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Welcome to The Manga Critic!

3 April 2009 18 Comments

I have a confession to make: I’m a recent convert to comics.

Though I was a voracious reader as a kid, I seldom looked at comics; my primary exposure came from watching Saturday morning cartoons (hello, Superfriends) and prime-time adaptations of Wonder Woman and The Incredible Hulk. I didn’t discover the joys of CLAMP and Kazuo Koike until I was an adult, when I embraced manga as pure escapism from my graduate studies—an antidote to hours of analyzing chord progressions and reading Beethoven biographies. The more I read, however, the more I viewed manga as an expressive art form capable of engaging my imagination more fully than television or movies.

Despite my “manga is art!” epiphany, I felt profoundly uncomfortable buying manga in person. On those few occasions when I did saunter into Barnes and Noble to pick up a copy of Tokyo Babylon or Mermaid Saga, I compulsively added something “serious” to my shopping basket as well: the complete Eudora Welty, Bleak House, Bakhtin’s greatest hits. In my rational mind, I knew that Japanese adults read manga without suffering social stigma, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to buy two issues of Model and nothing else. It felt a little unseemly, given my age—not unlike going to the supermarket checkout with a cart full of Doritos and Ding Dongs. Hasn’t a grown woman heard of vegetables (or Salman Rushdie, for that matter)?

After conquering my initial phobia of buying manga in public, I engaged in a different form of overcompensation, buying only manly samurai manga and cyberpunk sci-fi for fear of seeming… well, I don’t know. Wimpy? Girly? Wanna-be? Conspicuous? (Of course, that strategy could backfire, too. When I couldn’t find Blood Sucker: Legend of Zipangu on the shelves of Midtown Comics, a staff member helpfully went on the PA system and announced, “There’s a lady here looking for Blood Sucker. Do we have any Blood Suckers left?”). The day I plucked up the courage to purchase volumes of both Lone Wolf and Cub and Crimson Hero was a milestone in my manga shopping.

However much I feared looking ridiculous in public, I had a strong urge to share my growing passion with other people. The anonymity of the web was a powerful lure, and so I started blogging at Tokyopop (another somewhat unseemly experience, given the gap in age between me and many of the folks who haunted the site… but that’s a subject for another blog entry). When I was recruited to write for PopCultureShock, I faced a tough decision: should I use my own name? I debated the pros and cons before Jon Haehnle, the webmaster, made the decision for me: no pseudonym.

I think that was the moment when I actually started to think of myself as a critic — or at the very least, a reviewer. My new mindset changed my relationship with manga, as “criticism” gave my once-unseemly hobby a a fig leaf of respectability. The discipline of evaluating a book’s strengths and weaknesses, of drafting and editing, of mastering manga terminology — these were skills I’d cultivated as an academic, and skills that helped me to build a bridge between my scholarly interests and pop culture passions.

I’ve outgrown the need to intellectualize my interest in manga, but I still feel a compulsion to review titles, and that’s where The Manga Critic comes in. From 2006 to 2008, I reviewed manga for PopCultureShock. That was a terrific place to hone my craft, develop contacts, and learn what kind of manga I like. (Not to mention what kind of manga I dislike. Innocent W, I’ve got your number…) After two years, however, I wanted a place of my own, a site where I could examine favorite series in depth, sing the praises of various artists and genres, revisit old reviews, and get all meta from time to time — it’s that academic training asserting itself, I’m afraid.

I hope you’ll take a few minutes to explore my new home, share your thoughts, and give me feedback on what you see here, whether it’s a comment on the site’s organization or a rebuttal to one of my first reviews. Polite, intelligent dissent is always welcome.

Cheers!

Kate

18 Comments »

  • dee said:

    Grendel!!!!! :D :D :D

    # 28 April 2009 at 10:51 AM
  • David Welsh said:

    Aw, man, no fair! My dogs won’t let me post pictures of them on the web.

    # 28 April 2009 at 6:10 PM
  • dsch1972 (author) said:

    Well, I explained to Grendel that it was for a good cause, and that she’d be promoting one of her favorite series, so she relented.

