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 Manly Manga
Written by Barb Lien-Cooper
Standard Note/Disclaimer (please skip if you've read it before):
I used to be a big fan of American comics. But for various reasons, I became a manga fan. Not instead, but in addition to my old loyalties. As such, I am in a unique position to comment on the differences between manga and American comics. As an adapter and editor that has worked (along with my husband, Park Cooper) for Tokyopop, Viz, and Del Rey, as well as having a graphic novel called Half Dead published by Dabel/Marvel, I think I have enough manga and mainstream comics experience to, it is to be hoped, be considered qualified enough to comment to manga vs. American comics issues. Okay, on we go…
For those of you laboring under the misconception that manga is a genre and it's a girlie one at that, submitted for your approval some titles that disprove this false assumption...
Togari (Viz): Demon from Hell is released for bad behavior. His assignment: collect 108 sins in as many days or face a fate worse than damnation. All right, I'll give you that I've seen better art. I'll give you that, at three sins a volume, this series is gonna take more volumes to finish than Carl Sanburg's biography of Abe Lincoln. What's more, I'll even admit to you that I think I know how it will end (if logic has anything to do with comic book plots. That is). I'll even admit that the writing is a little rough and same-y. But man, as far as just wanting a little ultra-violence in your comic book life, this series delivers in spades. It's a little bit like watching pro-wrestling on TV. Yeah, it is kind of staged and kind of a waste of time, but when it's there, your eyes can't stop looking at it. There's something sort of mindlessly addicting about Togari that I find almost…admirable. Maybe it's the pacing. Maybe that behind all the leering, sinful, unrepentant criminals and the demon who's scarier than all of them is a story about justice, compassion, protecting the underdog, and the quality of mercy. You know, redemption and all that good stuff. But I do feel that if I keep reading the series anywhere near to its almost pre-ordained conclusion, I'll start singing "Seventy-one sins on the wall/Seventy-one sins, Take a sword and bash 'em around/Seventy sins on the wall. Seventy sins on the wall…"
Oldboy (Dark Horse): Now Dark Horse has always been a smartie about collecting manga. Let's give 'em a thumbs up for that. But let's also give the publisher props for collecting "manly manga" from way back. Blade of the Immortal, Lone Wolf and Cub, et al. And now they've brought Oldboy to America. Now if you're expecting the same simple but insane violent revenge fantasy that the Korean movie of the same name and source material offers you, sorry. I hate to report to you that ultraviolence isn't liberally dished out in the comic. Here and there, yes, but mainly no. Instead, you get a mystery, a psychological thriller, and a neo-noir nightmare. The set up, if you don't already know: a guy locked up in a weird private prison for ten years. He doesn't know how he got there or who hated him that much to do that to him. Finally, unexpectedly, he's released. He wants blood, he wants revenge, but mostly, he wants answers.
A couple of things I should point out: There's some really entertaining gratuitous sex in this manga, scenes really not all that germane to the story, but smile-making none the less. Come on, it's a neo-noir. Plus, the majority of manga doesn't rely on fan service, so it seems to me that it's kind of okay when a title clearly for mature readers indulges a little. We're talking Sin City/Mickey Spillane territory here. And speaking of Mike Hammer mysteries and his tough guy ilk, Oldboy is a little like the movie Kiss Me Deadly. Babes by the square inch, a twisty turny plot…and a suspension of disbelief factor that's cranked up to eleven. Like director Robert Aldrich with the aforementioned Kiss Me Deadly, the creator of Oldboy has thrown out in pretense at realism in favor of excitement first and foremost. There's not a lot of fat on this series. In fact, sometimes you wish there was a little breathing space. But it there was, I think the reader would start finding the plot holes that are so cleverly papered over. For instance, I'm not exactly positive, but I don't think hypnosis works the way it's presented in Oldboy.
This manga is a blockbuster. Not a brainless one. In fact, it's a pretty smart book. It reads like classic Vertigo comics over in the American comics industry, if classic Vertigo was a little less pretentious. This is definitely True Detective story territory. But as with many blockbusters, it's here to be enjoyed, not analyzed. My advice about this series: Munch it down like popcorn, know you had a good time for you money, then forget it the second you're done.
