2. Hokusai
Katsushika Hokusai was a Japanese artist who lived
through 1760 to 1849.
When he was 51 (1811) he entered the stage in his life
with his work “Hokusai Manga” which he made a book
with his sketches in. landscapes, wildlife, vegetation,
everyday life objects and people and supernatural.
It was these works that were the start to the manga
style and was him where it all began (bottom right
sketches from Hokusai Manga)
3. What is Manga?
Manga means comic or cartoon in Japanese. It is then often
transformed into cartoons and animes. The Manga comics
are different to western as they are usually in black and
white and also is read from right to left. Manga comics are
also often one episode comics, which end with “to be
continued”
Manga comes from Japan and in Japan manga is used for
almost all media such as: newspapers, comics, art and
advertisement.
Someone who creates the comic for instance the comic
artist is called a "Mangaka”
4. Western and Eastern Comics
The western comics focus a lot on superheroes but not
all are superhero comics for example “Beano” where it
focuses on lots of different stories and have different
types of plots.
Eastern comics focus on one plot a comic and are
continued in the next. Eastern comics have a wide range
of variety and are about mostly supernatural people and
backgrounds.
The characters are very different, western are seen as
more realistic than eastern which some times have out
of proportioned body parts. Eastern comics focus a lot
on the background to the comics more than western.
5. The difference in the narrative
When thinking of western comics most people will think
of superheroes. The plot in the superhero comics are
always very similar with a few parts to the plot always
the same. Firstly there will be the main character (the
superhero) and the villain. The villain will try take over
the world or perform a crime and the superhero will
have to save the day. Western comics are very good at
keeping to a regular story with a beginning, middle and
a end.
Eastern comics have there supernatural comics and
relationships, because eastern is more open with the
love than western. The supernatural will also have the
goodies and baddies fighting for there reasons. Eastern
comics include, humans, robots, creatures and
supernatural beings.
6. Critical review on Eastern comics
Eastern comics are very popular in Japan and even with
people from around the world who prefer them than
westerns. Reasons of eastern being preferred is that some
are not as serious, more range in stories and art work is
sometimes liked for how it is. Most animes backgrounds are
from manga comics because the comic itself was a big
success. Manga is fun as well because it is mainly hand
drawn and is really only computerised when coloured. It is
a shame that most manga's are in black and white because
the coloured ones really add the brightness and fun to
manga, I guess with black and white it can let your
imagination do the work also it keeps the comic as a hand
drawn only style.
