You’ll probably be surprised to see this here, since it is generally more related to the things I post at Manga Bookshelf. The truth is, though, it’s a bit too ranty for a post there nowadays, and it’s waaaay too long for a tweet. :) So here we go.
I keep hearing people say that Twilight fans are only Twilight fans, and that there is no basis for the hope that Yen Press’ upcoming graphic novel adaptation might bring a new demographic of readers to comics. And all I can think is, wow, I guess none of these people were ever… girls.
Sure, there may be readers who only read Twilight and aren’t into books in general. But there are a whole lot who are. Teen girls read. Teen girls read a lot.
When I was a teen, I was a huge fan of S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders, and just at the right time, Francis Ford Coppola made his movie adaptation. I was totally into it. I bought every magazine and newspaper that featured a story about the movie. I had posters (lots of posters) of the actors on my bedroom wall. If the internet had been available at the time, I would have been all over that too. If I could have gotten into the same room with S.E. Hinton or C. Thomas Howell just by sitting in line for a few days at a convention in San Diego, I would have begged to be allowed to go.
You know what else I was doing at that time? Reading everything in sight. No, seriously. Everything. I ran through my junior high’s library like it was about to disappear into the core of the earth. My mother had to make a rule that I could only take out of the public library as many books as I could carry on my own. And it wasn’t just me. All my friends were reading (and reading and reading). That’s what we did. That’s what a lot of teen girls do. Just because I was crazy excited about The Outsiders, that didn’t mean I stopped reading other books. If anything, it gave me a whole new world to explore as I picked up Hinton’s other novels, realizing suddenly that, hell, I really liked stories about troubled pretty boys in gangs. And though I’d like to make grand claims about my improved taste as an adult, well… Banana Fish anyone? Wild Adapter? Let Dai?
However many “just Twilight” fans there might be out there, I feel certain there must be just as many who are simply Teen Girls Who Read. Are they still rabid over Twilight? Hell, yeah. But that doesn’t make all the rest suddenly disappear. So when they run out to pick up the Twilight graphic novel and figure out that they like it, why is it so unlikely they might look for more of the same, especially when there are shelves and shelves of comics (and yes, I’m looking at you, manga and manhwa) aimed precisely at them? I’m pretty sure if anyone had handed me a volume of Banana Fish when I was fourteen, I would have eaten it up with a spoon.
I don’t love Twilight. I do love comics. And my hope is very much alive.
I can attest to your reading frenzy and Outsiders obsession, though I honestly don’t remember limiting the number of library books you could take out, though it all makes sense. Your point is very valid here.
Hee, yeah, I think I’m the only one who remembers that, probably because I was the only one HURT. ;D
And to this day, I see how much it slowed you down. :)
I can feel “guilty” about other things I did.
Ha ha, I don’t think you need to feel guilty about anything. :)
I feel much like you do. There is such a huge potential for Yen Press to tap into an audience that craves new things to read. I find the Twilight bashers disturbing. Don’t you guys get it? Here is a group of devoted fans who are passionate about what they read. Nurture that enthusiasm, and introduce them to other titles. If you want your hobby to survive, don’t chase off a gazillion new readers just because they happen to be – gasp – girls!!
I still find it self-serving for one group of fandom to attack another. You’re all geeks – learn to deal with it and embrace it. You might even make a few new friends along the way.
Heh, I’ve noticed a couple of groups… fans of comics (both western comics fans and manga fans) who hate the Twilight fanbase & don’t want them to get into comics, and fans of comics who think the Twilight fans are so single-minded that there is simply no way they will.
I disagree with both.
You know…it MIGHT. But there’s still a stigma. A Twilight fan is going to get their Twilight fix, no matter what form it comes in. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they will return to the medium. I’m trying to think of a personal example here…. OK, I found one.
Let’s say, I’m a fan of Baz Luhrmann (which I am). Now, Baz created a production of La Boheme, an opera. I’m not a big fan of opera. I AM a fan of Baz Luhrmann. So I go to see his production (which I didn’t, but I did record a filmed version and watched that on TV). I enjoy it. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to rush out and go see a bunch of operas now.
