I just keep watching the Manga section of my local Borders grow and grow and grow.

There's not a lot of Manga I enjoy, but the small amount I admire is amazing. Obviously quite a different reading experience than American comics:

2001 Nights - an epic tale about space exploration. Told in a surprisingly curt THREE volumes!

Blade of the Immortal - nothing can compare to the artwork and elegance of this series.

Nausicaa of the Valley Wind - Epic with a touch of Star Wars and Dune influences.

Any of the 'underground' Japanese comics collection.

Lots of Tezuka's non-Astro Boy volumes. Love how the reading just flows off the page.

That's a common misconception, Michael. To clarify; there's no "manga look".  There is an anime look:

But "manga", just like American comic books, encompasses a wide variety of artistic styles.  You'd never lump all American comics books together and say you don't like their "look" when you've got such different artists working in the medium as Kirby, Ditko, and Liefeld (not to put Liefeld in league with Kirby and Ditko, but just to illustrate different styles...you wouldn't look at a Liefeld and say you dislike all American comic books because of his art!):

The Manga look is probably a Western misconception, since we "believe" that Asians have eyes like this `´when in fact they are just like ours, _ _ . If you find a picture of an Asian with `´ it's not an Asian drawn by an Asian.

About Manga, comics, althogh some Anime cartoons are good, many Mangas (comics) don't possess much quality. To find a Frank Miller or Stan Lee or JB Manga is impossible, I mean to their standards, I dare to say does not exist. To find some well written drama at all, for example as we are used to with JB's comics, his latest Doom Patrol, just to use it as an example, that drama, story, plot points, and such are not present in a Manga if you compare it with let's say No Need For Tenchi (my collected run). If you put them side by side and compare, the Manga is not even close.

I hope I get my point across.

Some of the big influential names for science fiction related manga are:

Shotaro Ishinomori (Giant Robo, Cashern, Cyborg Soldier 009, Kamen Rider, Skull Man, Humanoid Kikaider. This guy single handedly invented the main concepts of the sentai team, the teen cyborg(though technically 8th Man was the first cyborg hero), the android who wants to be human, many other manga.anime staples. He often imitated and embellished Osamu Tezuka's concepts and had a friendly rivalry with him.)

Keiko Takemiya (Toward the Terra...sort of a retelling of A.E. Van Voght's "Slan" as space opera for teen aged girls) 

Go Nagai (One of the more "savage" manga creators he kept his work blood thirsty, narcissitic, amoral, and raunchy to keep his teen audience interested in his work. He created Mazinger Z(first piloted robot), Devil Man (teen possessed by a demon fights the devil who turns out to be his best friend), Kekko Kamen(literally "nude mask"!...a naked super heroine fights the corrupt principal of a girl's school run by costumed perverts), Cutey Honey(R rated Wonder Woman knock off), Getter Robo(first transforming/combining robot) )

Osamu Tezuka (Dr. BlackJack, Kimba the White Lion, Bhudda, The Phoenix, Tetsujin 28, Metropolis...to name a few! Nearly everything he did was bizarre and brilliant. He invented the giant robot, the sci-fi medical mystery, and many other genres that Manga depends on today. He started out by imitating Disney and Fleischer brothers work.He pioneered the "big eyes small mouth" style that pervades most manga and anime.)

Yukinobu Hoshino (2001 Nights a "future history" style series of linked anthology stories detail mankind's expansion into space, Sabre Tiger time traveling aliens piss off a sbare toothed tiger and find that their ray guns aren't much help.)

Rumiko Takahashi (Urusei Yatsura(sort of Archie with mild sex and fart jokes and a lot of rotten people for characters), Maisson Ikokku(a comedy about a guy who flunks out of school, moves into a boarding house full of crazy people, and falls in love with his widowed  land lady), Ranma 1/2(an absurdist comedy about martial artists who turn into stuff because of cursed hotsprings. The lead character is a boy turns into a girl when cold water touches him) Innu Yasha. I dunno...it's very popular but I'm not familiar with it. Looks like a shool girl and a samurai with dog ears fighting evil to me...)

Goseki Kojima (Lone Wolf and Cub...a disgraced Samurai executioner loses his wife to treachery and travels across feudal Japan doing dark deeds while trying to take care of his infant son.)

Leiji Matsumoto (Captain Harlock(space pirate!), Galaxy Express 999(boy travels across the galaxy on a space train learning aout the human experience ) ...mostly Matsumoto's stuff is heroes and other archetypes making passionate speeches about human nature and life either in or on WWII influenced space ships or space trains. Pretty cool stuff. Harlock is a dead rip off of Tezuka's Dr. Blackjack character)

Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira..c'mon! It's Akira! I'm not all that wild about it myself to tell the truth...Otomo also does big budget anime feature films.)

Yoshihiso Tagami (Grey(a young human of Conan-liek temperament  who is all "dead on the inside" takes part in competitive wars for sport run by a super computer in a dark future where the lowest most pathetic thing you can be is a "person". ), Horobi(think C'thulhu meets Shintoism)

Yoshitaka Amano (Vampire Hunter D (the half human son of Dracula battles vampires and other monsters who oppress mankind in the far future post apocalyptic Earth). Shion the Minstrel (a swordsman wanders a fantasy world populated by demons and small villages of humans who fear them. Features hyper detailed art drawn to resemble a wood cut. )

Testsuyaba Chiba (Ashita no Joe. The tale of an orphen who becomes a  boxer who gets a shot at the champ that might cost him everything. not sci-fi but still HUGELY influential. )

Keep in mind that most of the manga in the US is stuff that the Japanese publishers think will sell here! There is a lot of it that we don't get and that is probably a very good thing because a lot of it would just shock the hell out of us.