It's veritably impossible to definite good art versus bad art simply based on the cultural nuances of each type of style. The asian simple style will still exist, and the excessive muscle tones of American comics will also exist, but for them to trade techniques isn't necessarily bad if they are utilized in the right way (I.E. No GIANT HEAD SIZED MOUTHS for the simplest western-oriented snicker. SImply annoying).

Your drawing of the opera singers blows me away yet again. I'll keep on collecting an anticipating fanbase for you here in California :).

~Philip Chan

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I think many comic stripes have poor "Draftsmanship" in comparison to superhero comics.
So they're bad comic art? just wrong anyway.
sai

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Nicely written, though I want to toss in one point:

In western art circles/art schools/many of the larger international art scenes--- art tends to be defined simply as "a visual communication of a concept or idea" since, often, the scene has to deal inclusively with Picasso vs Da Vinci, cave painting vs rennaissance master painting, or a super detailed drawing of every blade of grass in a large field vs...well.... an overturned toilet.

A lot of the popular "such and such artists can't draw" come largely from the industry WRITERS/editors, or the readership-- or any ol random non-comic reader around. :P (Artists tend to be more accepting of stylized styles than the audience is.)

Western art, in fact, encourages stylism or broad style sense? To copy or do what already exists-- there's a definately (and somewhat incorrect) pressure to always do something that is entirely 100% different/original. At least in schools. So no, it's not the art scene that's against it at all. :P

In terms of pure artistry, this must sound horrible.
Depends on which art department you're talking to. The anticommercialist guy would hate it. However, most illustrators and designers would simply look at it as a) more competition overseas, and b) a different social focus in a different culture.

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I'm also surfing in entirely out of the blue-- I've been lurking on your LJ because of your essays, which often say some of the things I've wanted to say. *cough*

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Well, I'm glad I wrote the essay then. :D

And thanks for your other info. It's odd to see that the non-artists are the first ones to point out the flaws in the art. But then it's true - I have found that SOME Western and superhero artists and writers are VERY open-minded towards manga, but then again, I've met some who aren't at all.

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*flies in* Well, there are always some antagonistic ones. But the artist community as a whole (this is inclusive of fine artists, everyone looks a each other as some sort of crazy cousin they're not sure what to do with) adopt a laid back, passive attitude of "I'll look, possibly comment abouthte execution of your concept, but this isn't really my field of interest." and leave it at that, without having formed an opinion.

There's a sort of professional sense that a) their art may be completely understood in the way the artist doesn't understand a piece of work he's looking at b) out of politeness, they try to focus mainly on what they _do_ understand. c) if you don't get it, don't say anything.

As for artistic antagonism towards manga-- I noticed that a lot of it stemmed from a need to vilify and find an 'evil' to the reason why they may or may not be losing their jobs in the future. A person wants to do what htey like? Being told it's crap, and this other thing from overseas is better = very insulting. ^_^;; I suppose it's not something anyone likes to hear. I remember reading interviews somewhere of some convention get-together with various industry people from the US comics industry and Japan?

While most people were well behave, a few from each side tried to stress the superiority of their system and how unlike hte others they were, despite the obvious influences. (As the creator of Jojo insisted...I think he was the one, yeah.)

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Ooooh my, I remember this interview. Was it from 1994(?), and involved a summit between a whole buncha American and Japanese artists, including (on the American side) Eisner, Collen Doran and Frederik L. Schodt? Because I read that one a LOOOOONG time ago and the antagonism is still reveberating around the internet occasionally. I think the American side came off slightly worse - not because they were rude, but because the Japanese side sells so much more stuff than the American side so it can't help but look that way. :O

Personally, I would HATE to see American comics disappear or be swept off the shelves by manga. And if there's anything wrong with the American system, it's not any of the WORK that's being made; its the superhero-dominated nature of the industry. In fact, there's NOTHING wrong with superheroes - it's just that there isn't enough stuff from other genres. Not to mention lack of outreach to non-readers.

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Yeah! that's the one.

And yeah, I agree. It's the company and marketting. I was reading into some old compilations, and there was, at a time amazing work done for romance comics, CAR RACING, wrestling/boxing. Detective stories. Sci-fi, Fantasy.... a lot of different things all over the place!

^_^;; yet only the superheros remain today.

------

And yeah, Americans do sell a lot less, but the reasons for that is less their ability to craft a good product, it's the marketing machines that surround them. Unfortunately, it seems to have been used by a lot of people as ammunition to prove whether or not they, as the most visible representatives of the industry, are good enough to be valid.

(not you, but I notice a lot of arguments to and for things tend to have a strangely final tone to them. As if saying things shouldn't exist because it's not sellinga s much. ^_^;;; or it's doomed to fail, or something.)

