I have been reading a lot about comics recently. I didn’t grow up with comics (Dorset had no comic shops) but my wife’s media consumption is heavily cult – Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Sin City, V for Vendetta, Alan Moore, Frank Miller etc etc.
Through this she has gotten into comics and graphic novels, and I guess some of it has rubbed off by osmosis.
In Wednesday’s Guardian, there was an article about female figures in comics, and in the comic scene. There is a definite move away from the “male fantasy” figures of Wonder Woman and the “expendable reason for revenge” roles for helpless women in distress, which is all good stuff.
The thing that really caught my eye, however, was Plain Janes – a graphic novel (by a woman) aimed at a female teen audience. The story concerns a group of girls at a school in suburbia carrying out “guerilla” art projects in their neighbourhood as a way of making their surroundings more interesting. Plain stands for “People Loving Art In Neighbourhoods”. We then see the reactions of the people around the area – both good and bad. I have yet to read more than the free pages on the Minx website, but the Guardian journalist described it as “genuinely inspiring” -so I plan to get the book!
There was also a quote from 15 year old Londoner Louise Carey: “If you can draw manga now it’s considered really cool in my secondary school. People who can draw in a manga style are sought after for decorating posters and designing things – the characters with the big eyes, and the hair that’s all spiky and stylised. People love that.”
The manga theme resurfaced in an old copy of Wired magazine (Nov 07). Wired is an American import magazine which I read obsessively every month. They did a whole issue on Manga, including the history of it in the USA and Japan. The link is a great read (but be aware you read it right to left in traditional manga style!) and explains loads of the technical details (flopped Vs unflopped, the different genres (shojo, shonen and seinen) etc)
There was also an article about the “fan fiction” and self publishing (dojinshi) surrounding manga in Japan. Imagine an exhibition at Olympia or Earls court, filled with people selling their own stories – around 300,000 books at a single exhibition – which use characters from existing comics. It is like me writing and selling a Simpsons comic, and not paying anyone to use the characters. Matt Groening’s lawyers would be on me like a shot! But dojinshi is huge in Japan, and is allowed to continue. The publishers view is that the fan fiction actually creates a demand for, and promotes, the original titles.
So what has this comic and manga rant got to do with Walking to School?
- I think comics and similar graphical styles could be a great way of reaching teen audiences (at least some of them!) – here are some other “educational” examples.
- The lines between “author” and “reader” are now blurred by the prescence of MEdia (everyone can create their own media – which will often reference existing material)
- Looking at the dojinshi provides the Manga publishers with market researchers – the biggest fans are also the ones that are writing their own material. What they think is hot, is likely to be mainstream hot in a short while.