Hey, so this post is a bit of a bummer. Maybe read Part 1 first, where I talk about a bunch of cool comics you should read?
For the better part of a decade, I’ve been trying to figure out why I quietly loathe most American comics. I’ve gone through a variety of theories, ranging from reasonable to something an incel might hear and go, “Hey buddy, maybe tone that one down a bit.” I’m gonna lay them out here, and discuss why I’ve discarded each one over the years, including the most recent theory.
Things I thought in high school
Theory #1 – Japan is just better at comics.
Yes, this was a thing I actually believed at one point. Look, I was probably 14. I don’t think this anymore mostly because, despite how I sound about this sort of stuff, I’m not a weeb. Nationalism doesn’t really explain it.
Theory #2 – The disconnect between artist and writer results in garbage.
Another high school theory, but one I still reflect on a fair amount. The comic that made me discard this was Death Note. After all, if Japan could turn out something like that via a writer/artist collab, clearly the problem didn’t arise from artists and writers having separate visions.
Theory #3 – Endless reboots, weird numbering, and other stuff make it effectively impossible to actually READ a comic.
It’s at this point I started looking inward, trying to figure out if perhaps the problem wasn’t with the comics themselves, but with my consumption of them. These days if I want to read something, I know where to find it, but prior to me really understanding the internet, if I wanted to read comics, I had to actually go find them.
Like, physically in the world.
So, my theory was that it was hard for me to ever finish a run of an American comic, given how meandering they were, as opposed to something straightforward an easy to read like One Piece, where each numbered chapter just went into the next, and that this was the cause of my dislike.
Unlike the other theories above, I think this one actually WAS true, at least at some point. But it’s not true for me as an adult.
Theory #4 – While both Japanese manga artists and American comic book creators work in an industry that demands too much work for too little pay, the differing ownership models is a motivating factor in quality.
So I moved onto just blaming capitalism. It would be nice if this was the real problem… but here’s the thing: I still don’t think it is, mostly because the shit that manga artists put themselves through is not the sort of stuff you do if you “just want the money.” You gotta start by having some sort of passion for art if you’re gonna work 12 hour days for 6 days a week year in, year out, and even then, you can just fail.
Things I’ve thought as an adult
Theory #5 – I am an immature child, and cannot appreciate comics made for adults.
Again, another attempt at turning inwards. “Perhaps,” I thought, “as someone raised primarily on Shonen Jump, I simply lack the maturity to read stories that aren’t intended for 14 year old boys.” Perhaps I’m just not cool enough for shit like Rick & Morty, or Game of Thrones.
Anyway, I spent part of this weekend reading all of Something Is Killing the Children, and y’know what? Nah. Fuck you. It is not my fault that I don’t like your slaughterhouse bullshit where we have kids and their families getting butchered by shadow monsters.
Also, I think some of it is also that we have enough awful shit in the real world like Epstein and the protestors killed by ICE that I simply don’t have the tolerance to be pulled by the heartstrings about this fictional shit. We have real organizations that should care more about children than they actually do, and allow evil things to harm them. They’re called the Florida prosecutor’s office.
And lest you think I sample unfairly: this is the shit that’s winning the Eisner for best writer.
So no, I don’t think it’s my lack of maturity that’s preventing me from appreciating your fine writing. I think it’s the fact that I’m tired of watching kids being shredded like tissue paper in service of a narrative that doesn’t seem to do very much.
Theory #6 – Anything I read from Japan is good enough for someone to want to translate/localize it, while the same is not true of American comics.
This is one I came up with earlier this year, and I was convinced that I had finally figured it out. See, any Japanese manga I read had to be popular enough to be localized, or good enough that some fan group decided to translate it.
This, then, meant that when I read manga, I am only ever reading the cream of the crop: the finest cultural exports of soft power sampled and sifted before being passed across to me. Whereas for any given American comic I picked up, I was sifting through a pile of detritus that could just as equally be someone’s magnum opus as it could be their way of paying rent that month.
And then I read a bunch of popular modern American comics like Absolute Batman, and DC KO, and there just wasn’t a single one I didn’t look at and find myself annoyed by.
Theory #7 – Format differences mean that American comic book artists and writers are working with far fewer pages than Japanese manga creators, and as a result end up creating an accelerated (and poorer) product.
This is the closest I have to a working theory, though realistically, it’s probably a combo of a few of the above. Something like Absolute Batman is working with 24 pages a month. One Piece (okay not all the time) gets 16 pages a week, meaning they get more than double the physical space to work with (admittedly on shorter deadlines).
Surely, then, this is the reason that stuff like Jujutsu Kaisen can spend 64 pages (4 WHOLE CHAPTERS!) on a side showdown between a literal joke character and the secondary villain, whereas DC KO can’t even spend a full 10 pages on having Superman fight Darkseid.
One Other Quick Rant
There’s a trope in American superhero comics that I saw crop up multiple times in my binge-read over the weekend that makes the comics all feel incredibly hollow these days. I’m going to devote a small portion of this write-up to shit talking it:
The Truth Will Save the Day!
In short, the idea that if you can just show everyone a video of the Bad Guys doing The Bad Thing, you have won. And just.
No.
No it fucking won’t. It probably hasn’t had the ability to do this since 2016. Maybe earlier.
It’s not just comic books that do this. Disclosure Day by Spielberg also has a similar ending, and The Expanse does a bunch of times as well.
It rings hollow in our age of misinformation, and I find it harder to suspend disbelief for this trope than to suspend disbelief for the latex skin-suits and tighty whities.
This narrative needs to die.
In Conclusion
A lot of popular American comics kinda suck ass. There is no magic bullet to save the world. You should read Guts County, Hilda the 13th, Nothing Doing, and Wrestleheist.
I’m going to go jump in some freezing water, and then play Mina the Hollower.
