Manga created by Foreigners, particularly American Foreigners (as opposed to Korean, Chinese, or French Foreigners) has always been controversial in Japan and even in America itself, oddly enough.....
That's why you gotta bring your A-Game and be on your best behavior.
People of my generation (Somewhere right between Generations Y and X I think) the Boomerang generation, are setting a historic example in cartooning that could potentially be imitated and followed by future generations for many years to come. It's nice to have things become a little more normal. Was getting hard to work on my projects a few years back...
I can't help but ask though...ARE my comics being judged on their merits and art and writing alone, or are they being judged by my behavior, lifestyle, nationality, ethnicity and other geographic, social, and cultural elements, superficial career elements that really have nothing to do with the actual work itself.
If you want to draw manga in America, you must have faith in your ability to work hard and set a high standard of design. It's not realistic to expect praise, congratulation, or re-assurance when your drawing manga in America. People will automatically be critical of you and your style and criticize you by association alone.
Will American manga be accepted in Japan? No one, fan, professional, artist or publisher of ANY sort has enough history or experience behind them to know the answer to that question. The industry is brand new, and right now it's mostly a bunch of young kids that A) Want to draw comics really well and B) Want some form of reassurance or acceptance from either Japanese culture or the fan community. But no one's really going to know if there's a sustainable OEL industry until years down the road. Most artists take to the internet. The truth about manga in America is, most of the people who WANT to see it are the young artists like myself who make various attempts at DRAWING it themselves. It's like indie comics, the audience can be found in the people who produce the art themselves. That's how Osamu Tezuka and GAINAX started in Japan. They wanted more animation from Japan, so they drew it themselves and eventually the audience DID catch up to it, but not until years later.
My advice to new and young artists. Stop worrying about your popularity or whether you'll be successful enough, and use that energy of desire, and put it into action, the action of developing your own style and your own comics pages. I'm no different than any other manga artist. I know if I don't draw it myself, there's no guarantee anyone else is going to bother drawing it at all, let alone in exactly the same way.
You can't just focus on Japanese publishing. If you live in America, you're competing in the American market, whether you want to admit it or not. 80% of the time you're REAL market is defined by the country and state you live in, like it or not. You don't need or have to view yourself as a "prisoner of the American market". You can always move once you make enough money to do so, but just because you live in Texas doesn't mean you're doomed to never succeed in manga or anime. Hell, think about it, if you live in Texas, FUNimation itself is probably a couple blocks down from you. Why not ask for a tour, why not show your manga to FUNimation if you live in Texas? Just because they don't make manga doesn't mean they don't appreciate it. Same thing with Atlanta and Cartoon Network. Think locally in terms of the resources of your career, build something in your house at your drawing desk or computer locally with friends and family as a test audience, THEN promote and branch out nationally, maybe internationally. Japan may be HUGE in America now, but where exactly do you think it had to prove and test its metal first. In Japan and Tokyo of course. The Japanese artists knew they had a special style, but thought locally, and the world eventually sought THEM out...It all starts with your drawing chops in and of itself. You have to be honest with your SELF about the quality level of your very OWN drawing chops before you start competing with ANY thing really.
If you want to draw manga, but are not Japanese or American, it is okay to emulate the style of your favorite Japanese or Asian artists. But don't just limit yourself to Japan, copy any decent art style, from Romanticism to science fiction. Don't be a carbon copy of your favorite artist(s). Use manga and other forms of art to draw inspiration from. You can't use other people's projects as your own, but it's okay to copy your favorite drawings. I call that Master studies. When I was studying fine art and life drawing in local art classes, one of the homework assignment was Master Studies. Pick a famous artwork from an Italian or French Renaissance master and copy it. Copy is okay, as long as it ends up building your skills to eventually develop and produce form and structure for your own ideas. In Japan, every artist almost starts off drawing Doujinshi studying manga and anime DVD frame pauses to get good, and many become original enough to land their own series. Often artists don't start off original, they END UP ORIGINAL and unique after time spent honing their own style. Imitate until you're able to originate, "OC" ("original characters" and whatnot.)
And just because your white or American or "just" half Chinese or whatever failure excuse you want to give yourself to not at least attempt to draw comics doesn't mean you won't make connections in the long run. France is in fact a very Western country, but the top French Cartoonist, Moebius, was friends with all the top Japanese manga-ka of Japan, and had a precious relationship with all the Major pioneer of Japanese manga. Katsuhiro Otomo, Hayao Miyazaki, Osamu Tezuka. He was friends and colleagues with all of them. They LEARNED from each other. The influence did not go in one direction. It NEVER has. and it STILL doesn't. It just SEEMS that way. And honestly, I don't see this kind of relationship changing. Top Artists of America often end up making connections with the Top Artists of Japan and Asia. Whether its John Lasseter and Miyazaki or John Woo and Tarantino. The appreciation should and always has been mutual between North America, France, and Asia. Birds of a feather and all that.
-JM
