Comic or Manga?

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Have you been hearing a lot of the term “manga” lately and wonder what is manga and how is it different from comics? To answer the latter it would be similar to asking what is the difference between fruits and apples. Manga is a type of comic, just as superhero comics like Spiderman and newspaper comics like Peanuts are all comics.

Manga is the Japanese word for comics. When comic buffs outside of Japan first used the word manga they were referring specifically to Japanese comics i.e.: Comics produced in Japan for the Japanese market. These days manga also refers to comics made outside of Japan that are closely based on the art style and typical subject matter of Japanese comics.
I first started my foray into comics with the likes of Marvel and DC superhero comic books. When American comic publishes started bringing in translated manga such as Akira and Appleseed I found myself gravitating towards these comics from the Far-East and neglected to collect my monthly issues of The Uncanny X-men.

What got me sold on manga was its wide range of subject matter, from serious dramas to senseless but hilarious gags, and most of all its aesthetic artwork: I’ve bought quite a few original manga from Japan just to look at the art even though I couldn’t read Japanese.

Having been an avid fan for almost two decades, not just of manga but comics overall, I recently decided to make comics of my own. It was only natural for me to emulate the art and storytelling style of manga. The use of black and white with gray tones compared to full colored pages makes it more manageable as a single person creator and suits my non-superhero stories.

Tokyopop, a major American manga publisher, recently announced that they’d be calling their line of manga made outside of Japan as Global Manga. That got me thinking, should I label my comics as manga or keep calling them comics as I have since I started making them? Or maybe I should call them manga-stylized comics? Or English-language manga? Or Mangalized Comics?

Obviously in the end I couldn’t decide. So I’ll just stick to calling them comics as they are. I guess what matters most is that my comics are able to tell my stories in the best possible way to anyone who is interested to listen.

By the way, in Japan, do they refer to a Superman comic as "manga" or "ko-mi-ku"?

To learn more about the origins and history of manga, have a read at wikipedia.Manga
To read the comics that I’ve made so far please visit my website, Mangada