maingah

[amae]

Some more sample art for the X-men manga project

I...still don't understand the pure vitriol I'm seeing for this. D: Especially after now seeing the art for the Wolverine comic...I think it looks good lol. At least they don't seem to be going the shoujo route for Wolverine anymore (this does seem to suit him more any how). As far as the shoujo thing goes...the art is really not that bad guys, WTF are you talking about? Yeah it looks typical shoujo, but er, wasn't that the point? Or maybe I'm missing something here. And looking at the people writing it, they seem to have gotten people (okay, I really only know of the people writing the shoujo version, so I'm not saying anything about the Wolverine comic) who know what they're doing.

I just kind of feel confused about how a project that looks at the very least okay is getting shat on from all directions lol. I do think it might have been a better idea if the wanted to do something manga-esque to just...make up a new story, but this is Marvel so I'm not too surprised that they didn't stray too far from what they normally do. I think the key here is not in the art (which again, IS NOT THAT BAD) but in the writing. I guess we'll see how things go.

In other news I have decided that that hot boy from my club who is actually a megane danshi and an adorkable bundle of wonderfulness is also possibly the most moe boy I've ever met. The only thing that's left is for him to dress like a butler and then I'll literally explode. slkjdfs WHY MUST YOU HAVE A GIRLFRIEND D: *throws chairs in a fit of RAGE*

...Anyway. Tomorrow is my last trip to Takarazuka. :( What will I do without androgynous women only one and a half hours away from me now? I can't return to a world without that!

Comments

[telophase.livejournal.com]

It's the same people who were screeching loudly a decade and a half ago when Marvel started bringing a few design elements from manga into the art (slight changes in facial shape and eyes, primarily). OMG MY COMICS ARE TAINTED!

[notrafficlights.livejournal.com]

No, it's really not, because this decade they have girls asking why the fuck do they have to be insultingly appealed to with this patronising shit ("Boys like comics! Girls like manga!"), why can't they play in the main sandpit with the boys?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Eh. Either way, everyone ends up fixated on the surface and seems to miss that what makes most manga manga is the storytelling techniques, not the art style.

[notrafficlights.livejournal.com]

From what I've read, they're trying to emulate those as well. The Kitty Pryde one is a watered-down shoujo reverse-harem storyline, or something.

The Wolverine one looks slightly less nauseating, but it's still retarded that Marvel would rather pump money into this instead of, I dunno, keeping New X-men going.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Are they just emulating the genre attributes, or are they emulating the panel layout, the flow of speech balloons, integrating the art and the text in a way that pushes the reader's eye along*, and using various artistic techniques to focus on the emotional aspects of the story? That's what I'm referring to by "storytelling techniques," not the shoujo/shounen stuff.



* I've only ever seen this attempted to an extent similar to manga in an issue of Transmetropolitan in American comics, although I admit I haven't read any in a long time and I haven't read everything out there. But I've never seen it in Marvel comics. They tend to rely heavily on context within the dialogue and on the reading convention "left to right, top to bottom" to push the eye along, whereas most manga I've read tends to position the balloons to make the eye drag across the emotional centers of the panels, and to use objects in the art along with the balloons to describe a path on the page.

[notrafficlights.livejournal.com]

I honestly don't know, and knowing Marvel and their previous attempts (Spider Man Loves Mary Jane a notable title), probably not. All we've seen so far are character sketches from some dodgy dA artist. You're probably right that they won't go that far in emulation, which just annoys me more.

[elae.livejournal.com]

it's still retarded that Marvel would rather pump money into this instead of, I dunno, keeping New X-men going.

--sorry to butt in, but from what I've heard, Del Rey basically "licensed" the property from Marvel, much like how the movie-makers do. Marvel isn't playing any part in the creation of the manga series, they just sold that right to Del Rey. So... they're not really pumping -any- money into it.

[notrafficlights.livejournal.com]

Fair enough.

[diavana.livejournal.com]

"So Beast is Totoro?"

I cracked up at that comment.




And you SHOULD have gone to the host club.
If I had been there, I would have accompanied you too.

[maiteoida.livejournal.com]

okay I admittedly forgot to add "lol totoro" because...lol totoro

and DAMMIT WHY WEREN'T YOU GUYS HERE LONGER. D: I need boys who are paid to love me.

[cetriya.livejournal.com]

a good portion of shoujo style is too cliche

as far as Anzu's work, well I like them as pin ups some times but the work for the 'how to book' and her web comic is just not for me to see that fitting with marvel characters (and I dont even read them).

I'm more likely going to pic up the wolverine shounen book to see whats up. Like you said, Im more into the story then art but art shouldnt distract from reading

[maiteoida.livejournal.com]

What I'm trying to argue though is that this book is being marketed to people who prefer more...well, authentic looking manga? And yeah, I can hear the people screaming "then why didn't they get a Japanese artist"? Which is probably true, but look at Aoi House, a lot of people like that and it's not done by anyone Japanese. The point isn't that they aren't going for something that doesn't look typical shoujo--they ARE. I wish people would get over that fact.

