Understanding Manga

Scott McCloud’s theories in Understanding Comics have always shown the influence of manga, and a 1996 essay from Wizard Magazine #56 provides some insight into McCloud’s background with manga and its influence on McCloud’s foundational comics scholarship. #understandingcomics 1/11

The piece is titled “Understanding Manga” – drawn in the same style and structure McCloud cultivated for Understanding Comics. Here, McCloud offers some key observations about the most popular Japanese form of graphic narrative and its ever-expanding role in the Western consciousness. 2/11

McCloud recounts his early exposure to manga through lunch breaks at a Manhattan seller and the impact that they had (despite being untranslated) on his understanding of comics rhetoric. “what I figured out that year and a half…had nothing to do with formats and sales figures…” 3/11

“…or with ninjas or big robots or wide-eyed schoolgirls – and everything to do with comics!” For McCloud, the great strength that manga had cultivated was the focus on creating a stimulating environment, one that draws readers in. 4/11

He speaks to the use of subjective motion, expressive but abstract faces, and the use of visual montages to illustrate inner conflicts. He also speaks to scope, however, noting that manga artists have often been privileged with large runs through which to cultivate setting and character. 5/11

For McCloud, this focus in manga holds the power to inform and enhance Western graphic narrative as well. “Art history shows us that exciting things can happen when different cultures exchange ideas…I think the Japanese may hold the key….” 6/11

“…to at least one crucial part of comics’ hidden potential. The power to transport us into the mind of another and through their eyes into another world. To unlock that power, we may have to consider some new ideas, but if ever there was at time for new ideas – this is it.” 7/11

His observation has proven to be quite portentous as we’ve seen throughout the 2000s and 2010s with Western comics artists actively integrating manga technique into their works. McCloud himself, in his 2006 volume, Making Comics, notes this, writing: 8/11

“Manga readers are finding a visceral thrill in such participation techniques that they apparently aren’t finding in North American comics and some artists in the West have looked to manga for inspiration in bridging that gap.” 9/11

And, relatedly, McCloud’s ideas from his Wizard essay are ably expanded on in Making Comics, showing the author’s continuing development of his understanding of and appreciation for the art of manga. 10/11

All of this is just to say that the most-taught treatise on North American comics, and the author of the same, have manga within their foundations, thus showcasing the many important lessons that manga has to teach all students of graphic narrative. 11/11