I'm a conflicted man

I'm a conflicted man.

I really enjoy the beat-by-beat pace of manga action, the way it makes you really feel each blow being struck, the way it takes the entire scene into consideration, being extra careful with character positioning and movement from one frame to the next, almost cinema like.

At the same time, I also much prefer western comic book writing pace, characterization and narrative style, with its focused plots and structured story arcs with definite beginning middle and end.

I dislike disjointed manga writing, cheesy and distracting dialogue and over-expository mid-action monologues and exchanges, and story arcs that feel like they're going nowhere and are being written literally as they're being drawn.

I also dislike simplistic comic book action, in which an entire fight is over in a single panel, in which character positioning and their surroundings is completely ignored from one panel to the next and the fights feel more like a bunch of "cool action poses" in sequence as opposed to an actual dynamically flowing exchange of blows.

I know, there are exceptions to everything I've said, but they're really hard to find, so that's why I came here for help; I just can't find many things that fit my nit-picky autistic taste, but maybe I'm just not looking in the right places.

I've actually always wanted to write a comic book like this; take what manga and western comics BOTH do correctly and use it to tell a western superhero story.

As for you OP, something to tide you off might be Frank Miller's earlier work, especially on Daredevil and his Wolverine miniseries; Miller used to read a lot of 80's manga (especially Lone Wolf and Cub), and it gave him this strong grasp of showing motion and movement using still images.

David Aja's work on Hawkeye and Immortal Iron Fist also are good for that. Aja in general kinda reminds me of Miller in how he draws action scenes.

Another problem you might be having OP is that if you are reading only modern books you a basically reading cape books in their absolute lowest point in their history, with the Big Two limping along with 50+ year old writers who haven't adapted to modern storytelling at all.

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>David Aja's work on Hawkeye and Immortal Iron Fist also are good for that

Will check that out.

Miller is indeed very good, one of the exceptions I was talking about. I absolutely love his work in Ronin and Daredevil. Born Again and Year One are some of my all time faves, Miller and Mazzucchelli is a match made in sequential art heaven.

I know what you mean, it's like the opposite of what goes on in Japan. Mangakas are usually too young and their influences usually boil down to "manga and anime form the previous decade" so as time progresses the original source for all that inspiration is lost in time, and the writing gets more and more derivative and diluted.

Alan Davis is probably one of the best if you want awesome comic book action sequences.

I think it would help comic book artists a lot if writers used story boards to guide the flow of the action. I know some manga creative teams does this like in One Punch Man.

>Born Again and Year One are some of my all time faves, Miller and Mazzucchelli is a match made in sequential art heaven.

Damn right.

>the writing gets more and more derivative and diluted
This is one of the reasons why I'm always highly skeptical of the shonen age group stuff.
The only one I've liked in decades is that FMA stuff because it's plot is actually pretty dense and it's compartmentalization of information between characters actually keeps the dramatic tension up.

I guess that's what happens when the mangaka is a girl who worked and lived in a dairy farm instead of yet another guy manga fan who lived in Tokyo.

Davis is awesome.
Also, his chicks are hot.

>I'm a conflicted man.
How? Just read the things you enjoy.

I doubt there's any work that has everything. I figure that's why genre work is so common in the first place really, no creator has mastered every aspect of their craft so they focus on what they're good at.

Michel Fiffe's COPRA.

The writing is inspired by the 1987-1992 John Ostrander run of Suicide Squad, but the artwork is mixture of Frank Miller and Steve Ditko rendered non-traditionally in colored pencils.

>The only one I've liked in decades is that FMA stuff

Are you me? That's some next level sametaste here.

>Just read the things you enjoy.

Well, I do. This is a rec thread for works that blend two different approaches to the same result; I'm not really looking for a work that has everything.

Wow, this looks VERY nice, surprised I've never seen it mentioned before.

>who worked and lived in a dairy farm instead
Huh. That explains Silver Spoon. Like, a lot.

>Are you me? That's some next level sametaste here.
I'm guessing these are not as rare complaints as you think.
Yup.
It also explains all the countryside stuff and her preference for giant beefy men and curvy big-boobed women.

That would be the reason Armstrong is shirtless usually BTW; she likes huge jacked muscular farm guys.

OP's post is 100% correct. Manga has better visual storytelling, but comics at their best have better writing.

just read both

I'll check it out

op just reminded that my favorite gundam pilot maybe died when I was reading today.


fuck you op.

who?

yuji alkana

go read those Luther Strode comics they're quite beat-by-beat-ish

>with its focused plots and structured story arcs with definite beginning middle and end.
>I dislike disjointed manga writing, [...] and story arcs that feel like they're going nowhere and are being written literally as they're being drawn.

There are also arcs in manga but it's not the 4-6 chapters arc standard from US comics. Sometimes, it lasts 2-3 volumes, sometimes 12-15 volumes.

To take a popular example:
Naruto 1st arc: vol 1-beginning vol 4
2nd: vol 4-middle vol 16
3rd: middle vol 16-end vol 19
...

And it's the same whether it's big adventure/action manga like Naruto, a romance like Nana, a music manga like Beck or a noir like Monster.

Authors know the story they want to tell and its milestones. They don't think of everythings in advance but there's a plan.

Of course, you've got case like Dragon Ball or Bleach where the manga is so popular that the editor pushes the author to write beyond the end he had in mind.