Weekly Shonen Jump versus Brit Comics

Tue, Oct 14, 2008

Like many of you, I’ve noticed the similarities between Japanese comics and British comics, or at any rate the sort of comics we used to regularly produce here in Britain, especially girl’s comics like Bunty and Judy, which would have been marketed as Shōjo manga in Japan. I think, before we get too carried away though, we should make it clear that those similarities are more to do with methods of production, than with the content of the comics. With very few notable exceptions, whilst the artwork in the British comics was often exceptional, with top illustrators from Britain, Belgium, France, Argentina, Spain and Italy flexing their nibs, the stories were, again with the odd notable exception, nowhere near as good as the Japanese tales. In fact, any similarities in the content of the stories is often purely coincidental, and predicated on the fact that young readers, then as now, still share the same common experiences, like going to school and reaching puberty; and the same obsessions, like fashion and the suitability of boyfriends and girlfriends, and fashion, fighting and espionage.

Like the comics we used to produce here, Japanese comics are often printed in black and white, or half-tone, with only the odd colour page, on cheap newsprint paper. But the main difference between British comics and Japanese comics is the amount of effort required by the reader. Whilst Mandy and Judy and The Bunty might have borne a superficial similarity to Shōjo manga, our British comics were often full of one and two-page stories, occasionally as many as four, but never, under any circumstances, would they stretch to a continuous narrative of 114 Chapters, published over a period in excess of a decade, as Ashinano Hitoshi’s charming sci-fi story, Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (Yokohama Shopping Log) did in Kodansha’s Afternoon magazine, where it ran from 1994 until 2006.

Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou Yokohama Shopping Log Afternoon Magazine.jpg

Like traditional British comics, the Buster, Wow, Whizzer and Chips, Sparky, June and School Friend, Tammy, Japanese comics are anthologies, but unlike the British model the Japanese comics are filled with creator-controlled content, and often, most unlike their British counterparts, Japanese comics celebrate the artists and writers who create the characters that bring success to the publications.

Japanese manga creators.jpg

With the Japanese method of production, the comic readers follow the adventures of their favourite characters, in the weekly or fortnightly or monthly comics anthology, for a sustained period (more often than not building an interest in other characters) and then when the various chapters are pulled together into a series of “graphic novels”, each comprising one meaty volume, the fans are more than eager to collect the new books.

Those same fans are similarly delighted when their favourite idol graduates from their own graphic novels to anime, and even live-action TV shows, and then sometimes movies and more often than not games – and it goes without saying that the accompanying merchandise is equally eagerly sought. This, almost organic business model, where the character, if successful, follows a very well trodden path, has proved both robust, and an important source of income for the cartoonists and writers, the comics publisher, the graphic novels publishers, the printers, the animation studios, the TV companies, the actors, the film studios, the toy designers and toy companies and, of course, the entire Japanese economy. It is a business that although past the zenith of its popularity, generates 500-billion yen, and employs hundreds of people.

The British method of comics production, on the other hand, was strange and insular. The comics seemed to be a sort of afterthought, created because the printing presses were already there, on the premises, and in use anyway. Whether that was the case or not, the Japanese system of allowing creators free-reign to produce their wildest imaginings, and to reap a share of any profits, was not practised in Britain, where comics artists and writers got no more than a fixed payment per page. In fact, it was only with a degree of reluctance that one of the two major British comics publishers’ even “allowed” their artists to sign their own art work. This obsession with exercising strict control over the content invariably led to the companies pushing their own in-house characters, rather than anything the cartoonists and writers might come up with, unless of course they handed “all the copyright in all the world” over to the publisher. And, arguably, ensured that British comics were essentially pushing old concepts and ideas onto their readers, decades after those ideas had already become tired and old fashioned. This meant, inevitably, that there were no new and relevant characters that spoke to the succeeding generations.

