Wednesday, November 30, 2011

What Do You Mean Manga Isn't Art???

Wow, I can't believe it's been five months since the last time I've posted anything. It definitely doesn't feel like five months...

Anyways, sometimes while I'm working on pages, I can't help thinking about the art teachers I've had in high school. I wonder what they would think of me working on a manga? I know there are artists who really enjoy drawing manga, but who are disappointed by the negative reactions from their art teachers. Unfortunately, I totally know how that feels.


In high school, I took a lot of art classes. I had a teacher for drawing classes and a teacher for painting classes. My drawing teacher was a very laid back guy...he even had his hair dyed pink at one point. Anyways, he didn't mind when we incorporated anime or manga style into our artwork, because he was also a cartoonist. When he taught, he taught us how to draw seriously, but at the same time, he allowed us to experiment with what we liked.

On the other hand, there was my painting teacher. She was an older lady with a very traditional style. She had a whole portfolio dedicated to depicting elderly women. There was nothing wrong with that--her work was actually pretty cool. And whenever I drew realistically, she would just rave over it because she liked my style. In fact, she really wanted me into enroll into the college level art classes, which she also taught. But I didn't, because she did not like manga. Not at all. If she saw me drawing manga, she would become visibly disturbed as if that's not art or something. And many times if she saw a student drawing manga or anime, she would say something rude about it. She felt that it all looked the same, which is only the case for an untrained eye. Read enough manga, and it becomes clear that every artist is a little different...

Anyways, that would not work for me because obviously, I like being a manga artist.

As far as fine art goes, manga doesn't fall into that category, but it's still art. Although she liked drawing realistically, there was no reason for her to force her personal preferences on others. If she was more open-minded, imagine how much encouragement and depth she could have added to those in the class who were already anime artists.

She could have taught them how to incorporate beautiful classical art skills into their work in order to make it better, instead of being discouraging and knocking them down. They could have learned to use realism to improve their anime style, instead of being forced to abandon what they liked to do.
Work in progress ^_^

If I met her today and told her that I'm working on a manga, I wonder what she would think? Would she tell me that I shouldn't be wasting my time with such a "reproduced"style? Well, I would challenge her to do this: Write a script. Convert that script into pages of visual representation, and then draw 300 pages. 300 pages of art: lines and shadow and contrast. On top of that, add dialog. Add words. Add atmosphere.

Would she be able to do it?

I don't think so.

But if she was able to do just 10 pages, I think at the end of it all, she would change her mind. Drawing manga has more complexity than it seems. The trick is that it can appear simple and effortless. It's art.

3 comments:

  1. For her to say Manga isn't art showed just how narrow minded she was. Art is like beauty - in the eye of the beholder - and for anyone to put down a genre just because THEY don't understand it is a bit nuts, in my opinion.

    I'm glad that you were not turned off your wonderful talent by this teacher, unfortunately I have know some who have been "convinced" that way by such a teacher. Sounds like your drawing teacher was pretty cool. Its amazing that you were able to take these classes in High School since today so much of the arts have been removed for FCAT (don't get me started there). Your comment on the different styles of manga artists is also right on - I have actually been turned off to some manga due to the fact that they were drawn roughly (or even badly in my opinion) thus making it hard for me to enjoy the written story. This is NOT true of your work tho.

    I am so thrilled to see you posting again! Thanks for keeping up with Mascara too. I really hope to see this Manga published one day.

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  2. Thanks! And I hope to publish it too ^_^

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  3. I never took art classes - most of what I know about art I learned in math class. ^_^

    I think you're absolutely right. Manga is definitely art, and there is a lot of variety. I think why some people say it all looks the same, is because there are certain aspects of the art that catch your eye right away, and some of those aspects are common to most manga. But saying that "all manga characters look the same because they all have big eyes" would be like saying "all American comic book characters look the same because they all wear tights". Both statements are far too generalized, and neither are really true.

    Scripting and drawing 300+ pages of a manga is certainly an accomplishment to be proud of, and I really hope you publish Mascara when it's finished.

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