Fourcast! 11: Welcome to the Mainstream
August 10th, 2009 by david brothers | Tags: DC comics, Marvel comics, podcasts, wednesday comicsThis one’s easy. We talk about the ways comics, both superhero and otherwise, are slipping into the mainstream and then talk a bit about Wednesday Comics’s not-quite-halfway point. Quick and easy, right? As usual, 6th Sense’s 4a.m. Instrumental is our music.
Longer explanations next week, because I’m wiped. Grab our podcast-specific RSS feed or subscribe on iTunes. Get the full-blown RSS feed here, or join the Facebook group.
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Esther was right, Batman did the manga thing again fairly recently, in Batman: Death Mask. It was fairly good, if largely unremarkable. Also, there are two X-Men manga books; one starring Kitty Pryde aimed at girls, and one starring Wolverine aimed at boys.
(As a side note, the only time I’ve seen this happen in reverse is Adam Warren working on Dirty Pair comics. Hmmm.)
I’m a fanboy sucker for basically any form of crossover, and comics-meets-manga takes that to a whole new level with entirely different languages & cultures coming into play. I could spend all afternoon coming up with combinations like Gail Simone on Cutey Honey or Go Nagai’s Fourth World.
Kia Asamiya also did a few issues of Uncanny X-Men with Chuck Austen back around 2004 I suppose. Marvel made a pretty big deal about it in solicits and advertising, from what I remember.
@John McAree: Yeah, he did that werewolf story where Angel ended up with healing blood and I think started dating Paige?
I’ve mentioned this before but I’d really like to see Western comic book creators adapt classic manga characters. The main problem with this idea, I think, is the outrage and fan entitlement that many manga fans will express. This is only a problem because I think if these hypothetical adaptions are done through a major publisher someone will try to placate the more hysterical fans when they should probably just be ignored.
Also I agree with what David said about continuity being as MUCH of a barrier as people act like it is. When I was starting to read superhero comics, there were a lot of things I had no idea about, but I moved on and accepted that it would be explained or maybe it just wasn’t that important. Perhaps the fan and creator community have given the whole “continuity existing at all is the greatest barrier” idea power by constantly harping on about it? I don’t know.