Any Fellow Comic Book and Manga Readers Here?

SuperRedPanda

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I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this. I'm still a newbie haha.

I'm sure that we all read books of some description; it tends to be part of being a writer. But do any of you read comic books and/or manga? If so then what are you currently reading?
Also, I'm curious to know if you take any sort of inspiration from them :)
 
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Greene_Hesperide1990

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Hey! Yeah I used to read a bunch of manga and comics but now I do so sparsely. The two manga I'm reading now are Attack on Titan and One Punch Man.

The last comic book I read was Wicked and Divine which I absolutely love. It helped serve as mild inspiration when writing one story only in concerns with the celebrity basis behind being a god.
 

lonestarlibrarian

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I read/watched a ton in the 90's-00's, but once I had my kids, I really cut back on my watching/reading. The erratic release schedule didn't help any, either.

I just ordered the last two Genbu Kaiden volumes to see how that concludes. I started reading that about 15 years ago, but when the releases went dormant, I fell off the wagon.

I also enjoyed Bride of the Water God (Korean manhwa) while it lasted, but it also went dormant for a while, and I fell off. It didn't help that the plot wasn't as tight as it could have been, and I didn't feel like I was making any progress in the storyline. I need to pick up some back volumes of that.

I really liked Genju no Seiza. (14 volumes total, but the 8th volume was the last one released, and it came out in 2010.) Very sorry that one was dropped.

I'm very fond of the Junni Kokki novels. I think there's... eight? of them. But only four have been released, and the last one came out in 2010.

So, that's a bit frustrating. It doesn't happen all the time--- but it happens frequently enough that I get nervous about spending $10/volume x half the series... and then the rest never gets released. And then I have an orphaned series taking up precious shelf space.
 

SuperRedPanda

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It's awesome to come across another AoT and OPM fan :) The book/series I'm currently working on has a few things inspired by AoT.
 

lonestarlibrarian

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I've never actually heard of the series' you mentioned, lonestarlibrarian. I shall have to look them up.

Genbu Kaiden was one of the Fushigi Yugi prequels. It deals with the Genbu no Miko going through her own set of adventures in the Universe of the Four Gods.

Genju no Seiza was by the same mangaka who did Petshop of Horrors. I really enjoyed both of the PoH series as well. GnS deals with a guy who has been identified as the reincarnation of the Holy King of a mysterious kingdom... except there's already a Holy King who's been set in place. It's a fun series.

Junni Kokki was animated as Twelve Kingdoms. I really enjoyed the worldbuilding in the books. The basic premise is that there are 12 kingdoms, and each kingdom has a sacred creature called a kirin. The kirin's job is to identify the next ruler of the kingdom, and upon identification, the king is granted immortality, which lasts as long as he administers according to heaven's decree. If he strays from the path of righteousness, though, both king and kirin will get sick and die, and the kingdom will be overrun by monsters until the next kirin is born and identifies the ruler.

Bride of the Water God deals with a Korean girl who is sacrificed to the water deity in order to end a drought. She expects to die, but is surprised when she wakes up in Korean Mythology-land (which is heavily Chinese). She needs to adapt to a confusing series of events, including the discovery that her new husband is under a curse, and has landed in the midst of a lot of drama she doesn't quite understand what's going on, and she isn't sure who's telling the truth and who is lying, but she knows that it has something to do with the water god's previous wife...

Putting them all down like that--- haha! It's very clear what kind of tropes I have a weakness for. :)
 

Maggie Maxwell

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I'm a huge Marvel and Image fangirl for western comics, but I've been reading mostly manga lately going off recommendations from a few folks on Twitter.

Top ones I can recommend:
Gokushufudou: Way of the House Husband - A legendary yakuza retires to the life of a house husband, trading in hits and gang business for cooking shows and exercise classes. (It had been fan-translated only, but it's officially licensed for release in English and coming soon)

Dungeon Meshi/Delicious in Dungeon - After a team of adventurers gets wiped in a dungeon and loses one of their own, they're left with no supplies to launch a rescue mission until they decide they'll just have to eat the monsters they kill along the way. (Up to 6 issues in English)

Ojisama to Neko - An old man adopts a cat that's been considered too ugly and too old to be adoptable. (Fan-translation only)
 

LeviSweeney

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I'm a huge comic book fan! I love Batman, and I was a really big fan of Ultimate Spider-Man back in the day. I also really like Invincible, Powers, Astro City, Maus, Watchmen, and anything by Chuck Dixon. Gotham Central is pretty awesome too. As for manga, I haven't read too much of it, but I absolutely love Fullmetal Alchemist.
 
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Melania_Devitt

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Thank you for reminding me of the OnePunchMan manga! Glad to see that I'm not alone. Can you advise me about some new manga? Maybe action, horror, or historical?
 

sphynge

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Some of my faves include Hunter X Hunter and Conan the detective. I incidently also like Conan the Barbarian... totally unrelated for sure! Currently reading Demon Slayer.
Side bar - I loved the beginning of Deathnote but that got really dragged on beyond its welcome...
 
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Mattpwriter

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I read comics, though I don't read manga. My favorites are Spider-Man, Deadpool, Batman, and the Hulk.
 

mschenk2016

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Read a bunch when I was younger, now only a select few. I have all the Walking Deads in hardcover, a shoebox overflowing with all the Buffy/Angel and Firefly comics up to a certain point where I lost interest, the Infinity Gauntlet in hardcover, and The Dark Knight Returns.
 

