Understand my remarks in the context of your "deep storyline" crack, which betrays, to use your words, "willful ignorance." Of course any medium is limited in some ways, but depth of storytelling is not an inherent limit of comics.

[quote="Jomei"]>Revol
How is it rubbish? Coulda fooled me into thinking it was a top-notch seinen manga.[/quote]

Well, I'm currently watching the anime, and everything about it is incredibly cheesy. The characters are completely dumb, the dialogue seems to be written by a 5-year-old, and the plot for each episode is too much cliché/crap. If it wasn't for Onizuka's golden humour, I'd have dropped it by a while now.

Of course depth of storytelling is limited in comics. That's not to say that comics are completely incapable of deep storylines, but it is intrinsically inferior in that respect to, say, novels. In any case, if you were referring to that cursory and facetious statement I made, that's just silly. On the other hand, I'm fairly certain that none of the works you are discussing explore deep philosophical themes at the level of Nietzsche, Tolstoy, Rand, or Sartre.

[quote="sheerheartattack"]Of course depth of storytelling is limited in comics. That's not to say that comics are completely incapable of deep storylines, but it is [b]intrinsically inferior in that respect to, say, novels.[/b] In any case, if you were referring to that cursory and facetious statement I made, that's just silly. On the other hand, I'm fairly certain that none of the works you are discussing explore deep philosophical themes at the level of Nietzsche, Tolstoy, Rand, or Sartre.[/quote]

Highly suspect claim bolded. I don't know how you could possibly justify that unless you're operating under the assumption that images by nature cannot tell stories as well as written words. Depth of storytelling is limited in any medium, but relatively speaking, comics/manga/graphic novels are at least equally effective compared to other printed media. You know the saying about how much a picture is worth.

Are the specific works we're discussing right now (as in GTO etc.) as in-depth as NIETZSCHE about philosophy specifically? No. But are the stories often as well-crafted and deep as lol Rand? Yeah, believe it or not. GTO, as an example, doesn't focus on philosophy in the [i]cogito ergo sum[/i] sense, but it actually contains some fairly pointed social critique.

[quote="Jomei"][quote="sheerheartattack"]Of course depth of storytelling is limited in comics. That's not to say that comics are completely incapable of deep storylines, but it is [b]intrinsically inferior in that respect to, say, novels.[/b] In any case, if you were referring to that cursory and facetious statement I made, that's just silly. On the other hand, I'm fairly certain that none of the works you are discussing explore deep philosophical themes at the level of Nietzsche, Tolstoy, Rand, or Sartre.[/quote]

Highly suspect claim bolded. I don't know how you could possibly justify that unless you're operating under the assumption that images by nature cannot tell stories as well as written words. Depth of storytelling is limited in any medium, but relatively speaking, comics/manga/graphic novels are at least equally effective compared to other printed media. You know the saying about how much a picture is worth.

Are the specific works we're discussing right now (as in GTO etc.) as in-depth as NIETZSCHE about philosophy specifically? No. But are the stories often as well-crafted and deep as lol Rand? Yeah, believe it or not. GTO, as an example, doesn't focus on philosophy in the [i]cogito ergo sum[/i] sense, but it actually contains some fairly pointed social critique.[/quote]

Well, the question is, "Could Friedrich Nietzsche have just as effectively written [i]Thus Spoke Zarathustra[/i] as a comic?" If so, then comics are not limited in the depth of content they may convey. If not, then they are so limited. I think it's pretty obvious that it would be impossible, but if you think he could have created an equivalent work (given that he had equal talents in writing comics as he did writing novels) in comic book form, then that's all that can be said about that.

Haven't read that, so I can't say for sure. But an equivalent doesn't have to already exist for it to be feasibly possible, and I don't see why it couldn't be. If there isn't a manga/comic on-par with this novel you're talking about, an explanation as good as any other is the western prejudice against illustration as a narrative tool (I say western because in East Asia many written languages are based on pictures, so it's not hard to imagine how the supposed dichotomy between written language and picture would be less rigid).

Would Nietzsche have been as effective in that work had he used illustrations alongside text? Could he have used the same dialogue and some of the same narration while depicting aspects of the story through images? Might the interplay of several semiotic modes achieve an equally expressive materialization of his message? I think so, but I haven't read the work you referenced and can't necessarily point to a manga/comic parallel, so if we still disagree then I guess we're at an impasse.

[quote="sheerheartattack"]
Well, the question is, "Could Friedrich Nietzsche have just as effectively written [i]Thus Spoke Zarathustra[/i] as a comic?" If so, then comics are not limited in the depth of content they may convey. If not, then they are so limited. I think it's pretty obvious that it would be impossible, but if you think he could have created an equivalent work (given that he had equal talents in writing comics as he did writing novels) in comic book form, then that's all that can be said about that.[/quote]

This is not a valid point. This is like saying "WOULD PLEASE MR. LOSTMAN BE AS GOOD IF IT WERE A BOOK?". Comic books are a completely different form of expression. It's a MIX of words and pictures, not words on one side and pictures on the other. It is a stand alone form of art.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra book blew my mind when I read it, so did the comic book [i]Sandman[/i] (Neil Gaiman). Sandman is VERY dense, both visually [b]and[/b] verbally. It's not a lesser work of art because of it's form, it is filled to the brim with original ideas and enticing ways of communicating them. That said, Harry Potter did not blow my mind, and neither did Love Hina. Books are not better than movies, movies are not better than fine art, fine art is not better than music...etc.

