What manga is all about

Manga Mania:

"The Tokyo comic book market is very different from the US market: Comic book series launches, ad campaigns to hype the new hero, spin-off character-based comics playing off flagships like Superman and X-men are the norm in the US, but not in Japan."

(Via Blogdex.)

This article presents what Manga is all about and why it is not about your average spandex-clad super-heroes trying to save the world from some evil egomaniac (of course, you can find manga of that genre if you are interested). You will manga characters from the most unlikely sources: detectives, magicians, robots, normal everyday people living their normal lives. In short, manga tries to cater to a wide range of audience.

More importantly, it is not all about the drawing but rather the story. True, most American comics have fantastic drawing, inking and coloring but their story line is abysmal. In fact, you will realize soon enough that after reading a few pages, you can easily guess what the next corny line is going to be from an American comic. Why? Most probably because they are just that many story lines for a sci-fi for a comic that you have probably seen them all: time warping, multiple identities, psychological trauma, different eras, etc.

Because manga tends to focus more on the story line, they employ simple drawing that capture the essence of the story, no more and no less. This makes for a very clean story line without all the distractions that arise from the drawings.

So go read the Manga Mania article and head over to lurker.net to obtain your first copy of a scanlation.