K.S. Crooks

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I started reading and collecting comics back in the early 90s. I currently read only DC(Batman, Batman related- Nightwing, Batgirl, etc) Justice League, Wonder Woman, Flash, Suicide Squad, and a few others. I don't take any inspiration from them other than the understanding of how a great character needs to have flaws in the personality and in their abilities. The characters need to sometimes fail and show growth, otherwise they become stagnant and boring.
 
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JJNotAbrams

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Yeah, I read comics. I've been reading a lot of BOOM! Power Rangers and the IDW Ninja Turtles. One thing I love from both of those works is the worldbuilding.

The Power Rangers comics are creating a whole mythos and building lore around the Morphin Grid while the TMNT comic has been working on creating a community of mutants and how life would play out in it.

Been reading less manga lately but the ones I do read fit mostly my tastes. Kekkai Sensen and the continuation series Kekkai Sensen Back 2 Back along with the ULTRAMAN manga, I really like.
 

ChaseJxyz

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Man how have I never posted in this thread...

When I was really into MLP I bought the IDW comics, though I don't think I actually got around to reading them. I own a number of graphic novels, including Snowpiercer and the Dark Crystal ones. I mostly buy things for the IPs that I'm really into. I took a graphic novel literature class in college but I don't have any of those books anymore, but my roommate did, too, and she still has her books, so I can just read her copies.

I read a fair number of web comics. I think my favorite one is Oren's Forge, which is about a pine marten that's found a community of prey animals who have learned to use metal. I like imaginative world-building the most.

Dr. Stone is my favorite currently-running manga, I'm always amazed by Senku's ability to make what feels like huge technological leaps with simple materials and techniques. Right now they're building a COMPUTER! In the stone age! And now I actually know how logic gates work! I'm working on catching up with Jujutsu Kaisen, which I only started because the physical volumes are such a best seller and I wanted to see what all the hype is about. I can't stand standard shonen crap like tournament arcs and vague goals like "gonna find the one piece" or protagonists whose only defining characteristic is "I am going to learn how to punch harder than the other guy! Because I believe in myself!" It's also really groan-worthy when things are weirdly sexualized or women are treated like crap, so I avoid a lot of mainstream stuff. (The artist for Dr. Stone got a big audience from doing hentai, and you'd never be able to tell! But every so often there's a panel where the anatomy is Really Good and there's only one way you'd get good at that. But it's also never anything sexual, which is such a refreshing change from everything else).
 

ParsaHimself

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I got hooked by the spider-man weekly issues that my father used to buy for me when I was 5 years old. I have watched almost all comic book-inspired tv shows (the animated one) as a child.
I love DC comics. but my heart will go to Image comic cause almost all of its titles are masterpieces.
 

Kevin_C_Vang

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I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this. I'm still a newbie haha.

I'm sure that we all read books of some description; it tends to be part of being a writer. But do any of you read comic books and/or manga? If so then what are you currently reading?
Also, I'm curious to know if you take any sort of inspiration from them :)
I read One Punch Man, Vampire Hunter D, Drifters, Monster, and Weak Hero. These are my favorites so far.
 

JJNotAbrams

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How about Gate: Jietai Kanochi Ni Te?
Don't really like Gate.

In terms of manga, I haven't really read a lot of those lately and a lot don't really catch my attention anymore. Lately I've just been looking for an artstyle that stands out enough to warrant a read.
 

Kevin_C_Vang

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Don't really like Gate.

In terms of manga, I haven't really read a lot of those lately and a lot don't really catch my attention anymore. Lately I've just been looking for an artstyle that stands out enough to warrant a read.
I like the concept; however, it can have done it better. I prefer it to be more serious than just a joke.
 

Nether

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I'll go on a manga binge every few years. The things that a lot of horror mangaka are doing is just amazing. I can't think of any recent comparable American examples, but the industry was absolutely gutted at one point and the tradition just never returned.

I'm sure that it's had at least *some* influence on my writing. I think it might have changed how I looked at some subgenres and tropes.

I've periodically enjoyed superhero comics, and I've liked superheroes in general but... I mean, there's the expense, and then the storytelling just swings so wildly because you have different people working on these titles and trying to write to trends.

Superhero manga is a mixed bag, and a lot of shonen series feel like they run longer than they should (mostly because they tend to have escalating stakes and less of an ongoing element).
 
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Spaceranger82

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I don't read a lot of manga, but one of my favorites is Golgo 13, created by Takao Saito. It follows the international exploits of Duke Togo, aka "Golgo 13", an assassin for hire. To me, it's very similar to James Bond, but with even more sex and violence.
 

H.L.Dyer

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I started trying to getting into DC comic universe a couple years back. I still barely have a comics collection. Just Zero Year Batman 5, 6 and 7 (Why 5, 6 and 7? Because Zero Year Riddler! šŸ¤¤)

I do, however, have a small collection of manga. Notably the Omnibus for Azumanga Daioh, all 4 Omnibuses of Cardcaptor Sakura, My Hero Academia books 1-11 and, my personal favorite, Yona of the Dawn 1-12 and 14 (Local media store didn't have 13).