Dancing to their own Toon
Nov 11 2006 By Andrew Cowen
that’s come to light is that a lot of people are drawing. A lot of the people wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t for the course or the collective."
"We have given them the strength to break out of their nine to five hell," adds John "And throw them into comic hell..."
How Manga became the common language of cartoonists
The word Manga can be translated as, "humorous pictures."
Manga became very popular in Japan in the 20th century when laws prohibiting the publication of those kinds of items were lifted.
It has since become a huge part of Japanese culture. Unlike in the UK, Manga is read by most people in the country.
The artists and writers of Manga are well respected for their work, much like the writers of literature in the West.
Recently, Manga has started to take off in the UK. It has been a very successful new medium that has become very popular with young people, particularly since it started to influence the style of kids’ cartoons seen on satellite channels such as Cartoon Network.
Manga, and the Anime that it has inspired, is now common on TV, in films, and has influenced the art styles of American artists like Ed McGuinness, Brian Wood, and Frank Miller.
Manga is generally published in a much different format than Western comics. Manga is usually much smaller and collected in small volumes.
There are many characteristics that make Manga very distinctive. The largest thing that Manga art is known for is its characters.
Manga characters almost always have large eyes, small mouths, and they also usually have abnormal hair color.
These things give their characters a very Western look. Manga like the classic Akira, however, has gone against this grain.
Manga characters usually show over-exaggerated emotions. When a character cries, it usually pours out in buckets, when they laugh, their face seems engulfed by the size of their mouths and their eyes become slits.
An angry character will have rosy cheeks and steam rolling from around their body. This use of emotion would most likely be categorised as cartoonish.
For this reason it appeals to female artists and most of the girls who Hunt Emerson and John McCrae have met through StripSearch and the Collective have wanted to draw Manga.
Michiru and Asia are attracting interest because they are taking the form to a new level, taking it as a launchpad for their own unique styles.
The characters in Asia’s work fit obviously into some of the definitions above yet lack the stylised uniformity of the Japanese strand. They’re softer and have more depth. Michiru takes Manga as a starting point but mixes it with more absurd Western stories and a style that owes as much to eccentric British illustrators like Heath Robinson and Quentin Blake.
