manga rules

it does. as i posted recently about the dearth of good storylines in most modern comics i have to represent that there is a visual storytelling artform that is holding it's own in terms of producing massive amounts of stories on a regular basis.

it's manga and by checking my collection, i see that there are two main publishers here in north america that distribute content - shonen jump and tokyo pop.

but, for the uninitiated, what is manga?

well, the wikipedia entry for manga starts with a definition that explains the etymology of the word. (and if it was you - yo! in the back going etya what? get yerself over to dictionary.com and look it up. i don't have time this morning).

long and short of it is that it's japanese comic books. or even japanese style comic books. 99% of them are in black and white (and for those that just tuned me out - you have no idea what you're missing in b&w comics - you probably don't rock the old school movies either) and the artwork is highly stylized.

it takes a while to get used to the art form but once it does you find that the depth of the stories generally surpasses those of north american counterparts. and more stories. instead of a handful of superhero stories, you'll find tons. when i check out the manga section of world's biggest bookstore here in ill-dot, i see that it's twice the size of their graphic novel section and can easily hold down the amount of stories that are in the silver snail (another ill-dot fixture - this time for comics).

so, after finding marvel online - i thought i would check out shonenjump and sure enough shonenjump.com has free 'previews' of their work. and they don't force you to register.

i think this is something that i disliked the most about the marvel website. they wanted my email address so they could monetize my visit. my response is 'stop being so neurotic'. for real - shonenjump and tokyopop both seem to realize that if they give enough decent content online that they will make money at the retail level by selling their work. someone will eventually want to get a papercopy of their work.

links:
shonenjump.com
tokyopop
the dreaming