So to start with the self-promotion:
The Comics Journal #288 is out, and I have several articles in it, including a long essay about the collected volume of Winsor McCay’s Dream of the Rarebit Fiend which came out late last year. I also have a best of list, in which I talk about several manga titles I liked this year.
Besides me, in this issue there’s also a very entertaining discussion of why Stan Lee is dense and not very creative but still deserves props by Tom Crippen; some elegant, sexy comics from back in the day by Tarpe Mills; and a nice piece by Bill Randall on poetry comics, which sums up for me what’s wrong with both poetry and comics (though Randall’s take is somewhat less grim.)
The Journal has a good-looking redesign, and is supposed to be appearing in bookstores again for the first time in a while, so hopefully it’ll start being easier to find.
Okay, on to biting the hand that feeds me.
So, as I said, my best of list in TCJ focuses mostly on manga. I figured that I’d be a little unusual, but I was still kind of shocked at the extent to which I was an outlier. Altogether, out of 18 contributors and over 150 selections, I found, I think, a total of eight manga titles listed. (Four of those were my picks.)
I think that’s pretty pitiful. Even if you’re not all that interested in manga, it’s a huge segment of the Amerian market now, covering an enormous range of genres and subjects. Yet, in the Journal’s best of, it barely exists. I end up looking like the resident manga expert — which is kind of embarrassing, given my very, very limited knowledge of the subject.
I’ve talked about this a little before in other contexts, but the Journal has, in general, struggled to cover manga in a sustained way. Dirk Deppey made a sustained effort to improve things when he was managing editor, culminating most notably in issue #269, which focused almost entirely on shojo and included an epochal interview with Moto Hagio. Dirk also wrote an editorial in which he explained why mainstream and alternative American cartoonists really need to get their heads out of the sand and deal with manga as an aesthetic, cultural, and marketing phenomena if they don’t want to end up aesthetically, culturally, and actually bankrupt.
Since then, Dirk’s moved on to supervise TCJ’s website, and to write his newsblog Journalista, both of which are, of course, quite comfortable with, and friendly towards manga. Without Dirk, though, the print Comics Journal has retreated a step or two (at least) towards its old ambivalence. There are certainly many writers on staff who are knowledgeable about manga (Bill Randall, most notably, but lots of other folks as well). And Michael Dean, the new managing editor, who I have a lot of respect for, certainly doesn’t have any anti-manga grudge — there was a pretty great lengthy article on Asian comics recently, for example. But I don’t think there’s been any manga cover story since 269. There are rarely interviews with manga artists (and interviews are the Journal’s specialty after all.) And while manga titles do get reviewed with some regularity, there certainly isn’t the sustained interest or dialogue with manga that there is with alternative comics or classic comic strips, or even with contemporary mainstream super-hero work.
A lot of this is just because engaging with manga would be hard — how do you get those interviews, for instance, especially on a very restricted budget? For that very reason, though, I think the Journal needs to really, really be focusing on manga — and it’s simply not. I think this is a little unfortunate for manga — it would be great especially to see things like the Moto Hagio interviews on a somewhat more regular basis.
But whether or not the Journal’s manga blinders are bad for manga, I’m certain they’re bad for the Journal. I mean, as Dirk pointed out, the next generation of comics fans is going to be younger, more female and a lot more interested in manga than the current one. If you were one of those folks, would you look at TCJ and say, “This magazine really has something interesting to say to me?” Or would you say, this place feels like all those direct market stores I hate, and I’m not going anywhere near it?
Not that I want the Journal to abandon its mission or interests or personality. On the contrary, it seems like the Journal’s mission has always been, at least in part, to react to and think about what’s going on in the world of contemporary comics. In some ways, I’d be happier if the Journal was taking a hard-line “manga sucks!” stand. At least that’s engagement, of a sort. But instead there’s a kind of benign, somewhat bemused neglect. Given the barriers to dealing with manga on the Journal’s terms, that’s certainly understandable…but I don’t think it’s a wise long term stance.
Update: Dirk points out that finding interviewers fluent in Japanese and English is extremely difficult. I wasn’t trying to deny this; I think the Journal faces enormous challenges in trying to deal with manga. Initial improvements may really only be incremental — but if there’s no effort to do better, then things are only going to get worse (as they have already; the 2006 best of had much better manga coverage.)
If I ruled the world, here’s what I might do to start:
–find a well-respected manga blogger, and ask him or her to write a column in the Journal
–approach folks in the scanlation community and offer to pay them to find and translate classic out-of-copyright manga (obviously, the Journal doesn’t pay much, but these folks are mostly working for free, so the project doesn’t seem entirely implausible.)
–make an effort to find American academics who work with manga and try to get them to write for the Journal (Matt Thorn can’t be the only one, can he?)
–aggressively pursue interviews with people who work in the manga industry in the U.S. — translators, critics, etc. (Dirk’s done some of this on the website.)
I could be wrong, but most of that doesn’t sound too pie in the sky. The point is that coups like the Moto Hagio interview are probably not going to come very often…but you can make them more likely in the future if you start trying to lay the groundwork. Right now the Journal has (comparatively) very little presence, profile, or contacts in the manga world. Changing that will be difficult, but it will be impossible if you don’t start putting the time and effort in now.
