Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! - The Dying Breeds
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CCSYueh
 Posts: 2707 Location: San Diego, CA |
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That's what I like. I've been reading American stuff on & off since the 1960's. I seriously collected in the 80's but I went for the less popular titles overall so the teams tended to stay longer-Defenders, Thor, Ghost Rider. The company didn't shake them up as much & when they did wipe out most of their supernatural line, I dropped comics. I like the same vision one gets in manga vs the constant trade-off every couple years. On the other hand, a lot of manga plays it very safe. Too often I've picked up what seemed like an excellent premise only for the author to fall short by playing it safe so there's some negative. But it has always seemed so insane when one hears people whine they don't like long titles when one remembers Spiderman, Thor, X-Men & others run into the hundreds as far as volumes go. |
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TitanXL
 Posts: 4036 |
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The difference is Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach all tell a story, and a story that will actually end to boot. Stuff like X-Men and Superman will never end and don't tell a real story outside whatever villain of the week the have to fight, or the latest crossover mega super ultra sales gimmick event, which is why I don't read them. They're more marketing mascots than characters, so you really can't compare the two. |
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Nayu
Posts: 676 |
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Wait... You just said that the Dark Phoenix Saga isn't telling a story?
Seriously.... there are a ton of problems with US comics, but storytelling is being done in them. I do agree that the ultra mega "lets link in all the unrelated titles together" in a ginormous mess of a crossover has gotten rather silly in the Marvelverse, but this doesn't mean that stories aren't being told. (The Death of Captain America was really unexpected.... of course, they had to go ruin it....) |
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TitanXL
Posts: 4036 |
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Well, there's stories in the basic sense of the word. Each issue has an story, or each arc has a story, but no overall goal or purpose. I mean, Batman catching the Joker's latest bank heist or whatever is a story, sure, but it's not like it'll ever go anywhere; they're meant to remain timeless and simplistic. It's why things get dropped when writers change, it's pretty much official fanfiction.
Anyone who thought Captain America would stay dead was only fooling themselves; same with Batman or whoever DC killed later on. It's to the point of when someone dies you don't say 'Oh no, this is so sad' it's 'So, how do you think they will get revived in a year?' and just gimmicks to boost sales because the companies flat out admitted it's the only way they can sell more than a handful of issues each month. |
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LordRedhand
 Posts: 1472 Location: Middle of Nowhere, Indiana |
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You... have a very limited view on American comics and super hero comics to make statements like that. As they do tell stories the key difference is that we change writer/artist teams every once in awhile and it is more akin to how DC and Marvel market themselves, as the Marvel Universe and DC Universe. So while arcs and stories can and do end, the universes which contain them do not, similar to our stories we tell our peers and friends, we don't end when when we finish a story. But in Manga I find that universes tend to end when the main story is resolved... which is counter to how reality actually is... |
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sokpupet
Posts: 133 |
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And to add to what LordRedHand and Nayu are saying, it's not like the lives of the characters in manga series stop when the last panel is sent to the printers. There are always more stories to be told with a character, and in American comics they are, but with manga the author feels they've told what they felt was most important and that's that.
When Goku flies off to train Uub, Toriyama tells us his adventures will continue. We're not there for them unfortunately, but they're gonna happen. Even if it's not the characters, the world they inhabit will continue and even more fantastical stories, sagas and epics will crop up. As I said before, in American comics that world and and those characters are continually... employed (yeah, that's the ticket). I can't think of any specific examples, but it shouldn't be too difficult to find manga series that are expanded upon by other authors. And besides, look at series like Watchmen, Wanted and Transmetropolitan. Those have defined beginnings and endings, and even though they owe their existence to them dirty Brits and Scots, God love 'em, they're what you'd consider American comics. |
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Nayu
Posts: 676 |
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I'd love to see a shared manga world which was filled out like a DC or Marvel Universe. I think the closest thing we have currently is the Railgun-verse and in the past Lodoss-verse.
Oh, another "shared world" in manga is the one that Suzuka-A Town Where You Live-Cross Over take place in. I guess you could sort of say that CLAMP's titles share a world, kinda. |
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YotaruVegeta
 Posts: 1061 Location: New York |
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isn't Tsubasa a shared universe?
Also, they do have video games (like Jump All Srtars, I think it's called) where characters encounter one another. Not the same thing, but at least they're crossovers! |
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kuriousity
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 45 Location: Canada |
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I think manga artists who cameo their characters in their own series are the best examples of the big-wide universes built by Marvel and DC, just on very tiny, tiny scales in comparison. There's also spin-offs as well.