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addenum:

I think there's this thing in the illustration industry-- it's less what the artist draws/his style and more.... what the company wants?

I know a lot of incredible artists that work in a variety of formats, from manga, to something typically american, to something that's deifnately NOT--- these people work on comics, try to bring it to a company to be published...they don't find work and because of it, stop.

In the end, it's really about whether or not you can pay the bills. If you can do the comic work, or if your personal style can bend enough to change to your employer's demands. I think it's the reason why I have a few problems with the talking about the differences between manga and american comics-- to isolate the US scene to only superheros is like saying you're only willing to compare the entire cereal aisle to quaker oats.

I don't _like_ American comics as a whole. ;P but I am not going to argue about whether or not Batman and Superman is more iconic than Astro Boy and Micky Mouse. It's an argument doomed to circle because it's got no real answer?

That's the long and convoluted explaination as to why the Western Art scene wouldn't say much or form much oppinion against or for manga. There's personal opinion of what they as a consumer want, and then thre's the ART opinion, and both are completely different things.

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Western art, in fact, encourages stylism or broad style sense? To copy or do what already exists-- there's a definately (and somewhat incorrect) pressure to always do something that is entirely 100% different/original. At least in schools. So no, it's not the art scene that's against it at all. :P

Neil Cohn wrote an essay that addressed just that idea at comixpedia: Art vs. Language

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Oh man, I have seen so much Wester comic art with horrible anatomy. It's pretty much a given you won't see anything realistic in most superhero comics.

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I've touched on this a bit in a blog post I did a bit ago, but I think the looser style of manga is simply more expressive that Western naturalism. It is able to say much more about the character's emotional lives than pure naturalism. I often have theatre analogies, considering that's my background: Shakespeare's a bloody poor naturalist - people don't speak in strict pentameter - but he communicates artistic truth much more than 100 naturalists like Miller or Williams.

I think McCloud's 'recieved/percieved art' plays a role here. The more detailed and naturalistic the figure, the more it is "other" and we look at it from the outside. A simpler, more iconic figure encourages identification. Could Yotsuba even work if she looked like a "real" toddler?

Mark Fossen
http://fossen.blogspot.com

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I remember Scott McCloud's book - I read it and really thought his points valid. I wasn't thinking about his book when I wrote the essay I did, but then it's fairly true. For my essay, I was more thinking of the SOCIAL aspect of manga art, and how it ropes people in at a SUPERFICIAL level, rather than at an internal, identification level. On both levels, manga art seems to score a jackpot.

And Yotsuba wouldn't have worked if she was portrayed as a real toddler, though there ARE manga out there who draw REAL toddlers and they're nowhere near as cute as Yotsuba. That can't be helped though... naturalism brings another problem - the fact that reality can often be rather... ugly. Not just metaphorically, but in terms of superficial appearance.

I know for sure SOOOOO many manga stories would TOTALLY not work if it weren't for the simplified art. It helps in everything from forgetting about reality to suspending your disbelief. In the comics world, at least, it's amazingly helpful.

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Another though that comes to me reading your essay is that you may also be describing the decline in popularity of superhero comics. If simple art leads to an increase in fandom by presenting an easier door for aspiring artists to enter ... that was also true of earlier American comics. The hyper-realism is something new. Go back to Gil Kane, Curt Swan, Dick Sprang ... and you find again that simple art. Even Kirby - while not simple - had such strong linework, I bet there were many fans who raced for the tracing paper before they finished reading the issue.

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Haha. I'll be coming back to that thread this weekend. I've just been a little bit busy with some other projects.

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Busy arguing with other people? :p

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How'd you guess?!? :P~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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I think there's another difference between Japanese-style and western-style comic art that you may have overlooked:

Manga seems, as a whole, more concerned about the portrayal of a scene, and the action of that scene than it is about the realism of it. I've seen some awesome images in western comics -- but you have to stare at them for a while before you realise what you're looking at.

Abstract portrayals used in manga mean less work for the reader. It's also puts the raw material into a less subjective form. A western comic might have the narrative tell you that John has a huge crush on Jane, but manga can show you with one of many possible strong visual cues. I haven't read as many comics as I probably should have, but so far it's all been pretty literal.

There are other ways to solve the "show vs. tell" problem, but that's more a matter of story-telling.

Also, I think that western comic artists tend to overlook rules of contrast. One interesting thing I noticed in a manga is that a teacher stood in front of a blackboard -- the black of the background would have obscured the edges and the details of the lineart in the teacher. The manga artist used a "white cutout" to give the teacher enough contrast to be properly perceptable.

I thought it was brilliant.

