Notes From The Front
May 15, 2008 by The Fortress Keeper
We heard an interesting conversation between two high school students today at Borders. Here’s how it went, more or less …
- Teen 1: Glances through latest volume of Fruits Basket
- Teen 2 : “It takes me a lot longer to read manga than American comics.”
- Teen 1: “Why?”
- Teen 2: “I think it’s because the words are so much more meaningful. I even read all those little notes they put in the stories.”
- Teen 1: “Yeah. I do that too.”
Well … whaddya think of that Messrs. Bendis & Morrison?
I used to read all the little notes they put in the stories in American comics, too…
Both camps can be downright embarassing, when they want to be.
Granted, I don’t read a lot of manga, but this is funny, because I have always felt exactly the opposite about manga–you almost don’t even have to read the words, not only because there are so few of them, but because the acting is typically so over-the-top that you can simply scan the page and get the idea. I think the toughest thing about manga is trying to figure out how the panels should be ordered.