I’m probably coming in a little late in the game here, but it seems to me that a lot of the more heated posts in this thread are attempting to talk about the same subject without some sort of common terminology. Basically, the original poster works in the comics industry, and is therefore an authority of sorts with regards to that medium, while several other posters are probably familiar with comics in a passing sort of way, encountering them in their most ubiquitous forms: superhero comics, newspaper comic strips, or the film and animation adaptations of both. In other words, these posts are stuck in a sort of linguistic quagmire in which both sides are using different connotations of the same word.
Its important to understand, first and foremost, that “comics” denotes a medium, not a genre. The same way in which media like film can comprise many different genres (drama, adventure, romantic comedy, etc.) “comics” simply denotes - and I’m stealing equally from Will Eisner and Scott McCloud for this - an art form that utilizes sequential art, most often in conjunction with text, to convey a story. Comics, therefore, are not inherently frivolous, virtuous, titillating, boring, moral, or immoral - they are another way in which people can convey information through narrative.
“Manga,” then, is a style of comics that also transcends genre. Just like most people are familiar with western comics through Superman, Batman, and other Superhero comics, most westerners are familiar with the Japanese manga style through the increasingly ubiquitous action manga that appears in Barnes and Noble and in animated form on Saturday Morning Television. There are a wide variety of subjects and styles within manga, it it would be imprudent to judge the whole category based on a few examples.
Morality becomes an issue more of production and perception, then, than an issue of whether or not comics or manga are inherently moral; they can be no more or less inherently moral than any other media can be considered moral. It would be an extreme position to brand all works within a medium somehow deficient, saying for instance that “all motion pictures are frivolous or titillating.” Many motion pictures are in fact both frivolous and titilating, but there are many that are neither, and some that can contain great moral truths. As to whether or not comics are a more effective medium than others to convey these truths, that is a whole other debate.
There are many good, morally sound comics out there, and even some that are overtly Catholic; in fact, from 1946 to 1963 there was a comic called Catholic Comics that was an instructive comic geared towards children. Along those same lines, Marvel Comics in the late seventies and early eighties ran three single-issue comics about the lives of St. Francis, Mother Theresa, and His Holiness John Paul II (these are pretty amusing, especially since the style they are drawn in is standard Draw-Comics-the-Marvel-Way, so that when St. Francis receives the gifts of the stigmata it looks like a crucifix is shooting lasers at him). In the category of manga, I found a manga in a Heathrow Airport bookstore about the life of Mother Theresa that is both morally sound and stylistically very Japanese, right-to-left pagination and all. Religious subjects continue to be rendered in the comics medium, as another life of John Paul II was published in 2005, complete with an introduction by Jose Cardinal Martins. (If anyone out there has someone ages 7 - whenever this would make a great Christmas Gift - for teens I would recommend “Marked,” Steve Ross’s visually arresting take on the Gospel according to Saint Mark, which uses a stark black-and-white underground comics style to both tell the gospel and decry consumer culture at the same time.)
To the original poster, I would say good luck with your ventures into the industry - it can be remarkably cutthroat, and often in the name of revenues you will be asked to include subject matter that you might find distasteful. As long as you feel you haven’t compromised your own values or the values of your readers, you’ve done okay; remember that good storytelling and an original, distinctive style will sell more books than pandering to the adolescent masses will. If you’ve got a website, throw the url into a post on here because I’d love to see your work, and the best of luck to you.
Sorry for the insanely long post, but thanks for your time.
God Bless!**
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