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All true, but that was sort of outside the scope of what I was writing. :p The abstraction of manga in comparison to alot of Western comics is something that would require another HUGE ASS essay to talk about. Maybe I should get YOU to write it. :D

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Maybe I will. :P

Although I've got another manga/anime rant already coming up. But I'd be happy to write up an essay about abstraction.

I'll have to sit down and actually do some real research for once. ^_^

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Here I am thinking, I should probably write up that essay about abstraction now... But... gah. Mind blank. It can wait a little longer.

But I don't suppose you have any suggestions for any places I could steal images from to use as illustrations? (I feel that, when discussing something visual, illustrations, etc, help people to draw their own conclusions.)

Particularly anywhere from which I could grab some western/european styles.

It doesn't matter either way. I'm just asking. It's my essay, after all. :P

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Hi there,
Seeing as you've covered the most important grounds of the argument, I did want to note one minor detail: I don't think most manga artists are self-taught.

I don't have any solid statistics to back this up, but from all of the mangaka biographies I've looked at over the years, it seems that artists who predominantly draw "shounen style" (without my going into the implications for defining 'shounen' or 'shoujo'...take it as a superficial categorization please) are somewhat more likely to have gotten formal art training; although many prominent "shoujo" artists are also graduates of art school. You might say Clamp started their manga debut in doujinshi circles, but you can't overlook that Mokona Apapa went to artschool. So I'd say, most mangaka DO have formal art training. However, it's no secret once they graduate that they have to fashion their own stylic brand of drawing to make it in the market.

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That's true. Alot of famous mangaka have art training - but mostly I find that it's the FAMOUS ones only. The not-so-famous ones drawing for the more obscure manga mags can be just about anything - and it's these ones that still manage to find an audience out there, because the manga industry is large enough to support them. That sort of thing will never happen with superheroes, not only because the companies set a minimal standard, but because the market is so much smaller.

But then you also have the apprenticeship system to consider, which would qualify as a FORM of art training.

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Intelligently written, with some interesting points!

"Draftsmanship", as defined by dictionary.com, merely means someone who can plan and draw, and perhaps that's where the biggest differences of opinion comes in. What does it mean to "be able to draw"? I'm assuming it means drawing well, and that good draftsmanship means structural and anatomical accuracy of the art, and the amount of semblance to realism in the linework and composition.

I would say also under draftsmanship should be composition. Increasingly not so much nowadays, but I've found in slightly older american comics the layouts tended to be quite cluttered and difficult to follow. The older manga I've read still tend to have quite open, flowing layouts that are a pleasure, and natural to follow in comparison. I suspect that is one of the greatest edges of manga vs. american comics.

Also, seeing what passes for 'art' nowadays (modern art hah!) makes me immensely surprised that the western POV is still thought to be based in realism.

-The simplified manga art-style is something that encourages self-practise, not least because it gives the IMPRESSION that it can be mastered without a fine arts degree.

-In comparison, if there was a superhero fanart contest going around, I wouldn't enter it even if I was a total fanatic.

I have to say I started out by being inspired (*cough copying*) american artists - namely from X-men. Same with my older sister, and some american comic fans that I know. It was only later when I got into games, (FFVII) that I started looking at manga-style art, and changed my drawing style. Granted, the american artists I was inspired by weren't the really 'old' ones, more the newer generation, like Joe Madureira and Michael Turner, who are vaguely manga influenced anyway. But, I don't think intimidation by the skill level was as high for american comics as it is now - there's been a trend for increasing realism, but the older ones, and some newer ones are easily as stylized as manga IMO.

Some of the difference between the copying of manga vs copying of american-style comics may be the age groups of the readers. I got into comics when I was young because my brother bought them, but comics were pretty hard to access for your average kid (ignoring the ones that are also sold in bookstores now.) Anime in comparison is on TV, in kid's shows times.

I also suspect that another advantage to stylized art is that it's simply more accessible to the reader. Writing style is probably also a factor in expression, but manga characters expressions usually have a lot more impact, simply because there's more room for exaggeration. At the same time, characters are usually drawn more consistently once the artist settles into their stride, rather then american companies' constant swapping in and out of artists (and writers!), so I think readers can more easily bond with the characters. I'm also probably biased, but while I can admire the technique of american comics, most of the time I don't find them as appealing as manga (aside from the drool worthy colours).

Also, most importantly when I think about comparing manga-style and american comic style art, is the time length taken. Superhero comics normally put out those slim little monthlies that are exquisite and full colour, but they've got a full team working on them as well. Mangaka sometimes produce in weekly, bimonthly, or monthly magazines, chapters from at least twenty pages (usually more.) While most successful mangaka do have assistants, a lot of them work solo, with maybe their family or friends helping them in a pinch.

Sorry for the messily structured response, but it's late ^^;;.

