Comics Week: East vs. West

I have been thinking about comics a lot recently, and rest assured if you are not a fan of comics, maybe you will learn something. I plan to handle certain disparities between for example, comics and literature, comics and movies, but I thought I'd start out with a look at the two great schools of comics: East & West.
If you understand the West to be America, and western comics to be largely completely dominated by DC and Marvel, DC giving us batman and superman, and Marvel giving us virtually everything else.
If you understand the East as I perceive it, the East is Japan, and then a bunch of insecure countries that both hate Japan, whilst simultaneously wanting to be Japan, even though Japan hates itself.
Then understand as I understand, that Japan's comics are manga, serialized bound little books with their own distinct stylization.
Both forms are now available in Borders, and most comic stores.

How they are alike:

Both western comics and eastern manga have the same proportion in common, albeit for different reasons. The same proportion exists in that in both wide genres a good 80%-95% are pure shite depending on the year.
This though is also true, both genres have been visited on by true genius, creating the types of work that can be found in no other genre.

The Broad Differences:

Is really as far as I can determine, control. In the west, if you want to make a living in the comic book industry you need a distributor, same in the east. In the west the distributor is DC or Marvel, so you usually would end up writing for one of their franchise comics. In the east though, the distributor is weekly magazines like Shonen jump and others, which have a large circulation.
In other words, they work more like schools in Japan, where the manga artist/writer alumni attract the next generation of writer/artists so getting published in Shonen Jump is a great way to launch your manga into a viable longstanding business enterprise. But the contents of Shonen depends entirely on the manga creators they have commissioned and put on the weekly/monthly deadlines who control their own projects.
In the west you get picked up by DC, and if you are up and coming they give you a writing job on Aquaman! if you make an impression produce solid work maybe some day the editor in chief will ask you to write an arc for 1 of the 10 monthly Batman titles or on Superman or if you are at the top of the heap writing Batman & Superman crossovers like Jeff Loeb.
Or at Marvel you start out on one of the millions of titles they publish and eventually may get to work on Hulk or Spiderman. In other words, western comic companies work more like corporations than schools, rather than the school having a brand known for producing a certain caliber of individual, the corporation has a stable of brands like Nike Shoes or some shit that it puts the talent onto perpetuating.

Room for Both:

This broad difference offers different things, that I think only an idiot would develop a preference for one or the other. Well developing a preference is natural. I probably would lean towards manga for consitency, but comics if I was allowed to base my preference on cherry picking the best.
They both have upsides and downsides.

The problem with the West:

As a fan of batman, I read almost none of the monthly comic titles and haven't for years. Because like talking to someone you've dated for a long time, sooner or later you've just heard every damn thing they have to say.
Reading batman is like this, its good and reliable, and unmindblowing. The scarecrow is cooking up some way to cause fear. Mr. Freeze has no mercy, yet is motivated by love. Joker comes under three schools, he is callously sadistic, he is hurting the people batman loves, or he is trying to be funny in a dangerous way. Two Face is struggling with his alter ego Harvey Dent, is obsessed with the number two and decides things by tossing a coin.
Penguin is trying to get laid. The riddler is pathetic and wants to be caught. Catwoman doesn't want to be compared to batman, yet wants batman. And so on.
Quite literally of over 100 publications of batman a year, only 10% will try to do something new, and of those 10% 9.5% fail. Of the .5% that succeed, the headway is forgotten as the editor in chief pushes on in the pursuit of bigger sales.
Batman I am assured is for most of history the number 1 comic, superman is the oldest, and he is plagued with a shitty relatively unknown rogues gallery and an interdependence on Lex Luthor getting his hands on Kryptonite as a plot element.
Then DC drops off, I don't read the flash, have never read the flash and don't intend to read the flash. But wikipedia tells me and it looks like he has probably the next best rogue's gallery after Batman. Then there's Green Arrow that was reinvigorated by Kevin Smith's run (he was amongst that .5%) and he is pretty interesting. And then way way down you have Green Lantern, Wonderwoman, Aquaman, Hawkman, Martian Manhunter, Shazam.
Then you have Marvel, Marvel have a lot more bigger franchises than DC, Hulk, Spiderman, Ironman, Punisher, Xmen, Daredevil, Fantastic 4 and then their weaker franchises that are probably stronger than some of DC's 'strong' franchises like Captain America, Ghost rider and then there's successful spin-off's like Venom, Elektra, Wolverine, Iceman and Johnny Blaze.
All more than I could ever bother reading.
But with Marvel there main problem is the unbelievably complex clutter of shit they have to deal with. Like the Spiderman clone saga, Magic and time travel. There are so many crossovers, big year long specials and rogues galleries that number in the 100's instead of a reliable stable like DC that its literally impossible to keep track of them all.
Except wikipedia does it, and so look up any fairly prominent supervillian like Abomination for the hulk or Green Goblin for spiderman and you'll see they have died, come back to life, been cloned, been cured, realised their old ways, used technological substitutions to supplement their powers, willingly reinflicted their injuries etc.
This is the real problem with the western tradition of comics, nobody can die, the universes need periodic resetting so you can tell the exact same stories to a new generation and no progress can be made. In the case of Batman he has been going through the motions since the 1920's, Two-face with his unlikely asymetrical injury has had it repaired and more unlikely restored so many times now its a wonder he bills as second to Joker in Batman's best villians list.

