Manga in English: Born in the USA

American-style manga challenges the purists.

by Kai-Ming Cha and Calvin Reid -- Publishers Weekly, 10/17/2005

It would be relatively easy to make the claim that Japanese pop culture—from Astro Boy in the 1960s to Pokémon in the 1980s—is, so to speak, about as American as apple pie. From comics and animation to fashion, movies and an endless supply of adorable knickknacks, J-pop products are no strangers to the American consumer. And since the late 1990s, licensed English-language editions of Japanese comics—manga—have been instrumental in helping bring book-format comics of all kinds into the general bookstore market.

But the publication of original English-language (OEL) manga—comics created by non-Japanese artists deeply influenced by Japanese manga conventions and sensibility—is a growing and potentially significant phenomenon in the U.S. comics market, offering a new creative vision for the category and the potential for new revenue for U.S. publishers. Out in Los Angeles, Tokyopop is leading the charge, planning to publish more than 50 titles over the next two years into a U.S. market that was created by, and generally demands, "authentic" Japanese-originated manga.

It should come as no surprise that manga's visual and narrative conventions have tremendously influenced Americans of a certain age. These days a generation of American artists and writers are diligently creating a homegrown version of the Japanese comics and animation they love. Call it manga American-style—although if you do you might find yourself in an argument with hardcore manga fans. The proliferation of non-Japanese manga has provoked a strong reaction from hardcore fans as well as from Japanese publishers concerned about the potential of an upstart competing genre. Both groups believe, with significant justification, that the only real manga comes from Japan. But a handful of American publishers (like Antarctic Press in Texas, for instance) have been publishing OEL or MIC (manga-influenced comics)—take your pick—for nearly 20 years, and more is on the way.

Licensed manga—the translated manga that dominates the U.S. market—comes with restrictions, and publishers have always known that OEL offers important advantages. U.S. publishers of translated manga generally only have print rights while the Japanese licensor controls important movie and merchandising rights. Not only does original manga offer publishers a full suite of rights—from TV and film to foreign rights and merchandising—but it also offers real live English-speaking authors available to tour and promote their books—the conventional mainstay of book promotion. Indeed, the whole growth of manga in the U.S. has happened almost entirely without Japanese manga-ka (manga artists) to tour and meet the fans.

Although the Japanese manga market is huge in comparison to that in the U.S. (it represents nearly 40% of total Japanese publishing revenues) and offers an almost endless pool of potential licenses, the competition from U.S. firms for licenses is escalating. Publishers such as Random House's Del Rey Manga (which partners with Kodansha) and Viz Media (owned by both Shueisha and Shogakukon) have partnerships with large Japanese manga publishers and guaranteed content. But add a steadily increasing number of smaller houses, like Broccoli Books, DrMaster, Digital Manga and Central Park Media, to the bulk license shopping of Tokyopop, and you've got the beginnings of a bidding war. As Kurt Hassler, graphic novel buyer for Borders Books and Music, puts it, "Everyone is competing to get the next Full Metal Alchemist." Hassler ought to know. Besides being instrumental in recognizing manga's commercial potential right from the beginning, Hassler is an OEL author himself and published the comic fantasy manga Sokora Refugees with Tokyopop earlier this year.

"You'd be hard pressed to find a publisher who doesn't want to develop a book into an animated series or other merchandise," says Hassler, pointing to the potential of original manga properties. "It's an exciting aspect of the business."

Viz Media and Dark Horse pioneered the publishing of manga for U.S. audiences in the early 1980s. But Tokyopop is responsible for the popularity of publishing manga in mass market paperback in the original Japanese right-to-left format, now the standard format for U.S. licensed manga in translation. Tokyopop launched the Rising Stars of Manga competition in 2002, an effort to identify a pool of talented local manga-influenced artists to create original works. Tokyopop's editorial director, Jeremy Ross, says Tokyopop plans to release 28 original manga titles this year.

