The Doombin – Gender in readership
Joe Lawler recently posted Can women learn to enjoy comics? on his bog, which is about ways to get female readers interested in comics (mainstream US comics that is). It struck what must be a tired nerve with a number of female comics bloggers this week. Kate Dacey of the Manga Critic, Johanna Draper Carlson of Comics Worth Reading, and Heidi MacDonald of the Beat, had understandable reactions to Lawler’s post. It does bring up a very interesting gender issue in readership in both comics and manga. I’m a typical guy that grew up on traditional American style comics, so I can sort of see where Lawler was coming from. It is that club house mentality which can often get us men in trouble. I think Johanna had the best comment in all this saying that people should recommend things based on the individual’s interests and not their gender. It certainly does not help that the majority of western comics are geared towards males, which can make it challenging to recommend things to new readers let alone new female readers.
The reason all this caught my interest is because I’m so late as a new reader to manga that it has lead to me experiencing something of a gender reversal of this issue. I started with Naoki Urawasa’s work since it is becoming quite popular with traditional US comics fans. When Ed Brubaker, in a recent Word Balloon interview, mentioned Lady Snowblood being the inspiration for the Lady Bullseye character in Daredevil, I picked up that series and enjoyed it. After that I was hooked and wanted to read more manga. I started out with the few things I already knew of like Akira, but after that I became completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of manga titles out there and did not know where to turn next.
I started looking at the various manga blogs and websites for recommendations. The majority of which were written by women. Understandably the recommendations leaned towards female interests which left me frustrated in trying to find titles that suited my interests. I suddenly understood what it is like for women new to comics having men recommend things to them. It quickly becomes confusing and overwhelming. As I have been learning more about the history of manga it is not hard to see why so many women are interested in manga. It was in the early 70s when the manga industry saw a large influx of female creators that created female friendly manga on top of the female friendly titles by male creators already out then. That long history along with manga’s diverse genres makes it more likely that females of any age will find something they are interested in. It is quite the dramatic contrast to the history of American comics.
I’m still overwhelmed with the choices in manga and at this point it is just force of will that is keeping me reading. It is easy to just assume manga is all like Naruto or Dragon Ball Z, but those are just titles geared towards young boys (the most popular genre). The challenge is sifting through all the genres to find titles that apeal to a person like me who grew up on the kind of comics you find in a typical US comic book store. I’m sure someone new to American comics has similar problems. I think it is safe to say that recommending manga or comics to new readers is not quite as simple as it might seem.
Well this went much longer then I intended. I was going to post some things not related to the gender talk but I will save them for next time.
[…] don’t know who writes for doomkopf.com, but whoever he is, he had an interesting response to my Thought of the Day post and others who commented on the “getting your female […]
I can help you with this one. The reason you like both Lady Snowblood and Akira is that they’re part of the manga classification known as seinen manga (“men’s comics”). These are comics made for men in their late teens/twenties and up, the same demographic that happens to be what most of Marvel/DC is aimed at.
There is certainly a sea of manga available in the US. But unlike the 1990s, very little manga released in the US is seinen. There are a mere two publishers that release seinen manga on any regular basis. One is Dark Horse Comics, who releases Lady Snowblood, Lone Wolf and Cub, and the various other Kazuo Koike works (for more on THAT guy, go to my site!). The other is the titles released by Viz under their “Signature” label, such as Monster, Pluto, 20th Century Boys (all three of those are by the same author, Naoki Urasawa), Golgo 13, and so on.
Thanks for the help Daryl. That makes good sense that the manga I’ve enjoyed the most so far fall under seinen. I will certainly keep that in mind when looking for more manga to read.
Hey there! I work at The Beguiling, a comic store in Toronto, Canada. We do great business on all kinds of comics, manga included. If you came into my store and described the type of books you liked to read (based on what I’ve gleaned from your website here), here’s what I’d recommend to you. I also noted whether they read in the North American or Japanese orientation:
20th Century Boys, by Naoki Urasawa. 22 volumes, 5 of them out now, $13 each: A sprawling, epic sci-fi/conspiracy type-series with great characterization aimed a life-long comics fans. You’ll be able to tell from the first volume whether or not it’s for you, but it really is great. (Reads right-to-left). Viz.
Vagabond, by Takehiko Inoue (VIZBIG Edition). 8-9 volumes, 5 of them out now, $20 each: Now available in massive 600 page editions, this is the story of Miyamoto Musashi, samurai and author of The Book Of The Five Rings. Smart, reasonably-literate historical fiction with amazing art, violence, and sex. (reads right-to-left). Viz.
Tekkon Kinkreet, by Taiyo Matsumoto. 1 volume, $30, out now: This is pretty-much my favourite manga, a hybrid of Japanese and European art-styles, about two boys with near-superheroic abilities defending their town from outsiders. The art will seem weird at first, probably, but the storytelling (panel-to-panel transitions) is among the best in the medium, and the plot is dense and layered. (reads left-to-right). Viz.
MW, by Osamu Tezuka. 1 Volume, $30ish, out now: Over the top 70s exploitation cinema in manga form, so many oh-my-god, laugh out loud, cringing moments. A vicious killer and reluctant priest take revenge on the world for America’s treatment of Japan after WWII, literally dozens of plot twists. (left-to-right). Vertical Inc.
Enjoy!
– Christopher
Thanks for the recommendations. I’ve been reading some of Tezuka’s work like Buddha and Black Jack and have enjoyed that. I’ll be sure and check out MW as well as Tekkon Kinkreet.
I know this is kind of late but if you’re still interested in manga you may want to try Monster, Parasyte, or Mushi. All of them are more mature, both art wise and story wise, than the usual shojo title. They seem to be marketed to a broader (more male) and older readership.