The Problem in the East:

Because of the different structure of control, generally one artist works on one brand for its entire life. Dragonball Z has concluded, Astro-Boy (Tetzuan Atomu) is not still releasing weekly publications anymore. One-Piece and Naruto are firmly under the control of their one author who answer questions from fans who write to them.
But whilst this may seem superior to the west's DC and Marvel Dominated industry it has as much downside as upside (equally true of comics) to understand you may have to see how a Japanese kid draws his favorite characters from Pokemon or Doraemon.
They draw it like you would build ikea furniture, or a paint by numbers picture. They will start drawing in an irrational place like the hand, perfectly recreating a static lifeless representation.
Having the same artist working on a title for its entire life produces a distinct lack of variety, much of Manga is as formulaic as the plot of Batman comics. But it shows up in different places, namely the artwork. There is a correct way to draw Naruto, there is a correct way to draw Inuyasha, there is a correct way to draw Pikachu, and its fucken boring.
Going broader than that, whilst fox's with 9 tail's and characters prone to lying with long noses may seem wildly creative to you, manga follows archetypes borrowed from Japanese folklore that are more formulaic than Jungian archetypes. Even the way's of portraying emotions are heavily repetative across many manga artist styles, the bead of sweat portraying nervousness or embarassment, the sharp pointy teeth for anger, the band of red across the nose for again embarassment or love. As though all Japanese people viewed the world through the same lens.
Plot elements and enemies can also be quite repetative across titles, like the heavy use of the four elements of earth fire water and air, or collecting pieces of some seal, use of the number 3 etc.
A lot of what you see in manga seems creative to the new reader, however it really is subscription to the same old genre doctrines, as writers again try to write something saleable in the hopes of getting published. Shonen Jump isn't looking for something new and mind blowing, its looking for Dragon Ball Z, except that Dragon Ball Z is finished so you get Naruto and One-Piece that are Dragon Ball Z with a few changes.
Manga also from the publishing perspective tends to be more drawn out than comics, which try to be 2-3 part self contained stories. Manga are more big long epics like the Hindu Holybooks, so you get a week where the artist covers a lot of talking and nothing else, or the crew spends a long time walking somewhere.

The Sunny Side of Western Comics:

