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American vs Asian Comic Design


rubiocroft

Which one is better?  

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Asian comics (manga literally means comic book. You can stop with the distinction now) have a tendency to enforce strong storytelling and moral values along with artwork that tends to be of higher quality than the western counterpart. The guys at Marvel and DC are often stuck doing 3 or 4 different books per month, and since the writers switch with relatively great frequency (the only switch in manga that I can think of is for Lupin III, and they never screwed anything up), there's a general loss of love for the material, not to mention frequent breaches of continuity.

 

In addition, if you miss even one issue in an arc, you tend to not know what the hell happened or what title to go to next (as they span storylines across multiple titles in addition to multiple issues).

 

Trying to maintain the massive universe is what has forced DC to hold 4 different Crisis scenarios, and has forced Marvel to continuously retcon their universes to account for adjustments in technology (they don't even explain it. One day, Captain America's shield was high grade titanium, the next it was raw adamantium).

 

In addition, the artwork in Marvel and DC tends to be of musclebound men and overly busty women as their heroes. If you want super muscles, I recommend Fist of the North Star and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. The writing tends to be much better than American comics.

 

Naturally, there are exceptions. I'm still a huge fan of Batman and Spiderman. Batsy for being a perfectly normal human and still taking on the criminal world, and Spidey for just being awesome in all respects. The Watchmen is the only comic book series to win a Hugo award, and it absolutely deserved it. And of course, there's the Legion of Superheroes, which is my favorite long-running series ever for it's ability to stretch mysteries over great lengths of time while delivering top-notch stories to be resolved within 1 to 3 issues (some 30-40 issues passed from the time of Sensor Girl's introduction to the discovery that it was actually Projectra (who voluntarily left the league in the first place because she IRL banhammered Nemesis Kid for killing Karate Boy, and didn't want to be officially kicked out for violating the rules about killing the enemy(they totally would have let it slide too)).

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I guess in a turn of irony, both Hokuto no Ken and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure reference and homage Western styles. The west made it first, then Japan takes it, then you have people like me referencing the Japanese works in their writings which were originally Western references and styles in the first place.

 

Beyond the fact of continuity issues in most Western works, it's also the fact with the rotating writers, there are also rotating artists. Which is very rare in the East. There is also the fact, the majority of artists work by themselves, doing all the drawing, inking and coloring themselves compared to Japan (and most of the East as well), were most artists have several assistance.

 

As someone whose trying to get a comic to get published, it's only me and one other guy. We opt to only color the front, the back and the first 4 pages with the rest of the book in B&W. To save time and money.

 

As previously said here, I believe. Because of the rotating artists, there is no definative art style in the West. Everyone has their on flair and take on drawing with multiple inspirations that include artists from the East as well. It's the thing most people have a problem with japanese comics is, depending on the artist or artists involved. Everyone will look the same or styles will look all very similar. Other places, such as Hong Kong, have their comics (called manwa apparently) drawn more like Hokuto no Ken from the looks of it. They do offer more varity compared to the Japanese, taking more different approaches in coloring and inking akin to classical paintings from Europe.

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I don't like black and white (monochrome) comic issues unless they are well detailed and drawn. I surely loved those full coloured comics with a cool and classic design. Since I never collected any Asian or US comics, I can't say anything about plot or character moral development.

 

Mr Chibi Kami mentioned that US heroes were mainly super muscled and women over busted.... I guess that's true.. and somehow I appreciate this because it shows or tells something about artist human body knowledge lol... and women looks always good (but similar... :afro: ) And I always have troubles to make a design of those characters... muscles are always well drawn (except by current comic artist which looks cool but now good lol!). The reason I don't like current comic design is because they try to look like real photographs or just cool and attractive characters... just look at these...

 

They even changed Psylocke look....

 

crimsondawn1.jpg

 

 

horrible!

spectacularSM8.jpg

 

they seem japanese drawings (they are not bad... but I think that Asian and US style is practically mixed)

XMen104.jpg

 

xmen003.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

Long life to Classic Comics!.... a good character design were you can see the hand-drawing style in the whole book: Rogue and Psyocke my fav for sure!

 

Early-New-X-Men.jpg

 

 

About Shin Hokuto no Ken and Jojo's... I saw the first episodes of an OVa and I liked the first mentioned character design. Male characters were surely super muscled but the details were good.. the same goes for women design... Jojo's was completely dissapointing... and it reminded me to Ryu's big foot from the anime movie.

 

 

A friend of mine said that he felt just like US heroes were always special people, unique and they worked alone to save the world. However, Asian hero most of time needs to work hard to become a better person (powerful by means of real effort).

 

 

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/thumbnails...yc/A5026-11.jpg

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animated_psylocke.gif

 

 

Cool Drawings... I like the last character design you added Salorskin; The only ones I recognized it was DareDevil--- and Venom? inside the third comic... what is it called? --- > About spawn,,, a little bit ugly the design there...

 

Did you like this xmen version? (I didn't) :(

 

x-men-evolution.jpg

 

 

 

 

gambit-xvs.JPG

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I like Hong Kong comics best. Here are some of my reasons.

 

1) Full coloured.

2) Because I get to buy original HK comics but can't get original mangas, only translated ones which are badly printed. So, of course I would choose HK comics.

3) Storyline. Excluding those HK King of Fighters, SNK, Capcom games related comics. The HK comics usually have a very Chinese feel which I just like it.

4) DC and Marvel comics are most expensive compared to HK comics and mangas.

 

PS: First post in 2008. Happy new year guys :P:(

Edited by Samurai Edge
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I like Hong Kong comics best. Here are some of my reasons.

 

1) Full coloured.

2) Because I get to buy original HK comics but can't get original mangas, only translated ones which are badly printed. So, of course I would choose HK comics.

3) Storyline. Excluding those HK King of Fighters, SNK, Capcom games related comics. The HK comics usually have a very Chinese feel which I just like it.

4) DC and Marvel comics are most expensive compared to HK comics and mangas.

 

PS: First post in 2008. Happy new year guys :P:D

damn u haven't post on here for a long time then

 

I love those HK comics too. i actually like those game related ones just because of the different style of drawing

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Hey!

 

I guess I've seen some of those comics you've been mentioning... did you mean a comic like this???

 

kof_07.jpg

 

I found a lot of time ago... some volumes from kof 97 - 99 - 2000 2002 ,,, and something like Zillion..

 

 

the only problem was ... they were in Chinese..! :P

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Hey!

 

I guess I've seen some of those comics you've been mentioning... did you mean a comic like this???

 

kof_07.jpg

 

I found a lot of time ago... some volumes from kof 97 - 99 - 2000 2002 ,,, and something like Zillion..

 

 

the only problem was ... they were in Chinese..! ;)

Yeah. I love those most. But it's a long time since a game related comic is out. There are not as popular as original stories or stories recreated by Chinese novels.

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