I think that's a very tiny thing to look at - the gutters were the same size? My opinion on why Western comics are less accepted as manga is because the art is lacking. At least, that's why I shy away from it. I pick up a book, thumb through a couple pages, and immediately I can go, "oh, this is by an American trying to do manga" and I check the author's name, and I'm right (well, the name looks American/Western). Well, in my limited experience, as we don't get too many Western artists actually publishing "manga" over here that I can get. But I think the essentials of the article are there, if the Japanese are brought up with it, they're more likely to adopt the style more easily, whereas in the west, comic book making is typically the job of fat, middle-aged single fanboys who live in their parents' basement (not really, but stereotypically). Looking at Paul's page, the art just seems hectic and scattered, and, let's face it, Western. It looks like an Indie comic, that someone would draw in his room and photocopy. I wouldn't buy it. It seems like he went "I'm going to scrawl out a comic! Lol!" So I don't think it's necessarily the page margins or tiny details like that (actually, I'm looking at a manga right now where the horizontal margins are nonexistant and the vertical ones are pretty large....looking at another manga, here's one where the vertical and the horizontal are exactly the same.... so not all manga conform to that, either!), but it's the seriousness with which the artist takes their work. I think a lot of Westerners are still under the cloud of "comics are shameful!" or "it's not real art and doesn't deserve real effort", and THAT's where they fail.
If you're a Westerner and grew up reading comics, you probably grew up reading them in color, and so a lot of people probably think that inking ends at tracing, or splotches of black is enough to use as shadows. Currently, when Westerners make comics, the thing that jumps out at me the most is the over or underuse of screentones. ::shrug:: But then, other elements may vary, I'm the kind of person who cannot read a book if the art is bad, so I can't comment on anything besides how the art is executed.
I see I forgot to mention - check the comments. Thorn explains more things that would cause a manga editor to balk at it. It's not just the gutters- that's just one of a number of other differences.
I did read the comments - though not very thoroughly! Going back and rereading them, he's again focusing on details, which I'm again disagreeing with. He's saying, "manga does margins this way" which is not always the case. It might be more regular to see margins in the ratio he specifies, however, when you see deviation from that, as is not uncommon in manga, the reader does not go, "holy shit!" before throwing the book down in disgust. Neither should this be the case if a Westerner deviates from this formula. I think the additional comment he makes is the thought balloons. Again, I've seen thought balloons in manga, so....I don't know what Matt is talking about..... imo, I still think he's focusing on the details as opposed to the meat, which is where the people should focus (though he does touch on that briefly, he does not spend nearly as much time on it as he does stressing the little things.)
I know you didn't write the article, and I'll definitely head over to write my opinions to Matt, but I noticed someone else here had said, "I forgot to do that for my comic!" and really. That shouldn't be the main focus when making a comic. :-/ imo. I can read something as easily with 1:2 margins as with 1:1, 2:1 or no vertical margins.
I assume that he, actually teaching manga in a Japanese university, probably has an idea of what Japanese editors look for when they're evaluating manga. And it fits with what I know of [Unknown site tag]'s experience from his blog - the things he knows and has done as a successful American comics artist don't pass muster in Japan, because the editors are looking for different things.
And to speculate a bit: the sheer number of wannabe mangaka competing for publication in Japan probably means that the submitters *have* to pay attention to the little details, and if they deviate from the norm, it's got to stand out even more, just like submitting fiction to publishers here: if you write a novel that utilizes six different fonts, it better be the most stunning thing the slush reader's read that year, or they won't give it a second thought.
And as for the published stuff: readers come to expect certain things from certain publishers. Shonen Jump manga need to look like Shonen Jump manga. If that means the horizontal gutters need to be wider, then they need to be wider, no matter that it makes no difference in the larger scheme of things.
Yes, there are always exceptions and publishers willing to take risks. But the bulk of manga is, like the bulk of most fiction, fairly standard.
Right, I understand that margins and things like that are somewhat important, but they shouldn't be the most important! ....ugly art is probably more important to fix first? To utilize your example, if I sent in a piece of fiction to a publisher, but I didn't indent properly, but my fiction was absolutely STUNNING, would they trash that and choose the person who had a poorer piece with the proper indentation? I highly doubt it! Likewise with the page margins! Now, I'm not saying that your page margins can be crazy, so that most your pages are half-margin, but if you have a 1:1 page margin and GOOD art, that's better than 1:2 margins with bad art. As a consumer, this is my opinion. And yeah, he might be a professor, but I've known a lot of professors who teach details and should be teaching the big picture - sometimes they don't know what they want! When it's an actual Japanese editor saying, "yeah, 1:2 page margins is what it will take to get your book to not get scrapped, focus on that before you work on bettering your art" (which is what my argument is, we should be telling Westerners to focus on bettering their art first and foremost, and mentioning these margins and stuff as little asides), then I'll take real stock. Sorry, I've worked with too many professors to go, "oh, he's a professor, he must know the business!" I'm not saying he's dead wrong, but neither am I going to go, "Oh, he must be right, then!" Unless, again, he's the person actually making these decisions.