Hi, Noah,
on a better day I would write this in anapestic trimeter to fete your love of poetry, but. May I still contribute? I am an offender, I guess, with zero manga in my best-of. In part it’s that I usu. don’t read translated manga, and I enjoyed not writing about manga for a change. In part it’s that I prefer to read deeply, not widely. Otherwise keeping up with all that manga would become a full-time job I have to pay to do, and we both know what a comics essayist’s career path looks like.
I do agree with much of what you say, and Dirk too. His securing of Prof. Thorn to interview Moto Hagio was a coup, and relied on Thorn’s goodwill, willingness to work for TCJ pay rates, and rolodex, a rare combination– for a non-peer-reviewed journal, no less. I personally have more contacts on Japanese farms than in manga, and my (knee-jerk) feel for it leads me to think Japanese artists and the epic TCJ interview style would not be the norm. I have an issue of Eureka with an Iou Kuroda int. that spans 18 pages, and it’s one of the more in-depth ones I’ve seen; meanwhile, I found the TCJ Junko Mizuno int. kind of awkward & short.
All that said, I have enjoyed reading you, Dirk, & Adam Stephanides (who reads Japanese) on manga; other writers can seem a little arms-length, and R. Fiore seems (maybe I’m misreading) dismissive. I think in part this is generational. I would be delighted to see some of the changes you mention– perhaps you could broker them, a sort of “Manga Utopia?” Michael may be open to it.
Finally, I doubt TCJ’s current readers are clamoring for manga coverage. I’ve received more feedback on that poetry bit in three days than all the manga essays I’ve written combined. But as TCJ gets back to bookstore distribution through Norton, and new readers discover it, that will change, I hope. The market certainly has, and I agree & hope TCj will reflect that– especially as publishers keep up their end of the bargain with quality works in quality editions. From where I sit, they still have a ways to go.
Hey Bill. Thanks for your thoughts. Obviously, I don’t think you should have to write about manga if you don’t want to…but the fact that there isn’t really anyone to take up the slack for you is sort of the problem.
And while I would like to be the person who takes up the slack, and I appreciate your kind words about my writing on manga, the truth is I really, really don’t know that much. I’m a casual fan, rather than an expert of any sort, alas — which is to say, I very much doubt I’m the best, or even a good, person to broker these changes, even in some alternate reality where the Journal would like such changes to be made.
I think you’re absolutely right that the Journal audience overall doesn’t care about manga. Adding manga content would have to be done in the interest of attracting new readers, rather than catering to old ones. I think this would be a smart thing for the Journal to do on a lot of grounds…but it seems unclear that Gary would agree, and it’s his baby, after all.
Let’s see if Blogger puts my name up right this time.
I do think being a casual fan is a valid stance, as long as you know the limitations. And I think sometime last year we irrevocably passed the point where all manga fans are also Japanophiles. I have a column on US manga on the backburner (maybe next year’s best-of issue), and writing it makes me think there is now enough of an industry here that one can make valid points about manga fandom with no reference to Japan whatsoever. Which is an odd place to be. Given his professional history, Jason Thompson (or someone like him) is uniquely positioned to talk about this, but I don’t know you have to be an insider with Japan experience any more. I’ve enjoyed reading Tom Spurgeon on Cromartie High School as much as reading Fred Schodt, for instance; and I think the errors of not knowing Japan can be avoided by avoiding generalization.
But thanks for raising the issue– it’s important. TCJ should never be Otaku USA, but it should get past Tatsumi, too.
“make an effort to find American academics who work with manga and try to get them to write for the Journal (Matt Thorn can’t be the only one, can he?)”
lisa nakamura and chiyoko ishida have taught Manga in American universities. I also vaguely recall Critical Inquiry publishing a blah article a few years ago on aesthetics and cuteness or some such blah.
I’m pretty much in complete agreement with you on getting more manga coverage in the journal, however i’d have to say that all the manga i’ve found and enjoyed has been one’s i saw mentioned in the Comics Journal–specifically in the best of year list from 05 and 06. Considering the vast swath of manga, i’m certain that there’s a ton out there i’d totally hate, but being able to check stuff out based on recs from writers who’s opinion i find pretty reliable has pretty much kept me reading manga that (with the exception of that dipshit “dr. slump” garbage) i’ve really enjoyed–meaning Nana, Monster, Drifting Classroom, Cromartie & Dragon Head specifically. Part of expanding coverage is going to mean that stuff i’m going to hate is going to end up getting attention as well–just like the Journal points me towards the direction that begs the “what the fuck?” question with art/small press comics.
It’s going to be tough though–with the exception of Thompson, i don’t see a lot of current manga critics who have much of a refined palette–it’s either dilettantes who’ve only read great stuff, or people who seem to love (or at least really like) everything, regardless if it’s Tezuka or…i don’t know, Bleach or something. I’d love to be hear about somebody who’s doing more incisive commentary on the stuff. If the Journal can find them, i think it’d be great.
Of course, in a way, that kind of proves your point even more–a current journal reader will keep reading the journal. Will manga writing get more people on the subscription list, as long as they’re adorned with Jeffrey Brown covers? Yeah, probably not.