Manga Outside Japan - Manga Influences

Manga Influences

Manga has proved so popular that it has led to other companies such as Antarctic Press, Oni Press, Seven Seas Entertainment and TOKYOPOP, as well as long-established publishers like Marvel and Archie Comics, to release their own manga-inspired works that apply the same artist stylings and story pacing commonly seen in Japanese manga. One of the first of these such works came in 1985 when Ben Dunn, founder of Antarctic Press, released Mangazine and Ninja High School.

While Antarctic Press actively refers to its works as "American Manga", it does not source all of these manga-inspired works from the United States. Many of the artists working on Seven Seas Entertainment series such as Last Hope and Amazing Agent Luna are Filipino and TOKYOPOP has hired a variety of Korean and Japanese artists to work on titles such as Warcraft and Princess Ai. Many of these works have been classified on the Internet with titles such as OEL Manga, MIC, and World Manga, although none of these terms have actually been used by manga companies to describe these works on the books themselves.

In Germany, as manga began outselling domestic comics in 2000, German publishers began supporting German creators of manga-styled comics. Jürgen Seebeck's Bloody Circus was not popular amongst German manga readers due to its European style, and other early German manga artists were affected by cancellations. After this, German publishers began focussing on female creators, due to the popularity of shōjo manga, leading to what Paul Malone describes as a "home-grown shōjo boom", and "more female German comics artists in print than ever before". However, to seem genuinely manga-influenced, stylistic conventions such as sweatdrops are employed to ensure "authenticity", original German works are flipped to read in a right-to-left style familiar to manga readers, author's afterwords and sidebars are common, and many German manga take place in Asia.

The Arabic language manga "Canary 1001" is by a group calling themselves Amateam, whose director is Wahid Jodar, from the United Arab Emirates. Another Arab language manga is Gold Ring, by Qais Sedeki, from 2009, also from the United Arab Emirates. Both groups of artists use the word "manga" for their work.

In May 2010, Glenat Spain introduced their new line of works known as Linea Gaijin which showcases the works of several Spanish and Latin American comic book artists. This is an effort on the part of Glenat to bring fresh new content and breed a new generation of manga-insipired artists that grew up reading manga. The line began with titles such as Bakemono, Dos Espadas, and Lettera that were shown on the Salón del Manga de Barcelona in October 2010, but it would later introduce other works as well.

Many Western webcomics are influenced to varying degrees by manga. Some, like Megatokyo, follow traditional manga artwork and plotlines closely. Others, like Sinfest or Girly, incorporate Western techniques and do not follow traditional Japanese manga story elements.