Hi,
It seems to me you are narrowly defining "manga" based
on the vast pre-dominance of the stuff that is published in
translation in North America for a mostly juvenile audience.
Your descriptions ring true for much of the stuff my daughter
reads (she reads Manga comedies about teenage girls mostly),
and for scads of stuff she doesn't which I run across at the
library and comic book store and which I can happily
characterize as cheaply made crap. However, I have read quite
a few mangas that were noir which used appropriate artwork
for the subject. Drawn & Quarterly published some
anthologies last year and the year before, and I've also
ready some French-published (in English) anthologies of
non-noir manga which had exquisite (and by that I don't mean
pornographic) artwork. All of which is to say, I agree with
you that the artwork has to fit the genre, but disagree with
labeling manga as a non-viable medium for noir stories.
Cheers,
--Stewart
On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 12:34 PM, Rick Ollerman <
rick@ollerman.com> wrote:
> When I said that the manga style in comics was
"crap," I said that it
> was "my opinion." The assertion I was trying to make
was that aside
> from the story, aside from the subject, the
characters, and the
> pacing, the art in and of itself can be affect the
enjoyment of
> reading a graphic novel.
>
> A black and white or color movie is still a movie
where people look
> like people. A surprised expression isn't portrayed
by suddenly
> expanding eyes to the size of dinner plates or
mouths big enough to
> store bowling balls. In comics, the art can keep one
from enjoying
> the story and indeed, as many people have told me,
has been the
> primary reason they've given up on certain books in
the past. When
> people don't look like people, even idealized ones,
it's often
> difficult to stay in a serious story, especially a
crime one.
>
-- Stewart Wilson Toronto, ON
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