Comic World News

April 22, 2008:
CWN and the Grand Finale! -

February 4, 2008:
In Conclusion - David ends his CWN run with Tezuka's MW from Vertical

February 2, 2008:
Acting Like You Have Nothing to Prove -

February 2, 2008:
The Shoegazer Returns - A New Year Begins, And Our Narrator Makes A Pledge

January 30, 2008:
Tim's Reviews -

September 13, 2007:
Wizard World Chicago Loot, Part One - Stykman, Empty Chamber, the Ztarian Saga, and yes, Little Bunny Foo Foo

February 15, 2007:
I Come Not to Bury Nick Cage... - But to mourn the death of my punchline

November 20, 2006:
The End - Rich's last Chicks & Romance

November 8, 2006:
Joann Sfar's Klezmer - And a Front Racks Hiatus

October 4, 2006:
This Month's Guest: Dave Gibbons - From the pages of Elephantmen!

September 18, 2006:
Back in Berlin - or How I spent my summer

July 29, 2006:
KICKING UP A STORM - An interview with David Lloyd

June 19, 2006:
You Ain't Never Had A Friend Like Me. - Graeme looks at Spidey's "genies"

December 18, 2005:
Disappointed - Sad news for fans of Busiek's CONAN, Stephen King, and others

December 13, 2004:
JUSTICE UNPLUGGED 2 at last !!! - By Fabrice Sapolsky & Xavier Fournier

December 2, 2004:
THE TWELFTH AND FINAL STEP - Say it ain't so, Dan.

November 23, 2004:
The importance of editing -

September 29, 2004:
Mystery and Conundrum indeed! - Where in the world is Jason Pomerantz?

September 13, 2004:
Hello and Goodbye and Hello Again - Change is in the air at CWN and it smells sweet.

August 12, 2004:
The Rise of the Web Toon - New Business Model or Dumb Luck?

July 30, 2004:
The Name Says it All... - Spin Doctors revamp Boomerang.

July 27, 2004:
Bigger Isn't Always Better -

June 8, 2004:
Pre-emptive Strike: MoCCA Arts Festival - Looking forward to the con, rather than looking back at it

The Layer Method
Our top Secret time-saving technique for creating and merging balloons and tails in Illustrator.

Friday, September 3, 2010

How Addiction Starts

I really didn't mean to become a manga addict.

It seemed so innocent at first. I was just experimenting. Super-hero comics weren't giving me the same high, and I needed a little something to get over the malaise.

It didn't even have to be manga. I would have been perfectly happy to pick up one of those spiffy, indy artcomix, if the shops in town had a wider selection. But the manga was right there, winking at me with its low per-page cost and portability.

Not to shirk responsibility or anything, but bad influences played a part in sending me down this road. (Don't they always?) Critics and commentators lured me in with shared tastes in western comics, and then threw in a quick reference or two to some of those strange Japanese books that all the kids are trying.

My gateway drug was SGT. FROG. Like all good starter addictive substances, it was green, easily consumed, and made me laugh. A lot. I can't tell you what a welcome experience that was at the time, given that comic-induced laughter was generally of the bitter, ironic variety. When I was finding what I traditionally think of as comics- which I still read, don�t get me wrong- repetitive and insular and depressing, here was something fresh and funny and entirely unexpected. In short, it was precisely what I hope to experience when I pick up a comic.

It was a predictable decline from there. I started lurking around the comics blogosphere, learning the manga slang and scoring title recommendations. I found soap operas and science fiction and fantasy and mystery and comedy and drama and sex and violence. I found self-contained stories that seemed more like sagas than properties. Of course, I also found some really bad manga, but even the badness found fresh ways to not work. The beauty of manga is its newness to me. There's a ton of it, and I'm just getting started.

All of this is my roundabout and faintly desperate way of explaining why I'm doing this column. I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but my enthusiasm for manga grows with every title I try and everything I learn about it. I want to understand it better both as an art form and as a cultural phenomenon, and this seems like an ideal opportunity to do so.

I want to explore why people like it, why they hate it, where the market is going, and how it got where it is. Why is it booming while the audience for western comics stagnates or shrinks? Is there a bubble, and why might it burst? I want to talk about titles I've loved and ones that have left me cold. And I want to find out what other, smarter people have to say on the subject.

So, that's where I'm coming from. And, despite their better judgment, the staff and management of Comic World News are allowing it for now.

Suckers. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to freebase some HIKARU NO GO.