Yoshitaka Amano.

He’s a manga artist whose work doesn’t look like any other manga artist’s. In fact, it’s funny you mention Sandman, because he illustrated a Sandman picture-book (prose) a few years back.

I’m willing to grant that he’s the exception and not the rule, but still, as I noted in my previous post, ten years ago everybody in western comics drew like Jim Lee.

Arc:

Think of all the female superheroes Jim Lee has drawn. In terms of actual facial variation, not hair or costumes or skin colour, there is none.

Thanks, my point exactly. I’m no fan of Jim Lee and I think he was largely responsible for the uniformity of ’90′s comic art (not exactly his fault he was so widely imitated, but still). All I’ve ever seen him draw is musclebound men and big-tittied women; change their hairstyles and costumes and they’re basically identical.

My point is, you see a lot of dross and uniformity in Western comics and cartoons, too; I’d say that quality is the exception rather than the rule no matter which side of the Pacific you’re on. Sure, for every Spirited Away there are a dozen Dragon Balls (and don’t get me wrong, I like Toriyama, but I really can’t think of a better example of simplistic anime off the top of my head), but it’s also fair to note that for every All-Star Superman, there’s…well, anything with Rob Liefeld’s name attached to it.

I’m not generally big on the whole “give a manga look to western comics” thing — that’s another ’90′s trend that I’m glad to see declining in prevalence. That’s pretty much why I never picked up Ultimate Spider-Man — I love Bagley’s work ordinarily, but I just couldn’t stand Spidey’s proportions in that version, and I’ve never liked the huge eyes (which we can largely thank MacFarlane for).

On the other hand, I DID like the Teen Titans toon — though really what I liked about it was the Bruce Timm influence; I rolled my eyes every time they grew giant heads and ^_^ facial expressions.

Fuck Manga.

Probably because it’s in color.

Think of all the female superheroes Jim Lee has drawn. In terms of actual facial variation, not hair or costumes or skin colour, there is none.

I don’t think you can say with a straight face that Batman and Sandman have the sameness that Pokemon and Spirited Away do.

Miyazaki’s character designs are pretty clearly different from Tezuka’s, which is different from Toriyama’s, which is different from Takahashi’s, which is different from Inoue’s.

Actually, come to think of it, you should take a look at Inoue’s “Vagabond” manga and claim that it looks like Pokemon.

I will admit that a lot of my negativity to anime/manga is that for 20 years they’ve been hyped as superior to American comics and animation, when the truth is they’re different and not “better”.