"We've signed up 16 former Rising Star winners for 13 different projects," says Ross. Overall, he says, Tokyopop has signed up about 70 projects. "And next year it will be significantly larger. We're constantly trying to sign people every month. This makes it the largest launch in graphic novels of all time."

Ross is quick to point out the advantages of OEL: "We can develop these properties across all media. When we license from Japan we have to pay for each form; movie, video game and so on." But he says that's not the only reason. "We are an entertainment company specializing in manga. Tokyopop has always tried to lead. We're the largest creator of original manga, the go-to people who create in this market. We're getting the greatest quality and diversity."

Ross says the company isn't shy about calling this new variety of manga, well, manga. "We use the term manga for all our books in order to reach the widest possible audience," he explains. "[Manga] is not just stories that come from Japan. A broader audience is beginning to accept that." And what about sales? "Sales on average are as good as our Japanese books," Ross says. "It took off faster than we thought and is doing as good as we hoped."

Tokyopop may have the most ambitious OEL publishing program, but it's not the only one. DC Comics has published a series of well-received manga-influenced titles by Jill Thompson (among them Death: At Death's Doorand Dead Boy Detectives), in addition to CMX, its line of licensed manga. Indie publisher Oni Press in Oregon has published critically acclaimed manga-inspired works including Ted Naifeh's Courtney Crumrin series, whose heroine bears the big eyes and noseless face standard in Japanese girl manga, and Bryan Lee O'Malley's manga-inspired hit series, Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life.

James Lucas Jones, Oni's editor-in-chief, says, "We haven't shied away from the manga comparison. It makes sense for us to adopt that label so that our books will reach the audience." He points to O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim series—Oni has gone back to press on its first two volumes—as an example of successful and innovative manga-influenced work. "[Scott Pilgrim] is informed by many different sensibilities," Ross emphasized. "The X-Men, video games, manga. It definitely has momentum. The passionate fans are a testament of what the audience [for OEL] will become."

Even Sabrina, the All-American teen witch series published by Archie Comics, has gone though an OEL manga makeover. Tania Del Rio, a former Rising Stars winner, was hired to take over the series. She maintains the Archie sensibility while infusing the series with the emotional pull common in Japanese girl comics. Last year, Dark Horse took over the print publication of Fred Gallagher's Megatokyo, a groundbreaking OEL manga series that began its life (and continues) as a Web comic.

Other companies, like Antarctic Press and the newly launched Seven Seas, publish nothing but OEL manga. Since 1984, Antarctic Press has published books by American artists that fuse the manga aesthetic with American storytelling. AP publishes such artists as Fred Perry (Gold Digger), Joseph Wright (Twilight X War) and Christopher Reid and John Krantz (Legends from Darkwood). Unlike many manga publishers, AP publishes quite a bit of its material in full color including one of its most popular OEL titles, Neotopia by Rod Espinosa.

Founded just last year, Seven Seas Entertainment is hard at work building a fan base. Its top-selling manga, Amazing Agent Luna, has caught the attention of fans and of foreign publishers. Indeed, despite criticism that OEL isn't manga at all, the steadily increasing quality of domestically created manga is making readers more receptive to a looser definition of the genre regardless of its place of origin.

Kuo-yu Liang, v-p of sales and marketing at Diamond Book Distributors, says that at this point, it's all a matter of marketing: "Books that don't sell are the ones that aren't good, and the ones without marketing." Despite being a new comer, Liang says Seven Seas is "doing all the right things." The company previews its manga on the Web (gomanga.com) and has made those works available for download on Sony PlayStation's portable PSP. Seven Seas sticks to standard manga aesthetics for its artwork and despite being written in English, the company flips the books to read right-to-left just like their Japanese counterparts.

There are, of course, skeptics about the future of OEL. Hardcore fans, of course, have reservations. Manga publishers like Viz Media, owned by two of the largest manga publishers in Japan, don't necessarily have to publish OEL. Viz can rely on a virtually endless supply of high quality manga from its parent companies. Evelyn Dubocq, publicity director at Viz Media, suggests that publishers are turning to original authors only because they are "struggling to find licensed content. Manga is Japanese in origin." And James Killen, graphic novels buyer at Barnes & Noble, points out that the Japanese licenses sell far better than OEL manga.

