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After seeing RedSparrow's thread, I feel like I should make one myself. biggrin

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Many of you probably have heard of the Rising Stars of Manga contest hosted and published by Tokyopop. After reading a few of those, you'll probably wonder what makes those entries, written and drawn by non-Japanese artists, "manga."

Yes, there is a difference between Japanese-styled manga and comics. However, what is this difference?

After all, some of us probably would disagree that "Van Von Hunter," "Peach Fuzz," and/or "Dramacon" aren't manga. Despite what you think, they are manga.

So. What makes manga, a manga?

It is NOT
- Storyline
- Artwork
- The way it's read (Right-To-Left)
- SFX
- Characters
- Action (possibly)

It's the flow.

Here is a random page from Volume 5 of Fruits Basket.
I have provided a red line to show the "flow" of these two pages. These pages are read right to left, by the way.

Notice how easy it is to read from word bubble to word bubble, and on top of that, while your eyes transition from the dialogue, you pick up pictures on the way. See the squiggly "S" shape? That S-flow is what helps make you read this faster, thus, speeding the pace. When the author of Fruits Basket wants the reader to stay in a certain panel longer, she adds more word bubbles, to make sure you slow down.


To even further my point, here are two pages from Volume 3 of Hellsing. (Read Right-to-Left)
The art is far different from Fruits Basket, but it still feels like "manga." The panels in Hellsing are more rectangular, unlike Fruits Basket which gives it a more "free" feeling, a distinct trait of shoujo manga. Still, Hellsing has that familiar "S-shaped" flow. Notice how in the second page, third panel, even though this manga is read right-to-left, the way your eyes drift gives an illusion that his eyes are being viewed left-to-right, to give flow.

Naturally, if you're dealing with a manga that reads left-to-right, it should be in a familiar backwards-S shape.
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When you make your own manga, remember that the flow is what keeps readers in. You could have the best storyline with the best character designs in the world, but if your paneling is clunky and messy, readers will give up before the end of the first chapter.

Comments? Questions? Think you know manga better? FIRE AWAY!

Interesting characters are important, but they aren't what distinguishes manga from american style comics, which was the question. Kupocake is right, if you're paneling is bad then you're gonna turn off a lot of people when they read it. There are plenty of succesful manga where the characters and artwork are a little lacking, its the way the story unfolds on the page that makes them succesfful.

Great tutorial Kupocake ^_^ I read something like this that you made before and I still use it today

Indeed, and thanks for the compliment!

Yes, it is true. paneling and flow do count. becuase when I'm making my manga's i concentrate on the flow instead of the characters so much.

It's probably best to do manga in stages. Plan out your pages on scratch paper or in your sketch book well before you actually start pencilling in things. then focus on the artwork because you'll know where everything will end up. If you put all your attention into one aspect, you'll end up with a weak manga. you have to give good attention to every piece.

Well you already have most of the story line and characters so you should be good. The next thing to do would be to decide what happens in each chapter and how long you'll have to make the chapter in order to fit it in.

Thanks Katriana! heart

Sometimes my head hurts when I create manga pages xD I have to remember that the flow has to be equally even in all of my pages x3