Granted I haven't seen her pages, so maybe she really isn't strong at sequentials which would make me groan. Who knows, I'd just like to see some pages from this before shitting on it like everyone else seems to be doing lol.

[notrafficlights.livejournal.com]

Especially after now seeing the art for the Wolverine comic

Because Logan is not a pretty bishie boy. Logan is a shortarse stocky uglyfuck hairy Canadian motherfucker who will cut you if you say otherwise.

Seriously, all the character designs look worse than 90% of the shitty anime X-men fanart you can find on dA. Kitty Pryde makes me want to puke. NEKO NEKO WAI KAWAII CATGIRL fuck. And I'm not even going to touch Beast with a 50 foot pole. BEAST IS NOT TOTORO ASSHOLES.

but er, wasn't that the point?

Problem #2: Marvel assumes the only way to get females to read its comics is by playing into the "Girls read manga, boys read comics" false dichotomy.

WRONG.

I'm sorry, but is the small stockpile of honest-to-god US comics from the big two sitting under my bed an illusion? Yes, the misogyny and crap in regular comics puts some girls off reading them. You know what the answer is to fixing it? Get rid of the misogyny and start writing decent female characters, nevermind decent characters in general.

The other problem I think is that yes, this will probably be picked up by a few very young and not-very-well-read female English speaking manga fans, and then dumped, because fake-manga is still not as good as realy manga, as most of the OEL publications have proven.

[maiteoida.livejournal.com]

While it's not true that ALL "boys read comics and girls read manga", there are a lot of girls (and boys of course, but the disparity between girls who read Marvel comics and girls who read manga is notably big) who do just...primarily read manga for whatever reason. I don't think it's that ridiculous to try to market something to them, though as I said above I feel that this attempt would probably be better received, if it were a different story all together.

Of course, this doesn't mean they should continue to ignore their existing female audience and refuse to change the way they've been writing their ACTUAL comics, but just think the audiences for their regular comics and this one are supposed to be different. Its for those "young and not-very-well-read female speaking manga fans" who may continue reading it if it's good, which all depends the execution and more importantly the writing.

[jade-sage.livejournal.com]

My only question is... why is Beast a badger now? Are badger suddenly very ferocious, and no one thought to tell me?

[eto.livejournal.com]

That is the best. Beast. Ever. Holy freakin crap I love him. *lol!*

[junemermaid.livejournal.com]

HER NAME IS KITTY SO SHE WEARS A WAI!WAI!KAWAII!NEKO-CHAN HAT AND EARSSSS! GET IT?!?!? DO YOU GET IT??!?! ISN'T SHE SO KAWAII DESU DESU?!?! NYAN NYAN!!!

Thats why people are against this, because it's stupid and patronizing to people who like both manga AND the X-men. There's a way to merge the two without losing the qualities of either. See Snikt!, that was manga and it still was Wolverine being Wolverine and doing what he does best. Killing shit.
Not some generic sulky bishounen in a leather jacket who just happens to have wings in his hair like Wolvie.

And don't even get me started on "Beast", poor poor Hank, what have they done to you?

I love manga, I love the X-Men, hell I love cheesy shoujo reverse-harem when it's done right, but I don't think merging all three is going to produce a good comic/manga in any way.

Also in regards to the art, the shoujo stuff, her pinup work is fine if you like that sort of thing, but judging by her webcomic, sequential story telling is not her strong point.

[maiteoida.livejournal.com]

Admittedly the Kitty Pryde character design is pretty special (but then again I like Loveless so I'm probably not one to talk lol), but I didn't have too much of a problem with Iceman and Nightcrawler. I still say we're going to have to wait to see the end product of the shoujo manga before we can really say anything though. Maybe I'm just too optimistic. (though after seeing her sequentials though, I can see where you're coming from on that. D: Sigh).

I'm a bit confused why they're doing a shounen manga staring Wolverine (I'm pretty sure the Wolverine manga is separate from the shoujo X-menmanga) when they already had Snikt! though??

[junemermaid.livejournal.com]

When I first looked at the Iceman and Nightcrawler sketches I thought they were the same person, like one was a human version and one was his normal version. You should not be able to mistake Nightcrawler for Iceman...that means your character designs are WAY too same-y. That was my main problem with them.

[cetriya.livejournal.com]

you know, A slightly different topic but similar.

I just finishing reading the 'Ultimo' manga and what I can say is...

I hope for these marvel mangas that they dont bring in the excessive 'narration' boxes that fill up Ultimo. I mean seriously, I'm glad its not in full color and even with a 'real mangaka' doing the drawing it still felt too
'American' with the writing. do I need to have boxes like "the more the people came, the larger his smile grew' or 'end up wasting quite a few rounds of bullets' when the image clearly shows it??

Drawing is only half the part of manga, I'm not reading any comic that needs to have a hell of a lot of narration boxes. This includes shoujo manga that have very weak/crappy beginings