A Conversation with Jason Thompson

By: Static Multimedia

Wednesday April 02, 2008

Author of Manga: The Complete Guide
What attracted you to manga?

The things that first attracted me to manga were the cultural differences between manga and American comics or animation. I'm not talking about Japanese settings, the fact that such-and-such clothing is a yukata and such-and-such musical instrument is a shamisen, or things like that. What interests me is the different themes and genres and attitudes, which hold true whether the setting is modern-day Japan or New York or some science-fiction planet. One of the great appeal of manga to Americans is that it's made in Japan for Japanese people; it isn't created for Americans, and it doesn't undergo the same kind of focus group testing and target marketing which makes our own pop culture, TV and movies so predictable to us. Of course, manga has its own standards and practices and cliches, but these, too can be fascinating from an outsiders perspective. And whatever culture you're from, the storytelling and artwork in manga is some of the best that comics have to offer

What major milestones or changes have you seen in the evolution of manga?

When I was first getting into manga, it was very much a cult thing. Now, there's a whole generation that has grown up watching anime on TV and playing Japanese video games, and to find manga, they don't have to go to a specialty shop that carries small press comics; instead, they can get it in any bookstore. There are still some areas and artists that have been neglected in translation (such as a lot of classic manga from the 1970s and earlier, and titles aimed for adult men and women), but I'm optimistic that these "gaps in the record" will get filled out as times goes on, often by more daring, smaller publishers. I think manga is big enough to be both a mainstream thing and a cult thing..and of course, the story of manga in America shows that the definition of "mainstream" can change.

What has changed about our culture or the manga industry that makes Manga: the Complete Guide essential?

For English speaker who read manga or who know someone who reads manga - parents, teachers, librarians - I wrote this book to explain the "(translated) manga state of the union 2007. Manga: The Complete Guide is an introduction to manga, but it's information you can use: a book for people standing in the manga section at the bookstore wondering what all those books are about.

At the most basic level, my hopes for this book are that people will read it and get excited about manga they could read, the way I used to read books like The Visual encyclopedia of Science Fiction when I was younger, or the way I still read Roger Ebert's video guides. It's a review guidebook; there is so much manga out there, I felt it was important to point out the great ones. Nowadays you hear a lot about the "comics lit" like Blankets and Maus and Persepolis, and I like them, too, but to a lot of people writing about comics as literature, manga is till "that stuff" - as if it were bad because it's popular. But manga isn't just "that stuff, it's the work of individual artists with a huge range of styles. There's a lot of excellent manga out there, and a lot of excellent artists and works which deserve to be singles out.

What recommendations do you have for people who want to start reading manga but don't have any experience with it?

There is so much manga out there it can be pretty overwhelming, but the best way to look at manga it that it's not a genre; it's a medium, like movies or TV. In America, comics tend to be stereotyped as one thing at a time, so just like people assumed that American comics were all about super heroes, now people assume that manga is all action stories for teenage boys and romance comics for teenage girls. And while there is that, it's only a small part of the big picture. there are sports stories, fantasy, science fiction, horror, business comics, josei manga for adult women, underground/experimental comics, gay and lesbian stories, newspaper style humor comics, funny animal comics...I would do a Google search for a topic you're interested in, together with the word "manga" and see what comes up. You'd be surprised. Manga: The Complete Guide has articles on these and many other genres, including listings of translated manga which fit those categories. the is partly for cultural context, discussing (for instance) the importance of psychic manga in Japan, but it's also for people who are fans of those subjects and might not realize that they're covered in manga.