International influences
International influences |
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Page 15 of 17  Page from An Author in Search of Six Characters (Catalan, 1989). Art/script: Milo Manara. An erotic twist on Pirandello, set in Africa. From the 1960s to the present day, the comics industry has built on these foundations, and quickly expanded to cover all sections of the population. This history has been well covered elsewhere, but we can summarize by saying that those readers who had been introduced to manga as children continued to consume different kinds of manga as they grew up. Thus the kind of stigma attached to comics in many Western nations was circumvented. Science fiction continued to be very popular, but was joined by an incredible diversity of other adult genres: from splatter horror to mah-jong; surreal comedy to wok cookery; and martial arts to art appreciation. You could now learn to fix your car, study for accountancy exams, scrutinize political manifestos, and even improve your sex life from the pages of a manga. Economically speaking, this growth had profound repercussions. By the start of the modern period, the Japanese economy was coming out of recession, and a manga-purchasing culture rapidly took over from the old pay-library system. Suddenly, big money was being made, and manga creators started to be taken seriously as celebrities. By the 1970s, they constituted many of the richest people in the country, with fan followings comparable to the hippest pop stars. Sales, it seemed, could not stop rising: by the mid-1990s it was estimated that between thirty and forty per cent of all Japanese publishing was devoted to manga, with sales in the region of a staggering two billion per year.  Fires (Penguin, 1991). Art/script: Lorenzo Mattotti. A fully painted expressionistic fantasy about a seaman's encounter with fire spirits. Mattotti's jagged shapes in vivid reds have become a trademark. |