I’m happy to see that while I was away my gargantuan manga post was quite a hot topic throughout the comics blogosphere. For those of you keeping score at home:
NeilAlien, Tegan, Alan , and Franklin all give it a big thumbs-up, which makes me pretty happy (“wisest words I’ve seen,” “big must-read”–p’shaw). Dirk, Forager, and Big Sunny D also thought it was very strong, though they’re not necessarily convinced; Sunny, along with Johnny Bacardi and (via email) Jim Henley, are mulling over more considered responses (Jim’s promises to be an emperor/clothes angle that I’m looking forward to perusing). Eve seems to have liked the post more than she likes manga itself; at the TCJ.com board Andrew Farago takes the opportunity to question blogging in general as a medium for idea transmission; and finally Bill Sherman has the most skeptical take of the bunch vis a vis the ideas in the article themselves.
Though Bill agrees that manga could and should be an important part of the business plan for any direct-market retailer who wishes to remain in business, he’s wary of attempts to artificially graft manga-style storytelling onto American comics, citing Jill Thompson’s “Sandmanga” (nicely done, Bill!) Death: At Death’s Door as a half-and-half book with some grating culture-clash moments. He also bemoans the manga format’s small size, which can be murder on the eyes of folks weaned on the larger-than-life artistic progeny of Jack Kirby. Finally, he scoffs at my enthusiasm for the big manga publishers’ proficiency with uniform trade dress–Bill don’t need no stinking homogenous bookshelves!
Going point by point, I too feel that American comics’ attempts to assimilate Japanese style have been of spotty quality up until this point. I’ve not seen Thompson’s book, which from what I gather is a lot less “anime” and more actual “manga” than most American attempts at tapping into the Japan-fans market. Most times the big companies take a crack at these things they do indeed seem to rely on big-eyed big-gunned watered-down Japanimation knockoffs. That’s why I focused on format rather than content: the big US publishers haven’t proven even to a tyro like me that they really understand what makes manga manga.
And I’m just as worried as Bill is by the loss of page size that switching to manga format would necessitate. Most of the time I really wouldn’t care, but reprinting, say, Brian Hitch or John Romita Jr. at half-size is almost criminal. As someone who is working on comics projects of his own, I’m at war with myself, since my belief in the superiority of the manga format is in conflict with my selfish desire to see my one-day comics projects printed on great big pieces of paper. But generally speaking, the most proficient artists will look good at any size. Though it might pain you to think of a digest-sized New Gods reprint, for example, Kirby’s sense of space means that his art is “legible” no matter how small it gets. At any rate I don’t think a switchover to manga format as the main method of publication would or should preclude special large-size projects like Marvel’s big, beautiful hardcovers or DC/Wildstorm’s Absolute editions, let alone idiosyncratic alt-comix projects like Quimby the Mouse, Blankets, or The Frank Book.
Finally, Bill, Bill, Bill–you got me all wrong! I’m certainly not some “nouveau-riche” leather-bound slipcase-buying snob who looks at his library as more of a bit of interior decorating than as a collection of literature. Indeed, I actually dislike hardcovers, since I feel that by buying a hardcover you’re making a value judgment about the book: “I like this book so much that I’m going to spend a ton of money to buy it in a super-deluxe edition that I’ll nevertheless be terrified to actually read because it’s so nice-looking and expensive.” Buying a hardcover edition is essentially an accolade that I reserve for very few books indeed.
What I find appealing–and smart from a publishing perspective–about manga-formatted books is almost the opposite of what’s appealing about hardcovers: they’re light, they’re durable, they’re meant to be read and re-read. As for the trade-dress issue, that’s mainly a bookstore consideration: since even the thickest mangas are still on the small side, you need to get them to stand out on the shelf somehow or else people’s eyes will glide right over them. Having volumes one through twelve right next to each other, all the colors and text lining up, sometimes with a picture continuing from one volume’s spine to the next, makes the books practically leap off the shelf at the buyer. My objection to traditional trade paperbacks is not just that they’re so heterogenous, but that their spines are so freaking thin that because of this heterogenoeity you can barely tell what’s in them. Taking a cue from the manga publishers in this case is a matter of common-sense readability, which in a bookstore translates to buyability as well.
While we’re on the subject, I’ll suggest a problem with my own argument: As the more and more frequent and common trade paperback collections of superhero titles have made clear, not every superhero writer has it in him to tell an extended story. Besides being a straightforward issue of quality, this also heightens the risk of switching over to a higher-cost collections-only publishing model. Individual issue sales give the big publishers a monthly gauge of how well a given creator is doing saleswise; if the big companies were to move to the manga model, they wouldn’t have these canary-in-a-coal-mine indicators and might get stuck with some real turkeys.
I think that about does it for now. Looking forward to hearing what other folks have to say about this…