It seems, that for the longest time, the young comics reader was seen as a disposable commodity, a unit, that would pass through a comics reading age from the ages of say 8 to 12. For that reason, successive generations of comic readers simply outgrew the comics they had been reading, and found themselves replaced by a new generation of comics readers. Unlike the Japanese market where the tweeners and the teenagers and the adolescents and then the adults all have titles waiting to welcome them into their family of readers, Britain’s young comic fans found themselves abandoned.

Not only were the young readers of Britain’s comics served very badly, by two companies that produced a narrow vision of comics, but when they reached a certain age they were cast adrift, with only one British title, 2000AD, even trying to attract their attention. Is it any wonder then, that when it finally hit the shelves Viz Comic went on to pick up 1,000,000 readers – ranging from adults who should have known better, to kids whom DC Thomson and IPC assumed still wanted to read the Buster and the Beano? Such unenlightened disregard for the very readers on whom the various titles, and the companies’, success was built, was nothing short of a disgrace, and it was also incredibly short-sighted business practise, given that every indicator available pointed to a falling birth-rate and an aging society. At any rate, the old titles haemorrhaged readers, kids stopped buying the comics, and one company went to the wall whilst the one that remains is but a pale shadow of its former self.

Now I’m not pretending that everything is rosy in Japanese comic land. It can’t possibly be, given the current economic situation, but the Japanese business model is well placed to withstand changing reader patterns, and although sales of the print issues of many titles have fallen, the E-readership has grown substantially, and a lot of manga is read daily on phones, dedicated readers on computers, and even on games consoles. In 2007, about 30 billion Yen, two-thirds of all the money spent on digital content in Japan, was spent on manga.

Manga’s success, in print and digital format, the current economic melt-down not withstanding, will be emulated in the West, not just because of online publishing houses like the Papyless Company, whose Executive Director, Munetaka Matsumoto has plans to make the company’s several thousand strong manga archive available in Korean, Chinese and English in the near future, but because of the continued support of the Japanese government. The Japanese government, lead by enthusiastic and supportive politicians like Prime Minister Taro Aso, and Masahiko Komura, regard the manga and anime industries as valuable (soft power) exports, and as “vehicles to project Japanese culture around the world.”

Weekly Shonen Jump content page.jpg

For me though, the printed Japanese comics remain fascinating; not just to be studied as an example of good business practise, or what might have been, here in the UK, but also because they are outstanding value, and just plain fun. The first thing that catches the eye of the eager British comic reader, looking at a recent issue of Weekly Shonen Jump, is the thickness of the publication. In the 1980s, before the majority of British comics disappeared, more and more comic titles were merged and those merged comics became thinner and thinner, and the small amount of titles that are still around today, have continued this trend. In contrast, even today, the Japanese comics routinely have almost 500 pages of action and adventure, with some features up to 40 pages long. It’s astonishing to think that the publication of a 40-page long chapter in a British comic, at one page a week, could have taken the best part of a year.

Shonen Jumpy Weekly page.jpg

I think another strength of Japanese comics is that they are not trying to make some huge artistic statement. WSJ is as powerful, as artistically adventurous, as Metal Hurlant ever was, and it contains much better stories. It is an example of the comic art stripped bare; a functional, utilitarian comic book on bog-standard paper. It doesn’t care what it looks like, it doesn’t need glossy pages, it is simply a vehicle to deliver stories; and it does so – with knobs on. With a stellar line-up including Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, Psyren, and Prince of Tennis, Weekly Shonen Jump is a fantastic read, and although some stories do include the obligatory T&A drawings that are often a feature of comics aimed at males, they do not pepper all the pages of the comic in a way that might alienate female readers. My Spidey-sense tells me this is not accidental. This comic’s pages might look a little cheap, but there is nothing second-class about the work that fills them.

Shonen Jumpy Weekly One Piece.jpg

Internationally published cartoonist Rod McKie has a regularly updated blog which you can check out, and for more information and a glimpse at some of his many works visit Rodtoons and enjoy browsing the gallery.