You could argue that I’d have to actively go out and buy tickets and what-not, and in a bookstore, the Twilight manga is right next to all the other manga, where it can easily be grabbed. Well, I’m also a huge Tolkien fan, which is epic high fantasy. But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to start reading Dragon Lance books or something, even if they’re right there. But it does mean that I’ll read anything with Tolkien’s name on it, even re-written Norse epic poetry. I like Anne Rice (or did when I was younger; haven’t read her recently), but that doesn’t mean I’m going to pick up every other vampire book out there.
I liked the Labyrinth movie, and based on that bought the Labyrinth manga Tokyopop is putting out…and I’m continuing to buy them even though I honestly don’t care for them much, but I’m a fan of the film and I want them anyway.
I think it could bring some new readers in, but they’d be people who would have read them to begin with, and just needed a push in that direction. ANY title could do that, it doesn’t have to be Twilight, it just happens to this time. The X-Men and Wolverine Ameri-Manga could do the same for regular American comic fans. But I think there will be much more people who just want “anything Twilight,” and it won’t go further than that.
Basically, I think you saying that they’ll read the similar stories because they want to read, is about the same as saying they won’t read similar stories because they don’t want manga, just Twilight. Because both are correct. It’s just a matter of how many are in each camp.
There certainly doesn’t seem to have been a vast boom to female comic book readers since Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series began…other than they’re reading Anita Blake comics.
I’m certainly not trying to say that all the Twilight fans who read the GN will get into comics. I’m just saying I think lots of them will. I certainly would have. It took exactly the right thing to get me into comics, which I didn’t start reading until my late thirties. It took a single comic having something that I was looking for—something I never imagined I could get out of comics at all. I mean, seriously, despite the fact that I read everything, I had no idea at all. I had no idea that manga existed, let alone that it could be for me. The Gossip Girl comic has the same potential in some ways, though not the same sized audience. That’s what makes Twilight special. It reaches more readers than most other things ever will.
I’m not saying they’ll all get into comics. But I don’t get why everyone is smacking down the possibility when, frankly, I think the chances are better than decent. Hell, if something like this had come along when I was a teen, it wouldn’t have taken me so many years. Yet there are people spending hours of their precious time writing arguments about how it will never happen. What the hell?
Also, I’m really not seeing the stigma. Would other girls have looked at me funny if I was reading Superman at fourteen? Sure. Fruits Basket? Not so much.
I guess manga was acceptable where you lived? I’d get equally weird looks for reading either, I’m sure. A manga is a “comic.” Never mind that “manga” still remains this wholly foreign thing to a lot of people, “comics” are still considered to be things for children, and are definitely still considered a male thing as well.
They carry the same stigma as video games and anime.
Maybe at 14 it’s not such a big deal, but it will be at 15 and 16.
I can’t see a teenage girl trying to explain to her girlfriends why she is reading a comic book, and reading it backwards.
Heh, you do get that I was a teen in the early to mid 1980’s right? There was no manga in the US when I was a teen. I graduated from high school in 1987, the same year Viz released their very first titles (which I guarantee you were not on the radar where I grew up). So honestly, I have no way to answer your question other than conjecture. I *can* say, though, that when I was a teen, my friends and I were pretty deeply enamored with anything foreign or (to us) exotic, which is likely the way we would have viewed manga. I grew up in Michigan. We were easily impressed.
Despite the fact that manga is, in fact, comics, it honestly does not resemble in the slightest anything I thought of when I heard the word “comics” as a kid or a teen. “Comic books” were about Superman, Archie, or possibly Richie Rich. “Comics” were comic strips in the newspaper, like Peanuts or Bloom County (which I was obsessed with in high school—heh, my friends and I even recorded a song for that contest to be the first single from Billy and the Boingers, which we lost to Weird Al Yankovic—I always thought that seemed rigged).
Manga has something that the comics I knew about then never had, and that’s pretty, pretty boys romancing ordinary girls (not to mention the whole pretty boy gang thing I mentioned in my post). With all the cash I threw away on issues of Tiger Beat, Teen Beat, etc., man, if someone had handed me a book full of drawings with pretty, pretty boys that was actually a story as well, I think I would have flipped my lid.
There certainly doesn
Here’s where I’m really hoping that the manga/manhwa pubs have a plan. This is a great opportunity for reaching a slew of teen girls. Can they figure out how to do it?
