novel best sellers list:
In other words, superhero comics don't really represent the American comics market as a whole any more than billion-volume Shonen Jump titles represent the Japanese market as a whole. Speaking as a library bod, non-superhero comics for kids and teens are the fastest growing segment of the English-language comics industry at the moment |
||||
|
||||
|
ZeroDemio
Posts: 75 |
|
|||
|
I guess I don't know enough about the US comic book industry to talk about, but when the examples of spider-man, batman and superman were given, I starting of a different topic, I guess. (Superheros)
Anyway, Bone still has the US Comic style I talked about. |
||||
|
||||
|
Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
|
|||
|
I'd say you have to have the same reading level for Bone as most manga, honestly. And there's some manga that's just as dense/wordy as the wordiest domestic comics- anything by Shirow comes to mind, like Appleseed. More happening in one page mostly comes from US comics have shorter page counts then some manga and being monthly- manga w/shorter pages counts have similar layouts [which is why I guess Rumiko Takahashi's comics took off here in the 90's so well]
Likewise, a lot of shojo manga are monthly, and have reminders/updates on "what happened last" or "what the series premise is" each installment, similar to monthly domestic comics. If one does want to start reading Marvel's lineup though, I'd strongly suggest their Essentials line- cheap, 300-400 page tradepaperbacks in b+w collecting a lot of central runs, including the vast majority of Chris Claremont's X-men run [if you want to read X-men, start with his run]. The line is a mix of 60's [Lee/Kirby's Fantastic Four and Lee's Silver Surfer runs], 70's [Ms.Marvel, Powerman/Ironfist], 80's [Dazzler! Yes, they did one of Dazzler!] and 90's runs [Larry Hama's Wolverine], and a great value. With DC, it's a little harder to pinpoint what to start off with given all the different continuities they've had- in their case, this is why you often won't have the same sort of marathon reading experiences/purchases, especially since most of their longer writer/artist runs are harder to tack down and not as in print- most of their trade collections tends to be more recent stuff, or standalone collections. Domestic comics pubs you should check out- http://www.darkhorse.com DH's wellknown for manga, though also published a whack of licensed comics, and creator-owned stuff like HellBoy, Rusty and Big Guy [it's artists, Geoff Darrow, appears in Trigun's extras as Nightow nerds out about his work at SDCC], Usagi Yojimno. They're currently releasing a new edition and new material trades of Carla Speed MacNiel's classic Finder series http://www.lightspeedpress.com/ http://imagecomics.com/ Superheroes, scifi, fantasy, it's a pretty eclectic pub since it's technically a co-op of smaller self publishers [....and again, in Nighthow's extras, you can witness him nerd out at touring Todd MacFarlane's action figure offices]. My recent fave of theirs was the original edition of Andi Watson's Glister http://www.flickr.com/photos/andiwatson/ http://www.onipress.com/ They publish Scott Pilgrim! And Blue Monday! And Queen and Country! [Andi Watons's put out a lot of books with them too]So many good books http://www.slgcomic.com/ Similar to Oni, and around for even longer, they've published a lot of classics, like the work of Jhonen Vasquez [creator of Invader Zim]. And Andi Watson's Skeleton Key http://www.fantagraphics.com/ Publishers of Castle Waiting [great allages classic], Love and Rockets [a classic, fun series from the Los Bros Hernandez, though moreso for mature readers], Moto Hagio's manga, classic comic strip collections like Krazy Kat, and tons of other stuff. http://drawnandquarterly.com/ Canadian alternative comics publisher. Their edition of the European Moomin (which has been adapted into multiple anime series) comics is absoultely gorgeous http://www.nbmpub.com/ Like SLG and Oni, a long running pub with a diverse range of titles. They're the parent company of the above mentioned Papercutz |
||||
|
||||
|
Jaymie
Posts: 915 |
|
|||
|
The thing I don't like about American comics is how long a lot of the popular ones are, how repetitive they are, and how impossible it is to read them from start to finish. Not to mention the retcons, artist changes, alternative continuities, spin-offs, adaptions, etc.
Manga is easy to read because it's accessible, numbered clearly, and most series actually have an ending. |
||||
|
||||
ZepysGirl
 Posts: 470 Location: NY, NY |
|
|||
...I am not a 30 year old male, and I love Fables and Sandman (and Runaways, sometimes), so there you go. The reason I haven't gotten into the main superhero comics is that I don't know where to start. o.o "Greatest Hits" editions don't cut it for me. If I'm going to read something, I want to read it all. Manga is "easy to read" because most manga have a drastically reduced word count, compared to American comics. xD I read an article once that discussed the differences between Western and Asian comics, centering on the difference between the writer + artist team standard for most Western comics and the writer-as-artist role in Asian comics. I really think that's the main difference. Comic books where the writers aren't the artists normally rely much more on dialogue and narration, with less emphasis on the art. The american titles that have been mentioned, Bone, Amulet, Smile, Scott Pilgrim, Blue Monday-- they've all got the writer-as-artist thing going for them, which is probably why they're more assessable. They're not just dialogue and narration with the pictures squeezed between. |
||||
|
||||
John Casey
 Posts: 1853 Location: In My Angry Center |
|
|||
What kills most superhero comics, saves one superheroine comic: Witchblade. It's a long running series, to be sure, but it's very neatly organized into collections. Feel free to check into it. And to answer the this thread's question....it's easy to read because there's nothing but dialogue? lol |
||||
|
||||
Soundmonkey44
 Posts: 1243 |
|
|||
|
Comics and manga are easy to read compared to books for obvious reasons , LOL.
But yea, I disagree that a manga is easier to read then a us comic, as a comic addict myself I can tell you both countries have an ample amount of gold and garbage. And TBH there's a few US comics that are Alot more enjoyable to read then any manga could ever be. |
||||
|
||||
Divineking
 Posts: 1319 |
|
|||
True enough. Watchmen is pretty much the best comic, not to mention one of the greatest novels I have ever had the privlege of reading in this lifetime. It pretty much paved the way for darker comic books. Which is why I'm glad the movie was relatively fauthful to the comic(outside the ending of course). That being said, I generally prefer manga, but there are always those occasional gems in American comics that I just can't do without. |
||||
|
||||
suika
 Posts: 33 |
|
|||
|
I personally have a hard time with some US comics because it's compressed format - as illustrated by Star Wars Manga vs. Marvel. I prefer the more cinematic approach of manga, and relative breeze you can read it in.
However, I do enjoy US comics. I am particularly fond of the Flight Anthologies and Elfquest. |
||||
|
||||
|
reji12
Posts: 2 |
|
|||
|
well to make things short... manga is easy to read because it has more maning towards life and it supposubly 'stimulates your brain" or something like that
|
||||
|
||||
|
Soundmonkey44
Posts: 1243 |
|
|||
that is utter bullox, it does not matter what country a series is from, and if you want mental stimulation well from the us theres steve gerbers origional howard the duck series, the uks watchmen and v for vendetta, and of course japan has afew notable works as well. but again be it us europian or japanese all countries have good and bad comics, and arguably japan has more stinkers since it has the most these days. |
||||
|
||||
|
John Casey
Posts: 1853 Location: In My Angry Center |
|
|||
In the quiet words of the Virgin Mary... come again? |
||||
|
||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group