You know, American companies have proven they can have variety in genre and content without resorting to cravenly adopting an Anime style in order to suckle at that particular tit. It's one thing to provide one-off statues in an Anime style of classic heroes, and another to pander to fans in such a way that the stories, the comics, involved will look horribly dated in a few years. Kind of like the X-MEN in the 90s.

The American companies are cutting out the general reading public in order to push their way into what's hot right now, focusing on a narrow populace of post-college Anime dorks instead of strengthening the once-unique individual styles of many different artists from all over the world that will lead to new directions in comics perhaps not yet seen. See, finding the next Steve Ditko may yield characters and comics never seen before, as was the case when the first Ditko came around.

Instead they're all hacking their way along to make some short-term money, and insure stagnant dependency on a fad. And no, Manga and Anime are not a fad. American comics characters being reproduced in those styles is a fad. Like the 90s Marvel.

GHOST IN THE SHELL update:

Got to page 90 this evening and I'm done.  I just can't get into this comic or make much sense of it.  I don't think I've ever not been able to finish a comic once I started it.  I may try to read it again but I think it's going to be a long time and I'll have to read lots of ESSENTIALS and SHOWCASE PRESENTS volumes in the meantime to clear my pallet.

I still plan to give BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL a try...

*Heads up for any San Francisco bay area manga fans*

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The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is having an exhibit, Tezuka: The Marvel of Manga !!!

The first Tuesday of each month is free admission, so I'm taking my son next week. We haven't done a whole lot of museum trips and this is as good as any to start.

I went to the web site for the museum and my jaw dropped. As well as Tezuka, the museum is featuring  Yoshitoshi's Strange Tales:
Woodblock Prints from Edo to Meiji Yoshitoshi was the master printmaker. I'm very anxious to see this stuff in person!

Here's an excellent sampling of his work though I don't know if any of these prints will be featured.

Oh, they may be the slightest bit 'disturbing' so don't navigate the link if you're one of those folks.  Gotta watch out for those Japanese influences! I'd suggest avoiding anything by William Hogarth as well.

:rolls eyes:

http://www.lunerouge.org/spip/article_print.php3?id_article= 195

Btw, if you think manga's disturbing, perhaps a heaping dose of William Hogarth can

I made it to the Asian Art Museum to see the Tezuka exhibit. Always great to see original art right in front of you. But the highlight of the tour of the museum for me was the Yoshitoshi exhibit. Lots more prints than I was expecting and all were amazing.

Following the Asian Art Museum, my son and I went to the Cartoon Art Museum. A small place, but the highlight for me was seeing a Roy Crane strip and this wall of Chester Gould Dick Tracy, Will Eisner Spirit and Lil' Abner by Al Capp!!!