Moebius: "Manga is a plague"

Legendary French artist Moebius (real name Jean Giraud) has been on my mind quite a lot recently. Aside from recently reading one of his older books, which I will hopefully review some time soon, he has also released a new semi-autobiographical (Inside Moebius) book which means that there's been a number of articles and interviews with him. A recent one had a somewhat controversial statement that didn't get quite a lot of press time in comic blogs because the interview was in Spanish. Luckily, I do speak Spanish, and I thought that somewhat controversial statement still had some validity, which I wanted to spotlight, and warranted a discussion. Hit the jump to see what I mean.

The Quote

Here's the link to the initial article, in which Moebius calls manga a plague. Obviously, most of our readers do not speak Spanish, so I will provide a translation of the relevant portions.

Interviewer: What looks certain is that at this rate, soon we will all be reading manga. The success of the japanese comics among the young people does not forebode anything good for European Authors.

Moebius: Manga is a plague. The invasion has been total, as shown by the portion of the market that they have achieved. It is an epidemic. It reminds me of something that happened with the Amazonian bees that travel up to North America and kills the indigenous species. In France, the shrimp have disappeared because they threw a foreign species into the water that killed them all. The new ones are good, but they are not the same... they have a horrendous accent [in relation to flavor]. The problem is that manga reaches Europe, but the European comic does not reach Japan. That is what's unfair.

The Context 

Once you look past the inherently negative connotations that the word "plague" and "epidemic" carry, I think Moebius does have a valid point in regards with the "invasion". Expanding the bees analogy further, you can't really blame the "plague" for doing what comes naturally, trying to expand as much as the environment will allow, nor can you exactly blame the indigenous species for being unprepared to this kind of competition, after all, they didn't have this kind of direct competition before. What you can blame them for is their refusal to evolve, but we'll get to that later.

This analogy is also applicable to the American market, although to a lesser degree. Characters like Spider-Man and Batman will always have staying powers in ALL kind of markets, including the international ones, but smaller franchises and creator owned projects have no opportunity against the kind of numbers manga moves. Go into any random bookstore and you will see that the number bookshelves dedicated to manga probably double or triple the amount of shelf space dedicated to regular ol' comics (and when you factor the average size of manga collection against that of a standard comic, the gap becomes even wider). The odds of finding a creator owned title among the cacophony of titles is infinitesimal, while the odds of zeroing in on a cheap manga collection are pretty good. I believe this is the kind of displacement that Moebius was talking about, and the chances of these smaller titles reaching overseas to Japan and achieving a sizable audience are probably next to nothing (although I could be very wrong, any reader from Japan, feel free to correct me).

Keeping with the bee analogy, the indigenous species has to evolve or die, as simple as that. I wouldn't be the first person to say that the comic industry, and specifically the direct market, is standing on its last legs, a shadow of its former self, and waiting for its inevitable end and/or metamorphosis. A dwindling readership that doesn't seem to be attracting any new readers, higher prices that have skyrocketed in the last couple of years, an increasing difficulty to come across the material due to the prevalence of the direct market (aka comic shops), and a noticeable lack of variety compared to other media are all dire signs for the industry. Manga, on the other hand, relies on doing the complete opposite: producing cheap material that can be easily carried by any bookstore and with a wide array of material that appeals to a larger audience.

Let's keep going with the bees scenario: if a species faces no direct competition or threat, the new species can grow in size and numbers unrestrained, and resources will be depleted faster. This is also happening, in a way, as manga studios post declining sales (which still dwarf American comics sales by a lot and the declines come during the recent recession) compared to years ago. Inaccessibility is becoming a factor too as it becomes harder to find all chapters of long running manga titles (quick: what volume is Naruto or Bleach up to now?). Obviously they are not the same problems that the American or European industries are facing right now, but it bears discussion.

Of course, it doesn't have to be as competitive as the bee analogy makes it sound, with one replacing and displacing the other. Both industries CAN and SHOULD coexist, offering different material to a bigger audience and working together if they wish to survive. Some books like Runaways, Ultimate Spider-Man, and I Kill Giants are already ahead of the curve in sporting a manga-ish style to the art and a more teenage drama approach that is so very common in manga titles while still drawing from the supernatural aspects that the western industries are known for, in the process attracting a different audience than your standard super hero comic.

The Other Quote

Going back to Moebius, like I said above, while his words do sound rather negative in the way he expressed them his point of Japanese comics displacing European comics is an accurate assessment. I don't think he holds any ill will against manga, as he stated in another interview his admiration for legendary Japanese creator Naoki Urasawa (Eric reviewed the first volume of Urasawa's Pluto and 20th Century Boys recently), among others.

Moebius: First of all, Urasawa is without a doubt one of Japan’s elite manga creators whom I absolutely love. [...] He is right there with the greats like Otomo [creator of Akira] and Jiro Taniguchi. I really like his light, flowing style of art. There is a comfort, and conscious simplicity in his pictures, don’t you think? [...] The feelings like flight and floating are superb, and there is elegance. It’s great.

So there you have it! Moebius may not like what manga is doing to European comics, but he can still be objective enough to recognize and give his proper dues to other talented creators.

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