You're not separating [b]content[/b] from [i]form[/i]. The western opinion of comic books are so derogatory it really limits the medium.

P.S. That also said, I understand what you're saying, Sheer. I know arguments on here can get ugly, so here's a picture of a cute thang so that there's no bad blood<3
[img]http://blog.urbanoutfitters.com/files/the_cute_show.jpg[/img]

EDIT: ACTUALLY, WHEN I WAS 10, HARRY POTTER TOTALLY BLEW MY MIND. TELL NO ONE.

If we want to talk about what limits manga specifically, often I find that one of its most appealing points is also its greatest weakness: weekly serialization. Sometimes the necessity to produce a certain number of pages a week as well as grab the reader's attention and hook them for next week forces some pretty terrible storytelling. If anyone else reads Naruto and has checked out last week's chapter, you know what I mean.

[quote="Jammykarrot"][quote="Aplaca"]Finished reading I''s yesterday. I shamelessly love it, and it is hands down my favorite series of the genre.[/quote]

I'm reading it at work right now and I feel like a pedophile.[/quote]
Bloodthirsty Butchers's Mikansei album is an awesome soundtrack to this series.

[quote="Jammykarrot"][quote="sheerheartattack"]
Well, the question is, "Could Friedrich Nietzsche have just as effectively written [i]Thus Spoke Zarathustra[/i] as a comic?" If so, then comics are not limited in the depth of content they may convey. If not, then they are so limited. I think it's pretty obvious that it would be impossible, but if you think he could have created an equivalent work (given that he had equal talents in writing comics as he did writing novels) in comic book form, then that's all that can be said about that.[/quote]

This is not a valid point. This is like saying "WOULD PLEASE MR. LOSTMAN BE AS GOOD IF IT WERE A BOOK?". Comic books are a completely different form of expression. It's a MIX of words and pictures, not words on one side and pictures on the other. It is a stand alone form of art.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra book blew my mind when I read it, so did the comic book [i]Sandman[/i] (Neil Gaiman). Sandman is VERY dense, both visually [b]and[/b] verbally. It's not a lesser work of art because of it's form, it is filled to the brim with original ideas and enticing ways of communicating them. That said, Harry Potter did not blow my mind, and neither did Love Hina. Books are not better than movies, movies are not better than fine art, fine art is not better than music...etc.

You're not separating [b]content[/b] from [i]form[/i]. The western opinion of comic books are so derogatory it really limits the medium.
[/quote]

No one was saying that comic books were an inferior or superior form of expression, or that a work would be intrinsically better in one form than another. A relevant question would be, "Would Please Mr. Lostman have a deeper storyline if it were a book? Or a movie? Or a comic book?" And the answer is, well...yes.

Manga can show you a character with much more detail in comparison to a novel, but because manga is serialized, it can't give you a thorough, well-paced story. I can tell you from experience that if you try to write something when you're not ready, you will turn out a steaming pile of literary shit.

I think manga could be a much more effective storytelling medium if it were allowed time and proper critique, but, unfortunately, it isn't allowed either of those. That's why it's limited.

I'm not sure any of us are qualified to make sweeping statements about manga, anyway, because Americans are exposed to so little of what is out there. Furthermore, the time constraint problem doesn't always apply. The guy who does Berserk takes his sweet ass time, believe me. There are other examples, probably hundreds I'm unaware of.

Novels and other purely textual forms aren't free from economic pressures, either. Victorian novels, by and large, are trash in my opinion, largely because people got paid more for writing more (if they could make it long enough to publish in multiple volumes all the better because for each copy of the book, pay-for-rent libraries could charge multiple people at once for the same book). The resulting texts are these bloated novels that I sure as hell don't want to read, but people back then did, I guess.

Also, to be fair you should not compare Naruto to the great novels. A more fair comparison, taking into consideration the great haste with which the mangaka must sometimes work, would be a detective or spy novelist who pumps out book after book for mass consumption. Granted, I think Naruto is pretty damn good for what it is, but [i]The Sound and the Fury[/i] it ain't.

[quote="Jomei"][b]I'm not sure any of us are qualified to make sweeping statements about manga, anyway, because Americans are exposed to so little of what is out there.[/b] [/quote]

True enough. I actually read Berserk and it's one of the best manga I've read. The storytelling is very good. It's painful to wait for the next chapter, though. Even if it's for the purposes of quality--then again, that kind of attitude is what strains mangaka so much.

I'm not saying that novels can't be shitty. They can be as shitty as any manga.

Honestly this is just one of those things that you can't know. How do you measure the worth of manga storytelling versus novel storytelling?

I would not argue that one medium is better/more in-depth/more limited overall than the other in terms of just storytelling.

I would agree that more abstract concepts might be better suited to a book. But then, what's to stop one from writing a graphic novel that just has a lot more text than your average graphic novel?

[quote="terra"]I would not argue that one medium is better/more in-depth/more limited overall than the other in terms of just storytelling.

I would agree that more abstract concepts might be better suited to a book. But then, what's to stop one from writing a graphic novel that just has a lot more text than your average graphic novel?[/quote]

I thought about that, but it doesn't really exist, to my knowledge, and may be yet another medium all to itself. Perhaps one could do dialog in comic form, but storytelling in novel form, or whatever. However, I think people choose one over the other for the specific proficiencies of each medium, and mixing them will be detrimental to that effect.