Comic Books vs. Manga, Which Do You Prefer?

Many readers following my blog should have no problem understanding why I chose to talk about this topic. I draw pretty pictures with my hands and type up stories with my mind. Of course, it is my job as an author to create those same images I can draw through the words I type into my novels. This task would be a lot different if I was a comic book author or a mangaka. (Mangaka is the Japanese word for a manga artist. Outside Japan manga usually refers to a Japanese comic book and mangaka refers to the author of the manga, who is usually Japanese.)

While comic book history is something I never looked into. I know comic books have been very popular among us Americans. The images of super heroes fighting away the bad guys often pop into our minds when we think of comic books. I thought I would hate reading American comics since I was so used to manga by this point, but I had to try it out. I mean, I didn’t buy a whole series of books about Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, or Spider-Man. No I bought one comic book just to test it out. To make matters even more shameful, I bought the comic on my Kindle rather than holding the book in my hands. I did enjoy Batman: Dark Victory, but I’m more of a manga fan.

There are a lot of manga genres available just as there are a ton of genres in paperback novels. When I compare comic books and manga, I would say manga is my favorite. I haven’t dipped into the comic book style as much as I have the Japanese style. (In fact, once upon a time I wrote and drew up a manga tale for my husband. I don’t know where the images are for the story so I can’t share it with my readers.) I fell in love with manga in my high school years. My favorite style of manga to read is known as shoujo manga. This genre is aimed more towards teen women. I’m no longer a teen, but the stories are always so cute I can’t help but remain addicted. In this picture are a few of the manga novels I own in paperback form. There are a lot more I want, but it takes a bit of time for the different books to be translated into English. (I own the full collection of High School Debut by Kazune Kawahara. My favorite manga is Skip Beat! and I am working to collect all of the 3-in-1 novels in the on-going story called Skip Beat! by Yoshiki Nakamura.) There are a lot more I want to add to my collection because I love this style of writing.

Manga and comic books are usually a quick read and allow readers to fall back to a childish state of mind. I think they are great and only another form of writing I imagine many readers don’t think about as often as they do long chapter books. They’re great and I will continue to read them and draw their images as long as I can.

What about you? Would you call yourself more of a comic book lover or a manga fan? Maybe you don’t like this style of reading at all. Let me know what you think!

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