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Hmm, a bit late, but I was at a really good Manga exhibition in Tennispalatsi this weekend. My favourite exhibit was this room, with cheap contemporary manga books dangling from the ceiling. It was quite surreal to wade in, find an interesting cover, and start browsing the works.
There was a display of "Finnish Manga" - which was misleading. It was manga by talented (and frequently very young) Finnish artists, but it had no discernable local flavour - indeed the accompanying spiel explained how even if the story was set in Helsinki, it would look like it was set in Japan.
Isn't it a little sad that you can't differentiate between US, Japanese and Finnish manga on visual inspection? I've seen some underground Finnish comics, and they're excellent - the characters were very Finnish, in looks and body language.
So while I appreciated and enjoyed the display, I'm no clearer on what "manga" is, or why it isn't comic-book art, except that "you know it when you see it" - since it all looks the same.
posted by delta at 4:39 p.m.
3 Comments:
Ah, that explains the photos then! Looks interesting :)
Annie
I would LOVE to see some underground comix from Finland. I have an book I bought as a teen in the 70's--a History of Underground Comix--I must scan some of it-- it was my favorite reading for many years.
Hmm, I'd love to dig some up and scan them for you, but they used to live in a cool bar close to where I live (The infamous "Sauna bar" - there are bookable saunas...), but it's closed for refurbishment. I'll have a look around, there's a comic-book store close to where I live also, could make a good lazy-weekend adventure.
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