Comic Book Movies

The plural of manga is manga.

As you say they have "sometimes" been serialized in Jump (and other anthologies), but you're mistaken in thinking that means there aren't manga that are published as "strips" or other formats. Yoshinori Kobayashi's manga were first published in a news weekly and Miki Tori's 9-panel gag strips were from the Japanese equivalent to TV Guide. Miyazaki's Nausicaa was serialized in an Anime magazine, and he's also done manga for newspapers and the standalone "graphic novel" manga Shuna's Journey. There are also educational pamphlet manga and manga that are released in some irregular format or published on a very limited basis (look up King Terry).

Many major artists of the first post-war decade started as kamishibai-men (sort of half-way between chinese shadow puppet-theater and comics), or creating works for the Osaka-based "red-book" publishers that catered to commercial rental libraries (Kashibonya) before going on to publish in the Tokyo-based anthology publications that came to prominence in the 60s and thereafter. Shigeru Mizuki and Sampei Shirato are two of the more famous ones whose careers encompassed all three formats. I'm sure there are other formats that I don't know about.

I think we agree on a lot of things, such as an interest in being aware of the historical and cultural contexts of manga vs. western comics. But that doesn't invalidate formal definitions. By your logic Pickwick Papers isn't a novel because it was originally published chapter-by-chapter.

I don't think most people would argue that they're both sci fi, though. More to the point, I don't think anyone, no matter how pedantic, would argue that Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Star Wars IV: A New Hope aren't both movies.

Moreover, the biggest manga convention in Japan is named Comiket, which suggests that the two terms are fairly synonymous for Japanese fans (not to mention Japanese lay readers, which are far more numerous than in America).

I don't think anyone would argue that there are many traits which set manga apart from other comics, but the aesthetic and even professional boundaries can be very porous. Jiro Taniguchi has worked in the French industry (Icaro). Paul Pope worked for Kodansha as part of a professional exchange program well before manga had any sort of notable fandom in the US (by today's standards). Gary Panter's long running strip Dal Tokyo has been published exclusively in Riddim, a Japanese reggae magazine. These aren't the norm, and most of these aren't read by your typical manga fan or western comics fan, but to me that's just part of the argument for why fans don't have primacy when it comes to defining these terms historically or aesthetically.

Don't forget web-comics. And at least the Fantagraphics Peanuts collections are more "bedside table" or "bookshelf" books than "coffee table." The Popeye collections are both strips and something close to a graphic novel, since they form a continuous narrative.

"Graphic Novel" is just good marketing catering to middle brow snobs. Graphic Novels are sold in chain book stores to classy folk and kids, comic books in dingy nerd-caves to mouth-breathing losers (which is also where manga used to be sold when I started reading them in the mid-90s, by the way!)

My own definition of comics is very broad and informal: I include picture books (Dr. Seuss, In the Night Kitchen), one panel gag strips with or without words (Far Side), non-narrative strips that include a sequence as well as non-sequenced art that includes narrative. By my definition manga is Japanese comics so all manga are comics but not all comics are manga. Admittedly this definition is not air tight and leads to questions, such as how to define novels with a few illustrations (Alice in Wonderland, various works by Dickens, Woman in the Dunes). I don't necessarily have a problem with drawing a line, but given how interconnected a lot of work is aesthetically I don't see much use in being super strict about it. No definition for these things is going to be air tight.

You know that's alot to say to agree...
In terms of comparing that watchmen was not a comic book, I believe MG was comparing that manga and comics by comparison... Thus in term qualifies watchmen to be a true comic book film... Yes to sum it up they essentially all started up as the same thing... But much like when people say rap, hip-hop, and gangsta rap are all the same... Truth they all started with the same building blocks, but yet defined themselves with it's own unique style...
So to sum up short...
To argue it's all different is moot; they started under the same basis
To argue it's the same is also moot; fans have adopted they're interest in them by style...

And for the record... The manga/comic war isn't a which is real as your comparison of star trek/star wars... The manga/comic war is a dispute of content... (also who cares if there is an "s" on manga, most people can not pronounce it properly)...

And for the record The Watchmen is an awesome comic book movie...
(back to the topic, let's not hijack threads please)....

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Of course manga are comic books. They are formatted differently than western styled comics , but they are graphic stories told through sequential art and that is comics.

And it is an art form primarily developed in the United States.

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wow... i was gone for three days and there's so much to read. how y'all doin?

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yes..lets get back to comic book films...my bad for getting distracted from the topic...

i feel a little sway for spiderman series...i watched the cartoon growing up, and i am wating to see what will be the new movie, spiderman 4..or another instalment of venom..??

my kids love spiderman 2...rain drops keep fallin on my head....i kinda hate that song now..they dont know all the words to it so its just a mash-up of spiderman, spiderman does whatever a spiderman does...

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I am just a touch bit sad that Watchmen is not included in this poll.

question is, will there ever be a movie that can portray half the depth of these comic book characters. let's face it. comic books had decades of headstart. you said it, we grew up reading these. movies are given two hours at a time. they will never get there.

i think it is us who need to level off our expectations. we need to treat movies for what it is in terms of comic books. it's almost like it is nothing more than a glimpse of a moment in time in the lives of these characters.

i think that is why nolan did so well with batman and dark knight. those two movies are in now way the whole of batman but it provided us a glimpse of the character and it's an interesting moment that we saw.

Sin City did a heckuva job delivering what you are talking about chipper.

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"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." - Michelangelo.

agree... so did watchmen and, as mentioned, Dark Knight.

Sin City managed the feat without being boring, thats the lesson of the day.

sorry it took me a few days to get back to you..i was thinking about it...i think hulk did a good job, we got a little story before the movie and a little bit of after story.

we can see the anguish banner goes through, and his love..but the movie isnt like 3 hours long.

it had all the things that helped make the movie understandable.

i heard HBO is doing Sandman. Let's see how they'll do

I love all superhero movies, my favorites are

-The Dark Knight
-Batman Begins
-Batman (1989)
-Batman Returns
-X-Men
-X2: X-Men United
-Iron Man
-Thor

Just saw Superman Returns recently, and while it's nowhere near as good as the originals, it's still a pretty good film. Just saying.

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If X-Men First Class is as good as everyone is saying (better than X2) then we might have to make room right at the top, no offense to the Iron Man, Spider-Man or Dark Knight fans.