Western and Manga ComicsBy Edward Hedley

Hokusai

Katsushika Hokusai was a Japanese artist who lived through 1760 to 1849.

When he was 51 (1811) he entered the stage in his life with his work “Hokusai Manga” which he made a book with his sketches in. landscapes, wildlife, vegetation, everyday life objects and people and supernatural.

It was these works that were the start to the manga style and was him where it all began (bottom right sketches from Hokusai Manga)

What is Manga?

Manga means comic or cartoon in Japanese. It is then often transformed into cartoons and animes. The Manga comics are different to western as they are usually in black and white and also is read from right to left. Manga comics are also often one episode comics, which end with “to be continued”

Manga comes from Japan and in Japan manga is used for almost all media such as: newspapers, comics, art and advertisement.

Someone who creates the comic for instance the comic artist is called a "Mangaka”

Western and Eastern Comics

The western comics focus a lot on superheroes but not all are superhero comics for example “Beano” where it focuses on lots of different stories and have different types of plots.

Eastern comics focus on one plot a comic and are continued in the next. Eastern comics have a wide range of variety and are about mostly supernatural people and backgrounds.

The characters are very different, western are seen as more realistic than eastern which some times have out of proportioned body parts. Eastern comics focus a lot on the background to the comics more than western.

The difference in the narrative

When thinking of western comics most people will think of superheroes. The plot in the superhero comics are always very similar with a few parts to the plot always the same. Firstly there will be the main character (the superhero) and the villain. The villain will try take over the world or perform a crime and the superhero will have to save the day. Western comics are very good at keeping to a regular story with a beginning, middle and a end.

Eastern comics have there supernatural comics and relationships, because eastern is more open with the love than western. The supernatural will also have the goodies and baddies fighting for there reasons. Eastern comics include, humans, robots, creatures and supernatural beings.

Critical review on Eastern comics

Eastern comics are very popular in Japan and even with people from around the world who prefer them than westerns. Reasons of eastern being preferred is that some are not as serious, more range in stories and art work is sometimes liked for how it is. Most animes backgrounds are from manga comics because the comic itself was a big success. Manga is fun as well because it is mainly hand drawn and is really only computerised when coloured. It is a shame that most manga's are in black and white because the coloured ones really add the brightness and fun to manga, I guess with black and white it can let your imagination do the work also it keeps the comic as a hand drawn only style.