Death Note (Viz): Oh My God. The Win. The series that is cooler, more intensely readable, more intelligent, more suspenseful, better drawn, just plain more than anything else out there for the over 13 crowd. Again, we're in classic Vertigo territory. Only... I hate to say it, but Death Note is pretty much the equal of all the classic DC mature titles. Okay, you might not agree with me (don't send me hate mail if you try it and don't like it), but I haven't been so excited about a series for years. YEARS, people. Death Note reminds me of the days when my husband and I used to buy American comics and spend hours talking about how good they were and what was going to happen in this series or that. This manga reminds of how Park and I used to scrounge around discount comic book boxes just looking for back issues of Elementals or Mike Grell's Green Arrow or Peter Milligan's version of Shade the Changing Man. Comics that were so good that once you got one issue, you were almost compelled to find the whole series? We bought eight volumes of Death Note in one day and read them in about four. Amazing, incredible stuff. Just like comics used to be just as amazing, just as incredible, and just as addicting.
Nowadays, Park and I don't have that type of comic in our lives any more—at least we don't find that type of comic in the American mainstream lately. I'm more or less boycotting all the events and crossovers in American comics and reading indies and manga until the insanity ends. Comics designed just to make sure you buy them just to "keep up" just aren't worth the money or the effort currently, at least to me. Anyway, my husband reads American comics to "keep up". He dutifully brings graphic novels back from the library. He says he wouldn't actually pay money for what's out there in the mainstream right now. He sits down to read. His face grows sour as he reads about the latest event or cross-over. I ask it I should read the comics too, to be companionable. He says "Oh God, No! They'll just depress you!" He's very considerate because he knows that I'm highly allergic to... crap. Every so often, I'll take a peek at what he's reading…and I'll get as depressed as a long-term comic book reader can get.
Sometimes, I'll ask him, "Park, what's going on the event horizon?" He'll say, "You don't want to know." This from a guy who courted me using our mutual love of good comics as a way to bring us closer together. I'll bug him about it. He's tells me in the same type of solemn voice that a former true believer has when trying to explain why something he once believed in has let him down., "It's bad out there," he'll say. I'll press him about what he means. He'll summarize a plot or two. I'll say to him in shock and disbelief, "You're joking, right? Surely, you must be joking!" He'll shake his head sadly. "Couldn't make this shit up," he'll say. In the end, he'll wind up as angry as all the bloggers you see on the internet about complaining about this stuff. Only, he didn't have to pay hundreds of dollars for the "privilege" of having his intelligence insulted. He tells me that all he's wasting is his time, that by reading the work as borrowed library books that he at least hasn't given money to companies who don't seem to care if the readers are happy, as long as they buy the comics. They call it "voting with your wallet" for a reason. The bottom line is all the companies look at, so all the anger and all the blogging and all the talks in the comic book shops really are a waste of breath. As long as one buys comics one hates, one is a part of the problem. Park didn't want to be part of the problem any more. Since the damage is already done by the library who bought the book, he "keeps up" without supporting what's happening out there. He just doesn't want to enable a dysfunctional industry any more than he has to. Me, I just stopped reading them, in spite of my curiosity. There are lots of other geek fish in the sea, after all.
So after my husband tosses the mainstream graphic novel in the back to the library, I say something along that lines of "So how do you think Choji's powers actually work?" Or "Who do you think will be the SIXTH Hokage?" or just, "How LONG until the next Naruto, anyway?"
And my husband will break out into the big smile I saw him smile back when comics were still worthy of a smile and go all fanboy about the life and times of everyone's favor knuckle-headed ninja.
That's how it's supposed to be in a geek marriage. Happiness is fanboy with a good comic he can talk about to his wife…even if he has to get to said comic by way of the Pacific Rim. I'm sure that, out of some twisted sense of loyalty, Park could have stayed a total superhero comic fanatic, refusing to read manga because it hasn't been around as long as dirt and doesn't look like how it was done when Jack Kirby did it. Park still loves superheroes in principle. He still has the long boxes to hold his old comics in. He still has the old graphic novel collections, and he reads as much of the mainstream as he can stand, occasionally finding comics he sorta likes, such as the first graphic novel collection of the rebooted-from-the-1980s She-Hulk, so there's no question of his loyalty to superhero comics. It's just…
It's not up to the readers to be loyal to comics they don't think are good. It's up to the companies to make products the readers follow because they like them, not because it's somehow their duty to "keep up" in a vain hope that maybe "it'll get better". It used to be, you had to be loyal because American comics were the only game in town for the fanboy or fangirl. If American comics went away, sequential storytelling would no longer be available to the comics' fans. That's no longer true. Because manga is a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide---and with companies such as Viz and Dark Horse bringing manly-man-manga into the mainstream, superhero comics aren't the only place to bust your knuckles any more.
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