I'm saying, as a consumer, I would much prefer to pick up a good book with 1:1 margins than a mediocre book with 1:2 margins, and if any editor had half a brain, he would see that, too (and, like I said, since I see books with these deviation, and they aren't rare, it's not like it's one book out of 100, most editors DO have brains to realize that good work trumps page margins and thought balloons).
It's strange. I don't actually expect Shonen jump manga to look like "Shonen jump manga". If they changed the margins on my next month, I highly doubt I'd drop the series or freak out. ::shrug:: It's strange. I value art and good story over structure (again, as long as it's not disgustingly all over the place.)
I think you're fixating on the details at this point - he does say that it's an example of the sort of thing that makes it not acceptable.
Sorry, I've worked with too many professors to go, "oh, he's a professor, he must know the business!" I'm not saying he's dead wrong, but neither am I going to go, "Oh, he must be right, then!" Unless, again, he's the person actually making these decisions.
And until you show me you've got more experience with the Japanese system of publishing, I'm going to have to take his word over yours. Thorn is one of the few English-language manga specialists and has been for years: he does know what he's talking about.
Because you, yourself, don't expect Shonen Jump manga to look like Shonen Jump manga does not mean that it's not considered important to the publisher. These decisions are not made based on art. They're made based on marketing: the Shonen Jump look is carefully crafted and controlled so that the readers can pick up a manga and know it's SJ, and identify that brand with the things they like about it, and seek out more SJ manga. They have established a brand image and work to keep that image.
The manga industry is not one devited to the art and craft of manga. It's devoted to pumping out assembly-line product, for the most part, and the fact that some of them manage to actually stand out above the crowd speaks a lot more for the talent of those particular storytellers and artists than it does for the industry as a whole.
And about the art: have you noticed that the first few volumes by (fairly) new mangaka (Saiyuki, Samurai Deeper Kyo, I'm looking at you!) tend to have art that sucks is way less strong than later volumes? The art is not as important as most people think it is: it's the storytelling that's important - the ability to get the reader to keep turning pages to find out what happens next - and it's those little things that contribute to pushing the reader's eye along, as I've pointed out in my manga essays before, so I won't go into them again here.
huh. i dunno. i mean, i am sure there are tons of mangaisms that western comics artists didn't suck in with their mother's milk, yeah. and that japanese editors need their foreign talent to learn those, because they are, after all, selling to the japanese market which expects those mangaisms to be there. the rule breaking is for after you've shown you actually know the rules, and it doesn't pack a punch if you break them accidentally.
but i am looking at that page by pope, and i am sorry, but the equal-sized gutters are really the least of the problem there; why are they all going on about that as if changing the gutter size would make that page suddenly acceptable? the entire page looks horribly unmanga-like to me; much worse than any japanese DJ i've seen lately. not even the text looks right because it's not running vertically.
I could write *all* of what I'm thinking, I suppose...
yes, i suspect so. but it failed to reach me because of that randomness. for me it wasn't a useful example because that page is full of problems that loom large, and the gutter issue totally pales, gets shoved immediately out of my mind. if he had chosen a page that was otherwise pretty good and then used the gutter example to show how it could be even better and more manga-like, that'd have worked for me. or if he had picked something wrong with this page that's more important than the gutter.
it's sort of like going to the ER with an arrhythmia and having the nurse check one first for clean and matching socks. :)
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i remember you once did a really instructive essay on "flow" with red arrows following a page of fruits basket versus yami no matsuei, i think. that was so good; it made really clear to me as a new manga reader why i had had so much trouble with certain manga and not with others, which had not a thing to do with whether i liked the art, the storyline, and the characters. after that i started to really read critically and began to take apart the graphic design whenever something wasn't working for me (and 9 out of 10 times it was the design that was problematic).
i'd love it if somebody were to take pages from westerners drawing manga and make a list of the mangaisms they violate. even more spiffy would be to see the pages after those problems got fixed. manga makeovers!
