Ask John: Why Do Manga Artists Work on One Title at a Time?

Question:
I’ve noticed that American comics like Spiderman and Superman have many artists and at times deadlines aren’t meet and the art can suck cause of a certain artist. Also a lot of American comic book artists have to draw for several different comics. Why don’t Japanese mangaka have things like several different artist at one time making their own comic like American comic books, and why do a lot of Japanese comic book artist only work on their one comic and not many others?

Answer:
The difference in output between the Japanese and American comic book artists is based in the fundamental differences between the Japanese and American comic book industries. Major American superheroes including Superman and Spiderman are not owned by their creator or by a single artist. These characters are franchise trademarks owned by their publishers, DC and Marvel Comics. In Japan, manga artists own their own creations, although their control is limited by the demands of publishers and licensors. The Japanese manga industry in some ways, can be compared to the American independent comics industry on a much larger scale.

Unlike the American comic book industry that uses 32 page monthly comics as its standard release format, the Japanese comic industry is based on a standard of 16-50 pages released as frequently as every week. While American comic book artists have a month to produce roughly 20-30 pages of comic art, manga-ka are required to produce at least the same amount of art every week, every two weeks or every month. And while American comics are often created by a small team of artists including a writer, penciler, inker and letterer, manga are often created entirely by a single artist, although many successful and prolific manga artists do hire assistants to add shading or fill in backgrounds or minor art touch-ups. In effect, with weekly deadlines, most manga artists simply don’t have the time to work on more than one project at once.

Because most manga are essentially a “one man show,” manga have their own stories and continuities that are usually exclusive to themselves or the author’s own work. Unlike American superhero comics that share a single “universe,” the mutual exclusivity of manga precludes the possibility of “cross-overs.” Seeing Vash the Stampede partnered with Gene Starwind or Spike Spiegel would be incongruous, unnatural and totally contrary to the established premises of both characters. Furthermore, the tight work schedules and relative locations of the respective artists would also make “cross-overs” impractical. While American comic book artists commonly all work in a single studio, all within shouting distance of each other, the vast majority of manga artists work at home on their own idiosyncratic schedules. Because of the practical difficulties of manga sharing characters and stories, the closest thing to “cross-overs” that fans are ever likely to see are brief parody cameos artists add to their works occasionally for fun, fan produced doujinshi that are free to use any characters and situations the fan artists can think of, and Shonen Sunday Magazine anime television commercials which often include characters from Inuyasha, Detective Conan, Tenshi na Konamaiki, and many other Shonen Jump serials all interacting in the same 15 second anime clip.