Manga & Comic Books
 

Okay, notice that I did not say "manga -VS- comic books". I think that to argue one is better than the other is absurde and in the end you cut yourself off from a fantastic form of artistic expression.

Obviously some of us are still reading physical comics and manga. I thought we could talk about what we like about them, why we might prefer one style over the other -but in a polite way. We don't need to be hurting any feelings and getting the thread shut down.

I also though this would be a cool place to highlight your favorite title(s). Maybe some of us have never heard of them and you can turn us on to something new.

For me, I love manga AND comic books. Yet I don't own many of either. However, what I do own I consider to be a pretty high-quality collection.

More than the actual books themselves I love manga/comic books as an artform. I love the idea of taking a pen and paper and basically making a movie, without limits on its special effects, for almost no money. I love the way a single well done panel can capture an emotion and hold it, and I love how for the short time I am drawing a comic I feel like I am living it.

Because I have these intense feelings for what manga/comics are as a craft, I usually feel pretty cheated when I go to the store to buy some.

The serialized titles of Marvel and DC irritate me -its the same set of situations, rearranged, and altered slightly month after month. Sometimes a great writer or artist will breath new life into them, but usually not at the same time. And there is no creative fredom for the people working on these books. They are not moving the story forward -they are maintaining a corporate franchise.

Most manga is equally "factory manufactured", though creators have more control and the stories have beginings, middles, and ends. Unfortunately for me, TokyoPop (the largest importer of manga) tends to focus on the titles that sell really well to 13yr old kids. Saturday morning cartoon stuff. There's nothing worng with that, except that I'm no longer a part of the demographic they target. I know for a fact that i would have loved NARUTO when I was younger. Now its just silly to me, and I can't figure out why everyone wears soft-casts for shoes. ;)

So, I guess I hate comics and manga when you get right down to it. LOL

No, not at all. There are always hidden gems buried in the chaff. And I search for them like a madman. Obviously my idea of what's a gem and yours will be different. That's cool. But I'm hoping we can swap at least a few that we all agree are fine pieces of work.

I guess I'll start it off with two of my all-time favorites.

APPLESEED; this is the manga that basically set the standard for the late 80's and 90's, and still influences manga artists today. I have read it a dozen times. The art is still amazing and Shiro's depth of story is impressive. I still find little things that I missed years ago when I reread it today.

The title is starting to show its age a bit, but the high quality of the work more than makes up for that. Shiro went on to do Ghost in The Shell which was a HUGE influence on the Matrix movies, and many other things.

APPLESEED still beats out GITS for me though.

IRON EMPIRES; I wont rave about my favorite on-going title just yet (HELLBOY). IRON EMPIRES is a fantastic set of 2 mini-series by Christian Moeller about ten years ago. The artwork is painted, and epic in its scale. If you took a fantasy setting as well developed as Middle Earth and made it a space-fantasy comic book this is what it would be.

IRON EMPIRES has a set of FANTASTIC stoties. Some amazingly developed settings, and some of the best characters ever. Creepy sinister enemies want your soul while the Church of the Wheel wants you to burn in the eternal flame. Religious nuts, awesome power armor, human fights human while an alien menace lurks in the shadows.

Its great. The second series was called SHEVA's WAR.

Both APPLESEED and the IRON EMPIRES books were put out by Dark Horse comics. you can still get them through their website I think.

Something that I just realized that both these titles, manga and comic, have in common is that they are set in a world that was higly personal to their creators. There is so much more that we don't know about, so much time and effort spent building a back story that never made it to print. That sort of thing amazes me and is what makes a comic or manga better the tenth time you read it that it was the first time.

I generally prefer manga becasue I tend to like the art and stories more. While I do enjoy things like Naruto, I wont argue that they're well done. I think some of may absolute favourites right now are Peacemaker, Tenjo Tenge and Gun X Sword, but there are a lot more I can list. Iron Empires sounds like something I would like. I think the main reason I dont like western comics as much is becasue the only ones i've been exsposed to are the Marvel and DC things, and I just dont give a crap about the characters or storyies.

This is why most of my favorite mainstream comics take place outside of established continuity. DC's Elseworlds has a lot of crap that falls on its face, but it also puts out things like Red Son.

I always harp about the old 9-issue run of Mr. Majestic by Joe Casey and Ed McGuinness when I talk about quality comics. They do more with a Superman knock-off in nine issues than DC did with the original in about 60 years.

Human Defense Corps was another great mini. Not as powerful as Red Son or Mr. Majestic, but an interesting read nonetheless. I suppose this would be the sci-fi complement to Gotham Central. It shows how ordinary men and women deal with the kinds of threats the Justice League might have to face. It's just a shame we didn't get more HDC, as it ends in a great place begging for more stories. There's no denying that ATOMIC ROBO's Action Scientists and the more Defense-oriented aspects of Tesladyne were influenced by this title.

Question for you, oh almighty one, Is Atomic Robo one of those liogh hearted ones, or is it very serious? Also, why are you so almighty?

Like I said in the other comic books thread, the problem with Marvel / DC comics is any time anything halfway decent happens at either of them, they either backtrack the hell out of it, or it gets thrown under the rails of their latest reality-spanning clusterfuck.

That said, The Ultimates would be pretty awesome, if The Ultimates came out with a new issue more than once every three goddamn months.

Manga is one of those things I sort of classify as just intended for an audience that doesn't happen to include me. Fine and well for the people who enjoy that sort of thing, and I just don't happen to be one of those people.

I can't figure out why a bunch of ninjas are running around wearing goddamn bright orange.

Bit of a mix.

Yeah, this is the crux of my problem with Civil War. While it's one of the first BIG EVENTS THAT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING FOREVER that I've actually enjoyed -- thank god they finally figured out to keep all the important stuff in the event's core book where it can be read and understood instead of forcing me to ignore twenty other titles with characters I don't care about being portrayed half-heartedly by talent I don't care about doing a story they don't care about -- the problem is that I can only see the aftermath going one way: stick to it until doing so becomes too awkward (5 years max) and they revert everything back.

And that makes me sad.

I think the general consensus is that short comics/manga tend to have a better paced story. Correct me if im wrong, byall means.

My problem with Civil War is I keep waiting for the scene where they reveal Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic are actually Ultron and Doctor Doom in disguise, but it keeps not happening.

Yeah, I can't say I'm happy with how Tony and Reed have come across. I generally prefer super geniuses to act the way they are in CW, as there's a point where an intellect becomes simply alien to the "human" experience, and if anyone in the MU would be like that it would be (possibly) Tony and (definitely) Reed. But portraying them like that kind of goes against, what, 50 years' worth of grain. It's the kind of version of either that I'd enjoy in a What If?, but in regular continuity it's a bit, I'll be nice and say, jarring.

Which comes back to the whole problem of both companies being so married to continuity in the first place.

And by "married" I think we all realize I'm talking the "baby, why you gotta make me hit you?" kind of married.