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In The New Yorker, Roz Chast discovers manga

November 28th, 2006
Author Kevin Melrose

from Roz Chast's New Yorker cartoon

In addition to having four variant covers and a comic strip by Chris Ware, the most recent issue of The New Yorker contains a two-page cartoon by Roz Chast about her first encounter with manga. John Jakala has scans of the cartoon, which he describes as “borderline xenophobic.”

 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 28th, 2006 at 9:17 am and is filed under Comic Books, Manga, Pop Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

6 Responses to “In The New Yorker, Roz Chast discovers manga”
  1. rob Says:
    November 28th, 2006 at 10:22 am

    I really don’t think the comic is xenophobic. Really, I think manga and anime fans simply have no idea just how weird most manga is, especially to someone who has never experienced the stuff and had its idiosyncrasies explained.

    Sure, we (manga literate comic geeks) know that “thing” is a sweat drop, but since no one actually perspires in single, huge drops, confusion is understandable.

  2. Jeff Lester Says:
    November 28th, 2006 at 12:29 pm

    Because I never would have discovered the unlikely miracle that is Sgt. Frog without John Jakala, my automatic response is to defer to his wisdom. But I think he’s right to suspect his dislike for Chast’s work in coloring his reaction.

    Acknowledging something’s otherness isn’t borderline xenophobic, I think: passing judgment on its otherness is. Chast is quite good at making it seem like the narrator’s failure to “get” manga is as much her fault as the work.

    And, finally, at the end, although the narrator claims to be unchanged (”nothing a good old grilled cheese and diet coke wouldn’t cure”), the image shows her literally changed by manga–big-eyed, with the translated sound of thinking surrounding her.

    I’m glad he put the strip up there for everyone to judge, though. I think I’d have missed it, otherwise.

  3. gorjus Says:
    November 28th, 2006 at 8:37 pm

    I thought it was hilarious! I was surprised when I saw it in the New Yorker–not because it was Roz Chast (they heart her), but because I liked it. Jeff nails the idea of acknowledging otherness–a lot of manga is impenetrable to me, and to . . . Roz Chast? Certainly.

    But it was awesome–kind of like a comics reporter sent out to see what the kids were digging. A great strip, and funny.

  4. John Jakala Says:
    November 28th, 2006 at 10:59 pm

    Jeff -

    I can see your take on Chast’s piece, but my initial reading was quite different. I read the ending as the narrator eager to wash away the unsettling influence of an alien culture by immersing herself in safe, familiar comforts. Combined with the “Oh, well” panel, the strip gave off a hostile (or at least dismissive) vibe to me. (The line “Even if I DID know Japanese, these books would still be incomprehensible” did strike me as passing judgment on the otherness of manga, but perhaps Chast assumed it would be understood as “incomprehensible to me.”)

    However, re-reading the comic today, it seems more inane than anything.

    And I’m happy to hear that I steered you in the direction of Sgt. Frog, but I don’t know if recognizing the comedic genius of that series confers upon me any special sort of wisdom. After all, pretty much everyone I know who has tried Sgt. Frog loves it. I can only think of one individual who was blind to its charms.

  5. Anun Says:
    November 29th, 2006 at 12:08 am

    I love and adore Roz Chast. And for that matter, I like manga well enough to defend its validity to Americans, but this strip seems a pretty accurate depiction of a middle-aged person’s first encounter with a completely alien form of comics. I think sometimes manga fans really do forget that it’s not easy for everyone to get into manga, no matter what. Some people just don’t get it.

    Heck, my own grandma can’t even deal with Western comics, because she has trouble dealing with the spatial relationships of words and pictures. It happens, and it’s silly to pretend otherwise.

  6. Jeff Says:
    November 29th, 2006 at 7:39 pm

    John:

    Yeah, I have no idea what’s wrong with Graeme–that book is so up his alley I can’t believe he still doesn’t know it.

    Maybe I can convince him by means of continual pestering the next time I see him, and offer to lend him the first ten volumes….

    We’ll get him hooked yet.

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