But Tokyopop responds to skepticism about OEL by emphasizing that manga is both a global publishing andentertainment phenomenon, a now internationalized style of visual storytelling that transcends national origin. "We've seen the globalization of manga taking place," says Ross. "It's a cultural phenomenon that spans nations. It's very significant that we're going to Frankfurt. We'll be licensing to other countries who are interested in buying our original material."

"Our competition isn't other publications," says Tokyopop president John Parker, more than eager to develop Tokyopop original manga into Hollywood film projects. "We are competing with DVDs, games and anime. We are competing for time. Great stories with great characters. That's what the entertainment business is all about."

Yankee Manga Trailblazers

Although OEL manga is getting a big push now, a few creators have been at it for far longer. Most notably, Lea Hernandez, whose tankubon [book]-sized Cathedral Child came out in 1998 from Image, and the team of Tavicat (Rikki Simons and Tavisha Wolfgarth-Simons) who were the first Americans to publish with Tokyopop, releasing Reality Check! and Shutterbox.

Reality Check! came out in 2003, selling about 5,000 copies. The Shutterbox series is currently up to its third volume of six. The first volume has already sold over 20,000 copies, and its success is part of what convinced Tokyopop to start focusing on OEL, according to Rikki Simons.

Hernandez is currently publishing a new volume of her Rumble Girls series and the third book of her Texas Steampunk trilogy online, and has watched with some amusement, the evolution of the American manga market. "All my books have been steady sellers, but [in 1998] the venue was mainly direct market stores [comics shops]," she says. "By the time the Rumble Girls: Silken Warrior Tansie trade came out in January 2004 from NBM, bookstore buyers were zeroing in on it at trade shows and promising face-out displays." NBM will also collect the next volume of Rumble Girls.

Both Simons and Hernandez look at the future of OEL manga with optimism. Hernandez points to publishers like Oni, "where creators have full ownership of their work. I am excited about all the talent in the field. I see unlimited potential for growth, both marketwise and storywise, since manga is accepted as encompassing all sorts of stories."

Simons quotes Hikaru Sasahara, founder of the U.S. manga house Digital Manga, who compares manga in America to sushi. "He said that when sushi chefs came to America, they needed to find a way to get Americans to try their product—so they put avocado in it and created the California roll."

"The first part of getting Americans to try manga has been a no-brainer," says Simons. "Now comes the part of getting Americans to adopt manga as part of their artistic identity. This is happening now—and I think the richer the talent becomes, the more this art movement will transform into something new. It's headed for a fusion of the traditional and the new, and that fusion will become something uniquely cosmopolitan."—Heidi MacDonald

Viz, World Bank Offer Manga

Viz Media is owned by two of the biggest manga publishers in Japan, so the U.S.-based manga house isn't racing to publish original manga. But Viz Media has announced a partnership with the World Bank to publish 1 World Manga, a series of original manga titles that use the appeal of the medium to address global issues like poverty, HIV/AIDS and the environment. All of Viz's proceeds from the manga will go to charity. The World Bank will denote copies of the books to 300 libraries around the world.

Written by Viz editor Annette Roman with art by Leandro Ng, 1 World Manga is the story of a teenage street kid named Rei who wants to be a heroic fighter but ends up traveling around an unnamed Third World country learning about social problems. Viz will publish three volumes to start and Rei will be featured in all the volumes.

Liza Coppola, v-p, sales and marketing for Viz Media, says, "The stories presented in 1 World Manga will give young readers a glimpse into the struggles that people around the world face every day."

"Most kids aren't going to listen to a lecture about poverty or AIDs," says Evelyn Dubocq, publicity director at Viz Media. "Manga is a format that kids love. The stories in 1 World Manga can be serious and grim, but the books also have action, romance and humor. It's a way to educate kids about important topics in a manner that kids will enjoy." —Calvin Reid

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