At BlazedEnt, artist Takeshi Miyazawa (Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane) talks about moving from Canada to Japan, and the differences between the U.S. and Japanese comics industries:
BE: How are editorial standards/rules different in the US and Japan? How have you changed your style / storytelling? I always thought your art had enough of a manga-esque sensibility to it that you didn’t need to change it up for Japanese readers
TM: From what I’ve seen, they are much more hands-on in terms of story direction and artwork here in Japan. They prefer that creators live in Tokyo in order to have face-to-face meetings once in a while to discuss plot points as well as directly picking up pages from you as you complete them. It’s a big change compared to working via e-mail and FedEx back home.
As for the actual drawing, I’ve never had complaints about how I draw but, rather, the rendering, like showing motion and using bigger and wider panels. I’ve been told to think in terms of spreads instead of individual pages numerous times and it was a real eye opener to hear that. I’ve also learned that fine-tuning art to your audience is a must. You can’t just draw thinking everyone will like it. There are certain visuals every age groups requires to keep them flipping through your story.
More at the link.