    # 28 April 2009 at 6:40 PM
  • John Jakala said:

    This reminds me that I’ve got to start posting more pictures of my kids reading manga again.

    # 28 April 2009 at 10:26 PM
  • Update your blogrolls « Precocious Curmudgeon said:

    [...] if you aren’t familiar with her already, go meet Kate, then check out her “What to Read Now” roundtable. Oh, and she tweets, too! Comments [...]

    # 29 April 2009 at 5:37 AM
  • MangaBlog » Blog Archive » Kate blogs, CPM tanks, kids love comics said:

    [...] Update your RSS feed now so you don’t miss a word! She kicks it off with an account of her own experiences as a reader and reviewer as well as a roundtable of what other reviewers are reading, and a look at vol. 1 of Samurai 7. [...]

    # 29 April 2009 at 7:22 AM
  • danielle leigh said:

    Great job on the site, really looking forward to reading your reviews and manga commentary!

    # 29 April 2009 at 7:59 AM
  • Connie said:

    Congratulations on your new site! I can sympathize with your phobias about buying manga in public. I don’t have so much trouble buying manga in comic shops anymore (except for the occasional BL), but I still feel embarrassed about buying it in bookstores, and I’ve been doing that for ten years.

    # 29 April 2009 at 11:51 AM
  • Brigid said:

    The site looks great, Kate! Congratulations on getting your own place! I’m looking forward to reading your reviews and commentary.

    # 29 April 2009 at 12:03 PM
  • Yani Mentzas said:

    Wow!

    Great-looking site. Neat post, too.

    Congratulations.

    # 29 April 2009 at 12:20 PM
  • Alex W. said:

    What a great introduction, Kate! Your “There’s a lady here looking for Blood Sucker!” cracked me up.

    And yeah, I can see how taking the role as a critic gives you that “fig leaf” of respectability. No matter how raunchy the book I review, somehow being the “critic” gives me the feeling of plausible deniability (like “Oh, no, I’m not some porn hound — it’s my job!”) I find it also helps if your pretend your written voice speaks with a British accent…

    It’s great that you’ve started this blog and I very much look forward to coming back again and again. :-)

    # 29 April 2009 at 12:36 PM
  • Ken H. said:

    I used to have a slight phobia to buying manga from bookstores but it was heavily dependent on just what the manga in question was.

    Anyway.. Congratulations on the uber slick looking site! Great to see you back and writing again, definitely looking forward to more!

    # 29 April 2009 at 2:49 PM
  • dsch1972 (author) said:

    Thanks for the good wishes, guys!

    @Connie and Ken H: Yes, finding great local comic book stores makes a big difference in your purchasing habits, doesn’t it? I was finally able to ditch the Groucho glasses once I found a few places I felt comfortable shopping. I’ve actually had a few well-meaning clerks “warn” me about books with R-rated content. Maybe I look corruptible?

    @Alex: Totally agree about the “critic” label… it makes it much easier to deal with all kinds of material, racy or not. It certainly made me feel better about attaching my name to some C- and D-list books that were filled with panty shots and extreme mammary close-ups. I’d say more, but I’m afraid of the traffic it will bring to the site… ;)

    # 29 April 2009 at 6:19 PM
  • Isaac Hale said:

    Good to see your new site Kate! This is very exciting! Keep up the excellent work =).

    # 30 April 2009 at 5:47 AM
  • Melinda Beasi said:

    Is it horrible that I have clicked here mainly to tell you how much I am taken by your dog? :D

    # 30 April 2009 at 9:53 PM
  • dsch1972 (author) said:

    @Isaac: Nice to hear from you! I still need to click over to the Off*Beat petition, but I promise to do that soon… and maybe it needs some love here or Good Comics for Kids, too.

    @Melinda: Did you read the first comments in the thread?! Everybody likes pictures of animals! When I started reading your blog, I checked out your pet photo gallery right away. They’re a very photogenic lot (and as one reader pointed out, a color-coordinated one at that).

    # 1 May 2009 at 7:36 AM
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    # 18 July 2009 at 2:54 PM
  • The Manga Critic » Blog Archive » The Manga Critic Turns One! said:

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    # 29 April 2010 at 12:30 PM