On his website, author and journalist Paul Gravett (Manga: 60 Years of Japanese Comics) posts an interview with Brazil’s Diário do Nordeste in which he discusses the popularity of manga, and the influence of manga on Western comics:
Could you talk about the changes we can observe in Western comics after the manga “invasion”?
Superficially you see a so-called ‘manga style’ being adopted by Western comic artists – big eyes, big hair, speed lines, dynamic panel layouts – but these are often just surface imitations of a very narrow type of manga, mostly the action and SF manga and their equivalents in Japanese animated cartoons or anime.
What are the main consequences of this invasion?
The real impact of manga on Western comics runs much deeper. Ideally, it makes artists and writers think about their stories and storytelling techniques in new ways and makes them question and maybe reject the clichés and conventions of the medium to date. Manga show that all kinds of drawing and subjects are possible in comics and encourages longer, more complex and subtle narratives. The global impact of manga will be as massive as the global impact in the early 20th century of American newspaper stirps and then comic books.
Related: Gravett also posts “Mangaphobia: Manga for People Who Hate Manga”