I remember being told ad nauseaum that Shakespear was still relevant today because it dealt with large universal themes.
Western Comics at best are like hearing moving classical pieces of music. They don't date because they explore something simple, a relationship, a concept, a human condition.
Furthermore, ad to that the fact that so many writers and artists throw their abilities at the contextual constraints you see some amazing stuff.
Like the run on Daredevil where the old mob boss, KingPin's predecessor was released from jail and was reminiscing about the 'old days' and all his flashbacks were done in the art style of the period he was remembering, so if it was in the 1950's it looked like the 1950's style of comic, all golden age like, and if he was remembering back to the 60's it looked pop art where people had pink skin covered with pink dots and so fourth.
Or the collage work on the run featuring the deaf character echo, done by the artist from kabuki, who told the story using cut out diagrams for sign language.
Or works like 'Kingdom Come' with its highly stylised water colour illustrations of the DC universe.
Then there's Frank Miller's work on Batman in Year One and Dark Knight Returns. Alan Moore is a fine example of that .5% actually daring enough to try something new. You may know his name from shitty comic adaptation movies like 'League of Extraodinary Gentlemen' and 'V for Vendetta' read his comics and discover they are actually masterpieces. He broke into DC with the revolutionary work in Swamp Thing, where he started by killing all the main characters and conducting an autopsy on the title character. He also revolutionised Miracle Man, before going onto writing his own work including 'The Watchmen' that won a nobel peace prize or something.
And that's a prime example of artists in the West that shit on Manga for completely breaking with tradition. The ones that do their own projects to write masterpieces like Art Spiegelman with "Maus", Alan Moore's Stable of work, Frank Miller's "Sin City", Crumb's work on "Crumb" and "American Splendor" and new titles like Deus Ex Machina and American Virgin.
But even looking at the bread and butter of western Comics, like Batman, if you are willing to plow through mountains of shit, you find some of the finest works you'll ever see. Like the long run 'No Man's Land' saga of Batman that really hasn't been beat.
I mean Batman is essentially the story of an addict, unable to deal with his grief and surrounded by enablers. He is doomed to repeat his self destructive habits until he dies, systematically shutting down any chance of having a loving relationship again. I bet you never thought of Batman as so tragic.
Then there's Superman, that Tarentino rightly pointed out is the one superhero who's alterego is his civilian identity, all other superheroes (excluding Martian Manhunter, and Gambit from Xmen) have to put on a costume to become a superhero, Superman has to put on a costume to be normal. For Superman its the story of an outsider questing for acceptance. Then you may look at Superman as a reimagining even an american messiah story, sent down from the heavens to deliver humanity from sin.
You see in the DC comics, this abundant appeal of the clash between what these characters mean to different people.
Is Superman the all American country boy just trying to fit in, or is he a divinity plagued by the endless pursuit of saving humanity from itself, or is he an alien that has an annoying array of just about every superpower out there.
In recent years Batman seems to be splitting into two schools also, the rationalised school looks at a guy who through an amazingly perfect set of circumstances (born wealthy, owns military supplier, lives in city with corrupt police force etc.) has been cornered into becoming a super vigilante out of necessity. And the other school that takes the simpler approach to why he dresses in a bat costume and runs around in shadows: he is insane.
Or Stan Lee, Stan Lee saved comics at the same time he destroyed them. Sort of like Isaac Newton he seemed to just let loose with a whole bunch of characters just waiting to be created. If you ever try to come up with a new comic book character you will find Stan Lee has gotten there first.
But he does have cool concepts, take the Hulk - the Hulk is the monster as hero, that's cool, possibly the first character since Superman who's source of power was infact a plague that cast him to the fringes of society. Or spiderman the kid who was flung into a world of hurt as his power whilst seemingly turning him from zero to hero imbued him with the 'great responsibility' that strains his marriage, his relationships and leaves him targeted and victimized by his enemies.
Or Iron Man - the loveable Asshole, based on hugh hefner and came complete with a drinking problem.
X-men a story of a rehabilitation center and civil rights movement that turns out superheroes and explores more broadly how the presence of superheroes would change the way society operates, and the social divisions it creates.
All this reiterated again and again is whilst repetative kind of like shakespear in more senses than its literary prowess. It is picked up by artists of the day and reinterpreted, reinvented and renewed. It is a pity that most of the time it actually doesn't offer anything new.
But when it does, it really is something.

The Sunny Side of Manga:

Much like western comics, if you throw out all the generic formulaic shit, you are left with some really good stuff. Like Deathnote, ridiculous? Yes. Convoluted? Yes. A fascinating thought experiment? Yes. You would never see such a ridiculous hypothetical carried out into a ten part series as the Deathnote run, about a teenage genius who picks up a notebook that has the power to kill people whose name he writes in it.
Nor would you see works like 'Slam Dunk' in the west, where an artist who simply loves basketball will write a 31 part series about a highschool basketball team that was/is the most moving/uplifting/entertaining/fascinating manga I have ever read.
You don't get works like One-Piece that are long running fun-escapist fantasy that still have story arcs that make you go 'wow!' or capture that anticipation of a long winded Jackie Chan fight, like when Luffy figures out how to beat up the next pirate captain.
Same goes for Dragon Ball Z, and to a lesser extent Naruto. Naruto even as formulaic as it is, is a fine example of the manga ability to just artfully add rules to gracefully grow a story by adding piece by piece and remixing combinations of a reportior of moves.
If you read Batman, good writers portray batman as a brain, second guessing motives, having plans within plans within plans. Bad writers just make up some new piece of technology to get him out of trouble all the time, some not falling short of the infamous 'Shark repellant spray' of the Adam West movie.
The writer of Naruto would be of the first variety, the good kind. As far as I read of Naruto, the main character and others as student ninja's had a small repertoires of ninja magic, stuff like cloning, illusion and shit. The author got these characters to keep using and combining the skills in new and imaginative ways, drawing out tactics that create an internal physics.
This is the advantage of giving one writer plenty of play to take their comic where they want to go with it. They get to actually develope the characters without worrying about how they are going to bring everything back to normal for the next writer to pick up like an episode of simpsons.
In Manga if someone wants to kill a character off, they kill them and they don't usually come back.
There's none of the JRR Tolkien view of fantasy that it 'needs to be comforting' like Winny the Pooh. Characters in Manga die, get raped, get disfigured, get diseased, get divorced, get expelled, graduate, go up a year, age and stuff that generally takes 100 times as long in the western comic tradition.
This allows a far greater work load aswell, I went to see Tezuka most famous for Astro Boy, but the amount of work he produced in his lifetime, that was written by him, drawn by him and read by millions (of Japanese people) is truly amazing. He wrote Kimba the Jungle Emperor (later ripped off by the Lion King), Astro Boy, A biopic of Buddha's life, Pheonix, Metropolis, A Beethoven biopic, A graphic novelization of 'Crime and Punishment' by Dostoievsky and about a million more works.
An amazing breadth of concepts were covered aswell, he had homosexual relationships depicted long before the west dealt with adult themes in the 80's, he had cute kittens drowning 20 years before Disney was experimenting with shooting Bambi's mother.
Then the modern master Inoue author of Slam Dunk, Vagabond and Real. Samwedged between two manga about basketball, Vagabond explores the philosophy of the warrior code and uniqueness of Musashi's mindset better than most of the academic works I've read on the subject, and using brush and paper uses the traditional calligraphy to create and express action in a beautiful zen like way.
The best of manga, like the best of comics is very good.