CLAMP is the best example; almost all their series have cameos of one kind or another from past works. Several of their series also take place in the same 'world' and can then play off prior characters and events. Reservoir Chronicles Tsubasa is the best example though it uses the concept of multiple dimensions instead of same characters, same world. I always like seeing crossovers in works like Akira Toriyama's (Dragonball and Dr. Slump) and Matsuri Akino's (Petshop of Horrors and Genju no Seiza). Then you've got spin-offs and prequel/sequels like Fushigi Yuugi and Challengers/Tyrant Who Falls In Love, to name just a few. Personally I think Marvel and DC take their multi-verses too far (it's near impossible to follow even the full events of one character), but I do like how because of it (and the variety of writers and authors), you can find at least one version or story-arc about a particular character/series that you like, even if others with them fell flat for you before. There's a lot of rehash but also a lot of new opportunities to refresh old ideas. |
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Penguin_Factory
 Posts: 732 Location: Ireland |
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In response to the podcast guy, I will listen to your podcast if it has the following features:
1) Three hosts or less 2) Hosts who don't talk over each other all the time 3) Discussions that actually go somewhere 4) The first ten minutes of each episode isn't just the hosts laughing at each other's unfunny jokes For some reason anime podcasts tend to be better than average about including these revolutionary features- I can think of at least six off the top of my head. |
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TitanXL
Posts: 4036 |
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So in other words, they have no goal or story to them, since each writer will do whatever they feel like. That''s why I never got into American comics. It's like if I just wanted to read One Piece, but I had to read Naruto, Bleach, Detective Conan, and Gravitation to get the whole story because of pointless world-wide crossovers and what have you. That's a terrible way to tell a story, creatively, but it's all American companies can do to make money these days to take advantage of the diehard fanboys who have to buy everything.
Good for them, and this is where I'd say that's a good thing manga ends. One writer, one series, all creator owned. Just because you CAN milk a franchise out 60+ years, well after the original creator is dead and has no input into it like Batman doesn't mean you should. That's the thing, manga CAN end, and that's why people all over the world prefer reading manga over comics. Manga is there to tell stories; superhero comics are not, and are just there to market timeless characters and stories that never change. |
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Shenl742
Posts: 1524 |
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One arguably good thing about main-stream/superhero comics and the whole "author switch" thing (and I say this as someone who's also a fan of manga and non-superhero comcics) is that if one author treats a character really badly, writes them out-of-character, or just plains does lots of stupid things with them, there's always the chance that another, better author will take over the book and make both the series and it's characters interesting, fun, and cool again. Geoff Johns is the king of this.
To paraphrase a writer from Comics Alliance in regards to an writer taking an X-Men title in a weird direction with some rather wild (but still interesting) character designs: "Super-heroes are, if nothing else, malleable. You can bend and twist them as much as you want, but at the end of the day the capes can be folded neatly and put back into the box , ready for someone else to play with them." There's a lot of people who think such a thing is a serious problem, and they're certainly right in thinking that, but to others that sort of ideal can be quite comforting. |
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YotaruVegeta
Posts: 1061 Location: New York |
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TitanXL, I think the decades-long continuity would be a stumbling block to get into American comics, not the crossovers and events.
I read American comics, and I can read the comics fine without picking up tie-in titles. |
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RestLessone
 Posts: 1426 Location: New York |
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And it's extremely close-minded to treat all American superhero comics as never-ending. Because they are not, and I don't consider it a valid reason to group all of the titles under that one label. The most obvious example is Watchmen, which is not only a wonderful comic but a deep piece of literature. Runaways is slated to be getting a film, and it is by no means a long series. Also, listen to the artists of writers for the "never-ending" series like Batman and Superman; they want to create stories and they put heart into their works. No one should try to cut them down with statements about how their comics aren't telling stories, that they are simple cash-ins with little value beyond keeping the geeks happy. Rather than having a definite end, several superhero comics work in a series of arcs (a territory not unknown to manga). Each arc acts as a different story with a beginning, climax, and end.
Not all American comics are superhero-based anyway. What about Beasts of Burden or Lackadaisy or Maus? If superheros aren't your thing, these series are amazing. I personally wish Beasts of Burden would continue. It's only volume, a beautiful hardcover book, left me hungry for more. |
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Hellfish
Posts: 391 Location: Mexico |
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I think citing runaways is a bad example, given that the series was canceled after it switched writers and neither than followed couldn't make the series as good as it was with it's original author. It even ended in a cliffhanger something that would be incredibly anoying for a reader who is acustomed to having endings. Comics from the United States do not reduce to Marvel and Dc though, and even all comics from DC are neverending and constantly switching authors. But the most recognizable are like this, is not exactly bad but it is not for everyone. Manga is not completely inocent of the fenomenon, I have heard Golgo 13 is not actually being done by it's original author, and the many spinoffs of Saint Seiya are proof that a manga could keep going and going if it's author would be able to get away with it. |
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