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Haha, I'm only looking at superhero art, and the Western comics industry. :D I touched lightly on Western attitudes, but that's about it - and Western art really HAS gone off the deep end for a while on abstract art.

And oh - you make some very good points! The swapping of artists is probably the biggest problem with Western comics that I have - the consistency bothers the crap out of me. It annoyed me with "The Sandman", which I love, but can't help but wish they got the SAME artist to do it. Neil Gaiman probably had his reasons in choosing the artists, but you'd think it was a completely different series, and you'll be unable to recognise the same characters with a different artist. All in all... annoying.

And besides, one of the other strengths of manga is that certain artists/creators/writers become like good friends. The readership that is created becomes loyal to a certain creator, which makes them keep buying the work because you're certain what you're going to get. Not so with the conveyor-belt production house of many a superhero comic.

As for the time-length of the comics, I don't think it's an issue because superhero comics tend to pack alot more plot and dialogue than your average manga issue. An 8-issue superhero story may take 24 manga chapters or more to do. So, what is happening here is more of a story-telling trade-off - something that can be a personal preference. Cluttered art and dialogue in western comics annoy me, but then so does the manga plot that takes too long to get to the point.

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Swapping in and out of artists and writers is definitely incredibly annoying, especially as characterization gets wonky. I actually didn't mind Sandman's swapping as much - while sometimes it was incredibly jarring, other times Gaiman really picked artists that complemented that particular story. Or produced stories that complemented the particular artist's style. You're right in that the art styles make it look like another series entirely, but I think the actual character designs were distinctive enough in simple ways that each character's signature...characteristics were easily shown even through different drawing styles.

I suppose one of the strength's of the swapping could be that the character can be continued to be used even after one creator is finished with them? And I guess it is interesting to see other people's interpretations (like when Amano illustrated Sandman, or when the mangaka of Blame! did a Wolverine series).

On consumer loyalty - definitely more easily established in manga. But I can think of superhero artists who are distinctive enough to have drawn in their own fanbase.

Good point on time-length issues. Western comics do tell a lot more then they show, but maybe manga can try to show too much XD.

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Maybe I'm taking too simplified an approach. I'm not sure, but my view is very very simple.

People like different art styles. To me, an art isn't "bad" so as long as it conveys emotions according to the way it was meant to, plus all the things like easy to follow, ect ect. The technical stuff. This matters especially in comic books and manga, where it is telling a story. Superhero proportions and manga proportions are not very "realistic" in all honesty. I don't really care. As long as the art is dynamic, moves me, and doesn't feel "stiff" and like the limbs can't move, I am fine. To me, it's more about the plot, and the art is just a way to get the story across. Now, the rest boils down to preference. I like the "wispy" look. I dislike seeing sweat and blood, unless it is not for gore but more for...mood? Like Death Note or your very own Dreaming. I like seeing a good fashion sense. Those are my favorites, but I do not disregard the others as "bad". Merely not my taste. And I leave it at that.

I agree with you why manga has a more popular appeal. A lot of it is simplified. Some aren't, but a lot is, especially for the younger set. It can be broken down to be drawn, with little background to really overwhelm you. A lot of people do not "need" to go to art school, and in the manga industry in Japan, many DON'T, so it's not like there's a problem with that, and this makes the kid go, "Maybe I can draw too!". It's a lot easier to like manga or pick up a pen and draw it. When you start young, you can work your way up. And maybe it's just me, but I feel the simplified approach makes it easier for me to follow everything and not get bogged down by useless details. Good details are ones that create mood and grounds the story setting and character personality. Stories with lots of background details should ADD, like Death Note with it's gothicness, not take away. If it does, it's "bad art".

So manga good for a reader, and for an artist. It's accessible and "cute" (the kawaii factor is huge. Studies show that humans like things with big heads, and that's manga for you.). Add that with manga plotlines which for the first time, actually touches things America never have seen, and you've got something going on. Everyone likes novelty, right?

Superhero comics to me are imposing and intimidating. Not good for beginners who don't have a grasp on anatomy to draw people doing many things, with lots and lots of details. People usually start with simple face shots after all...Not that nobody draws it either, but it's just more intimidating personally for me, and I've never seen anyone doodle in superhero style because it requires so many details.

Of course, after you start with whatever you choose, all you really have to do is keep on working at it, until you can do whatever you want, and appeal to whatever audience you want.

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Hey, you're right in all of that. :D (or so I feel too)

Superhero art IS intimidating, but there's no mistake that the good ones are very skilled. Oddly enough, at this point in my career, I'm taking more notice of how Western comic artists draw. It has less mass appeal, but from an artistic point of view, it's worth learning from (to grow as an artist). :D

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