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Radio Comix, the small-press publisher from Texas, has a fascinating
range of manga, inspired, creator-owned titles on the American comics market.
Now, the company is increasing its manga output. After starting with American
titles dropped by Antarctic Press, Elin Winkler (left) and Pat Duke are
adding Japanese titles, such as Mechanical Man Blues by artist Tsukasa
Kotobuki, the character designer for Saber Marionette J and Battle Arena
Toshinden. Other Japanese titles could follow, along with more manga art
for Radio Comix' anthology titles. |
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Why? Winkler said a growing number of Japanese artists want their work
published in the U.S. "They can go and tell their friends and show off
their books in English - it's like an American book being published in
Japan," she said. Some manga artists still worry about the impact on their
work of "flipping" - mirroring the pages from right to left to reflect
the different reading direction of Japanese and English. |
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Duke said more Japanese artists are becoming accustomed to the changes
their art needs for translation. "A lot of time you use brute force and
you have to redraw the whole panel and recreate the background," he said.
Another difficulty: Japanese characters - and word balloons - are printed
vertically, while English text is printed horizontally. Then there's the
question of handling adult titles, where certain...uh, important lines
in the drawings are left out to satisfy Japanese censors. American editors
usually have to draw those lines back in, but Duke noted they'll often
get uncensored originals from Japan. |
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