There are several comic books that are great for females, and a couple are along the lines of the Anita Blake books.
The ones they should also love are titles like Buffy, Angel, the two Lords of Avalon mini-series (something like this, exactly), maybe even Witchblade.
That’s off the top of my head, with my limited knowledge.
But there are other great titles for female readers, though they aren’t exactly “Anita Blake” like. Titles like Wonder Woman, Birds of Prey, Devi (when Virgin was still making comics, which they were then), Sky Doll, Supergirl, Fables, Dead@17, Executive Assistant Iris, Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, Hack/Slash….
I think saying that there are more manga that are very much like Twilight is probably still accurate, since I can’t say that particular genre is exceptionally prolific in American comics (by that I mean smutty romances), but there are plenty of American comics that are good for female readers.
I never once said there weren’t. I said there weren’t comics like Anita Blake. I’m pretty sure none of the comics you mentioned are supernatural romance/erotica, so I’m sticking by that.
Also… who gives a shit if they just read the Twiight gn? Is the comics publishing industry so robust that it can do without a hit title? I’m just thinking of film, like I do. New Moon & The Young Victoria are playing at the same multiplex downtown right now, and though it would be great if teens would cross the aisle for a beautiful, accessible historical romance, they don’t have to for the industry to benefit. The tickets & popcorn they buy helped the theater balance what could easily be a loss on Victoria’s screen.
Yeah, I totally love that too. :) Not to mention that the $$ goes to one of my favorite publishers!
A door into anything is still a door. YenPress has provided a door that anyone can step through. If it gains manga new fans, than Yen’s gamble paid off. I say “Kudos” to them and anyone who trys to encourage reading no matter what the form.
I started reading comic books as a kid, then on to novels and now back to comics(manga.manhwa). I’ve come full circle. It has been and continues to be a fantastic journey.
All I want is for the “written word” in any form to have as many fans as possible. I don’t want to lose libraries, newspapers, or books. I say “come on down Twilight fans”, you might discovery more new worlds to love.
I can get behind that! :)
“I guess manga was acceptable where you lived? I
That’s a great point, Grant. Hell, at my school, all it would have taken was a couple of the popular girls to pick it up, and it’d suddenly be cool. :D
My hope was that they would run the comic in the magazine but its not and add to that from what i’ve heard the work (besides the character illustrations) wasnt done really well and I just dont want that to put off potential new readers.
I also think twilight fans are more compatible then gossip girl. In a perfect world, I’d like both to be in yen+ and even maybe supernatural
I know people are complaining about the lettering (even I think the word balloons look kind of weird) but the character designs are quite pretty & I think it would be foolish to underestimate the potential impact of that, especially for readers who might not have liked the way the movies were cast.
As for the question of serialization… I can see how running it in Yen+ could potentially draw readers into other series, but I also think they’re more likely to get into something they can buy more like a novel. So I’m not sure it’d be all that effective. Keeping in mind, of course, that Yen’s real reasons for not serializing may have more to do with licensing than anything else.
Heh—when I was a kid, my mom gave me the same “no more library books than you can carry” rule. I still managed to bring 97 books home one day, although it was more by relentlessly dragging several bags behind me than by carrying them.
Let’s hope Borders, etc., has the sense to set up a display of the Twilight manga flanked by similar titles such as “Vampire Knight,” “Millennium Snow,” “Rebirth,” and possibly “Black Bird” (whose male lead is a shapeshifting winged tengu rather than a vampire, but also comes with a pack of supernatural rivals and hangers-on who all take an occasionally unnerving—and, in some cases, would-be blood-drinking—interest in the relatively ordinary human heroine). Otherwise, a lot of the potential crossover readers may just assume that “Twilight” (and possibly “Gossip Girl”) are the only manga that might interest them amidst all the volumes of Cartoon Network tie-in best-sellers like “Naruto” and “Bleach.”
Besides things like bookstore placement, I think that Yen Plus would be smart to slip in a few pages of ads for their other shoujo-ish titles in the end of the Twilight book to try to entice new visitors to the world of comics to stick around for a while. However, I just flipped through a couple of Yen Press-published volumes I have, and none of them had ads in the back. I think they’re missing a great opportunity if they don’t decide to get in the habit, at least as far as Twilight is concerned. I don’t think anyone would blame them.