The Best of Both Worlds:

Vagabond is an example of what is typically done better in the west, getting experimental with the artwork, I don't know if its the limitations of the printing techniques used by major Japanese publications, but manga remains more or less strictly black and white, grayscale at best, monochromatic mostly. The comic has been full color across the board for almost 2 decades now, probably because they have the penciler, the inker, and the letters all as seperate jobs.
I've already mentioned though that Alan Moore was an early pioneer of writing about something in the comic industry, and since the 80's fortunately the generation I grew up with, comics have largely grown up with me. But to get a sense of the slow progress in western comics, I should point out that Batman's traditional sidekick was Dick Grayson the original Robin, the current one Timothy Drake is still portrayed as a teenager and he is the third incarnation of Robin, there was also Jason Todd. Tim Drake has been Robin since I was 6 or so. He is considered the new kid on the block in Batman though.
But now, Alan Moore had Joker shoot commisioner Gordon's daughter in the spine, ending her career as Batgirl. Since then across the western comics, the manga like development has gradually been creaping in, adding emotional depth to the conflicts. Characters in western comics are now suffering from HIV/AIDS, struggling with Alcoholism, Gay, Addicted to Heroin, their loved ones die, they cross the line, run for office, They reveal their identities publicly. Stuff actually happens. Yes it still takes a painful amount of time but it happens, if you read enough comics, usually something out there is doing something right any given week.
Furthermore independant releases like American Virgin and Deus Ex Machina are abandoning the tried and true top selling brands and being viable on their own merit created to be a specific vehicle for a specific concept.
In the East its hard to tell how effective western influences are creeping into mainstream manga, Japan tends to promote immatation amongst its fanbases, and this seems to spread out across south east asia, at least with the number of asian students I've met who's drawing style seems to be straight out of a 'how to draw manga' textbook, which is a shame. But Vagabond in using the sumi e technique is paving the way for a reaproach to drawing, allowing more individual character in. The differences are showing up more in Anime, where technology is providing for innovation as is seen in 'Ghost in the Shell' the best of both worlds would be for a manga studio or apartment or even art school class to just start working with a writer that cant draw, which is probably hard to do, since you have to write with the imagery and layout in mind, but that I would like to see.
In the west I'd like to see the big brands, go contrarian and drop the ten monthly titles, keep Batman: Detective Stories, and wash your hands of Batman, Batman: Gotham Nights, GCPD, Robin, Batman & Robin, Batman Adventures and the ten other Batmans. Then they can stop this god awful coordination that is forced to occur between writers, put more eggs in the one great writer and not need a team of researchers just to keep track of the 10,000 minor characters nobody cares about, and the 10,000 status changes of the 16 or so major characters the fans love as they bounce in and out of Arkham Asylum.
Western comics around the board if they don't want to lose ground to the growing popularity of manga, need to stop being lazy and going quantity over quality but really get down, quit with the big convoluted crossovers where no character gets enough attention and be willing to upset their fanbase a little.
So what if they love two-face be willing to retire him to a healed Harvey Dent for like 8 years before you return him to Two-face status, leave Jason Todd Dead. Get rid of the fucking Kryptonite! Let Superman discover a new weakness, or just be outmatched mentally.
Use different naratives, different perspectives.
Same goes for Manga, I'd love to see a few episodes of almost any comic removed to a third party perspective. Have some events happen to a person rather than be happening as we watch over the protagonists shoulder.
Use collage, use paint, go photo-realistic in the portrayal of characters.
It never needs to go all one way, but having established there is room for both, there is definitely room for both to learn from eachother.
I'll write more on comics as the week progresses prepare to nerd up.