Mangamania

I am at the wrong end of Japan. By my calculations, it is about 1,200 kilometers from Hirado to Tokyo. A long, long way to walk. As an artistically trained, unemployed cultural influencer, I cannot afford travel or accommodation, let alone silence the growling in my stomach. I am at risk of having to rely on the kindness of strangers, and riding that particular streetcar does not feel very appealing. I must devise a way to earn some pocket money if I ever hope to reach the capital.

The fellow I met in a restaurant yesterday promised me a place to stay for the night at his apartment. While he sleeps off his hangover on the hallway floor, I climbed up to the attic. It’s  cozy and warm in here, and there are also piles and piles of some kind of comic books. My host seems to be a manic collector. I haven’t read many comics, but a true writer knows it is always worth reading everything possible. Perhaps I’ll learn something. 

I’ll take a look at one random issue that I picked up from the shelf. It appears to be a first edition, and still in its original packaging. Strange that the fellow has left the plastic on the book. He probably just forgot it by mistake. I shall do him a favor and tear the plastic off all these first editions on the shelf – there! And there! And there! And now, let’s read. Hmm…
 

I can’t make head or tail of these! They start at the end and end at the beginning!

Serious printing errors have clearly wreaked havoc on the comics this fellow collects. I shall do him another favor and toss all these prehistoric first editions from the shelf into the trash. Sayonara!

This other shelf seems to have more recent issues. I’ll skip the plot analysis this time and familiarize myself with the drawing style and visual storytelling. Hmm, I see… The characters seem to communicate by shouting at each other, they are needlessly dramatic, constantly finding themselves in implausible situations… a world entirely foreign to me.

A strange cultural phenomenon, but judging by the large piles of magazines, this could well be a lucrative business. And wherever text is turned into business, O.G. Ghostwriter is needed. I could, at least as an experiment, draft a few comic stories and send them to local publishers.

Pity I cannot draw.

Just for fun, I’ll try sketching my very own comic character in this peculiar Japanese style. There is plenty of paper and pens here. So, first I draw the character. A large round head, big saucer-like eyes, long dark fluttering lashes, a rosebud mouth, hair in spectacular curls, and as a finishing touch, a bow… quite good for a male character, if I do say so myself… but could I realistically cash in on these crude drawings?

This is frustrating, for I am not an illustrator. I am a scriptwriter! If I were to make my comics entirely by myself, I would have to generate the images with AI, and no sensible person would read stories illustrated with AI images even for free! I need a partner from somewhere, one with drawing skills. But where does one find such people?

Well, time to move on. First, I shall act as a good houseguest should. I’ll clean up after myself, meaning I’ll have to get rid of those ancient collector comics that I tossed in the trash… so I’ll burn them in the fireplace. Out with the old, in with the new. I won't wake my slumbering host; I’ll just leave quietly and unnoticed through the front door. It got so late last night that the fellow will likely sleep well into the afternoon, and I’d rather not be present when he wakes up to the worst headache of his life.

 

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