Guardian’s Books Blog on ‘Why U.S. alternative to manga failed’
The Guardian’s Book Blogs columnist Ned Beauman recently commented on the death of Minx, DC’s attempt to woo Western teenage girls away from the manga racks. Beauman raises some interesting points.
But that specific audience is Japanese, not American; and the odd result is that just as British kids of my generation grew up watching so much Saved By the Bell and Sweet Valley High that we talk about “jocks” and “proms” even though these barely exist within our direct experience, tomorrow’s Americans will be looking around for the otaku and bishonen that are supposed to populate every school. It’s nice to see cultural colonialism happening in reverse, and of course teenagers love to plunge into an esoteric world that makes no sense to their parents, but at the same time it does seem a bit ridiculous that an American 16-year-old can’t pick up a comic that more closely reflects her own life. So there was room out there for Minx; and if it failed, it may just have been that – boring issues of marketing and distribution aside – the quality wasn’t actually very high.
Yes, well - Minx failed because it sucked. Pretty simple assessment, I suppose.
I should point out that the U.S. has a perfectly legitimate alternative to manga - we call them comic books (or for the more intellectually demanding crowd, graphic novels). When we in the U.S. describe manga, more often that not what we’re talking about is the idiom of Japanese comics, the way they tell stories in comic format. We in the U.S. have our own idioms, and while there is a gulf between the U.S. and Japan with regards to how we express ourselves, it’s important to understand the distinction between the form and the content.
If I remember correctly, Scott McCloud likened this to confusing a pitcher of liquid for the liquid. One contains the liquid, one is the liquid. I know it probably sounds like I’m splitting hairs here, but I think it’s important to make the distinction. American comics will always be American comics, even if we take some cues from the Japanese. Just as Italian comics are Italian comics, and French comics are French comics. It’s all just words and pictures, people.
Speaking as a life-long comics reader, I should point out that I’ve more or less abandoned the activity since both Marvel and DC seem intent on bludgeoning us with multi-title ‘events’ that require one to invest inordinate amounts of time and money to follow properly. This is exactly the kind of thing that drives people like me to download said books off the internet rather than blow all my spare cash on superhero rags.
And before anyone gets uppity - yes, I do know independent comics exist. And yes, I do occasionally read them.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
Uhm….Archie?
Okay, snarkiness aside - you are right, teenage girls are undervalued by the American comics industry, and I think it speaks highly of manga that DC felt the need to ‘woo’ them away from the genre.
That said, I don’t know if there’s anything about ‘Japanese’ comics that we can’t replicate in ‘American’ comics, or at least common themes that aren’t viable no matter what country they originate in. (Well, maybe American yaoi wouldn’t go over so well…)
I always felt that ‘Legion of Super Heroes’ was very ‘girl-accessible’, because of it’s soap-operatic storylines and high incidence of young, female characters (which I guess also makes it ‘perv-accessible’). I’d dearly love to see Joss Whedon write a year’s worth of LoSH.
I recommend Warren Ellis’ “Fell” by Image when it comes to independent comics. ^_^
But seriously, how much do American comics try to woo the average teenage girl? Not much. Much of the appeal of manga is that girls can find stories about other normal teenage girls with the same problems and experiences they have; sure, sometimes the main character is a teenage girl with crazy powers, but quite often it’s just a slice-of-life story girls can relate to (Peach Girl is one popular example).
Now which American comics are slice-of-life stories about teenagers in high school? Hmmmm….