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If you're a Westerner and grew up reading comics, you probably grew up reading them in color, and so a lot of people probably think that inking ends at tracing, or splotches of black is enough to use as shadows. Currently, when Westerners make comics, the thing that jumps out at me the most is the over or underuse of screentones. ::shrug:: But then, other elements may vary, I'm the kind of person who cannot read a book if the art is bad, so I can't comment on anything besides how the art is executed.
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I know you didn't write the article, and I'll definitely head over to write my opinions to Matt, but I noticed someone else here had said, "I forgot to do that for my comic!" and really. That shouldn't be the main focus when making a comic. :-/ imo. I can read something as easily with 1:2 margins as with 1:1, 2:1 or no vertical margins.
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And to speculate a bit: the sheer number of wannabe mangaka competing for publication in Japan probably means that the submitters *have* to pay attention to the little details, and if they deviate from the norm, it's got to stand out even more, just like submitting fiction to publishers here: if you write a novel that utilizes six different fonts, it better be the most stunning thing the slush reader's read that year, or they won't give it a second thought.
And as for the published stuff: readers come to expect certain things from certain publishers. Shonen Jump manga need to look like Shonen Jump manga. If that means the horizontal gutters need to be wider, then they need to be wider, no matter that it makes no difference in the larger scheme of things.
Yes, there are always exceptions and publishers willing to take risks. But the bulk of manga is, like the bulk of most fiction, fairly standard.
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I'm saying, as a consumer, I would much prefer to pick up a good book with 1:1 margins than a mediocre book with 1:2 margins, and if any editor had half a brain, he would see that, too (and, like I said, since I see books with these deviation, and they aren't rare, it's not like it's one book out of 100, most editors DO have brains to realize that good work trumps page margins and thought balloons).
It's strange. I don't actually expect Shonen jump manga to look like "Shonen jump manga". If they changed the margins on my next month, I highly doubt I'd drop the series or freak out. ::shrug:: It's strange. I value art and good story over structure (again, as long as it's not disgustingly all over the place.)
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Sorry, I've worked with too many professors to go, "oh, he's a professor, he must know the business!" I'm not saying he's dead wrong, but neither am I going to go, "Oh, he must be right, then!" Unless, again, he's the person actually making these decisions.
And until you show me you've got more experience with the Japanese system of publishing, I'm going to have to take his word over yours. Thorn is one of the few English-language manga specialists and has been for years: he does know what he's talking about.
Because you, yourself, don't expect Shonen Jump manga to look like Shonen Jump manga does not mean that it's not considered important to the publisher. These decisions are not made based on art. They're made based on marketing: the Shonen Jump look is carefully crafted and controlled so that the readers can pick up a manga and know it's SJ, and identify that brand with the things they like about it, and seek out more SJ manga. They have established a brand image and work to keep that image.
The manga industry is not one devited to the art and craft of manga. It's devoted to pumping out assembly-line product, for the most part, and the fact that some of them manage to actually stand out above the crowd speaks a lot more for the talent of those particular storytellers and artists than it does for the industry as a whole.
And about the art: have you noticed that the first few volumes by (fairly) new mangaka (Saiyuki, Samurai Deeper Kyo, I'm looking at you!) tend to have art that
sucksis way less strong than later volumes? The art is not as important as most people think it is: it's the storytelling that's important - the ability to get the reader to keep turning pages to find out what happens next - and it's those little things that contribute to pushing the reader's eye along, as I've pointed out in my manga essays before, so I won't go into them again here.manga analysis
but i am looking at that page by pope, and i am sorry, but the equal-sized gutters are really the least of the problem there; why are they all going on about that as if changing the gutter size would make that page suddenly acceptable? the entire page looks horribly unmanga-like to me; much worse than any japanese DJ i've seen lately. not even the text looks right because it's not running vertically.
I could write *all* of what I'm thinking, I suppose...
Re: I could write *all* of what I'm thinking, I suppose...
it's sort of like going to the ER with an arrhythmia and having the nurse check one first for clean and matching socks. :)
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i remember you once did a really instructive essay on "flow" with red arrows following a page of fruits basket versus yami no matsuei, i think. that was so good; it made really clear to me as a new manga reader why i had had so much trouble with certain manga and not with others, which had not a thing to do with whether i liked the art, the storyline, and the characters. after that i started to really read critically and began to take apart the graphic design whenever something wasn't working for me (and 9 out of 10 times it was the design that was problematic).
i'd love it if somebody were to take pages from westerners drawing manga and make a list of the mangaisms they violate. even more spiffy would be to see the pages after those problems got fixed. manga makeovers!