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Christopher Hart

Manga Mania: How to Draw Japanese Comics Paperback – April 1, 2001

by Christopher Hart (Author)

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The only step-by-step guide ever published on drawing this wildly popular style of comic book art—perfect for every age!

Take a look at the wild popularity of such shows as Pokémon, Digimon, and Dragonball Z, and you'll see the Manga style of comic-book art in action. There's no doubt about it: Manga is hot. And Manga Mania is the only guide that details, step by step, how young and veteran artists alike can draw fantasy robots, diabolical monsters, mythical animals, and the other exciting characters that are part of this exciting genre.

Manga art has many styles: the young Manga style, à la Pokémon; and the more mature style popular with teens and adults. Manga Mania covers them both. Big, splashy chapters demonstrate how to draw martial arts, special effects, and much, much more. Since the Manga style stresses character rather than anatomy, Manga comics are easier to draw. So a beginning comic-book artist can easily learn the tricks of the trade.

Chris Hart, known for his very clear step-by-step illustrations and accompanying text, details how anyone can become a real Manga artist without having to reinvent the art of drawing.

Print length

144 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Watson-Guptill
Publication date

April 1, 2001
Dimensions

8.52 x 0.42 x 11 inches
ISBN-10

0823030350
ISBN-13

978-0823030354
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Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 5 Up-Hart takes a small but measurable step beyond the basics in this guide to the distinctive Japanese art form. Sandwiched between an introduction to the several genres of manga and a searching interview with Bill Flanagan, editor in chief for one of the largest U.S. manga publishers, is a discussion of techniques for drawing, dressing, and posing all of the standard character types effectively ("-you want a short upper lip, which is a trademark of a youthful character. Long upper lips are reserved for older and sinister characters"). Hart covers creating animals, from dragons to sidekicks, and composing panels that are properly cinematic. For the art, which mixes dozens of step drawings with flurries of finished, usually colored, sample figures, he supplements his own work with generic examples from nine domestic artists, then uses examples of popular published manga to illustrate the interview. Though writing, storyboarding, and computer-assisted design are not covered here, and chapters that introduce a few phrases of tourist Japanese and provide brief, standard generalities about careers in the comics industry are off topic, this book dishes up such generous helpings of specific advice and general encouragement that it makes an appealing alternative to Mikio Kawanishi's How to Draw Manga: Expert Edition (Graphic-Sha, 1998; o.p.) and the many narrowly focused instructional manuals.
John Peters, New York Public Library
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Hart, a successful contributor to MAD magazine, the Blondie cartoon strip, and film and TV, adds another volume to his prolific output of books, which includes his recent Cartooning for the Beginner (LJ 11/15/00). Here he presents the only book on how to draw the wildly popular manga style of comic book art. In Japan, manga comics are devoured by children and adults. The style has been imported in the form of Digimon, Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon, and Pok mon. Hart is a master at teaching cartooning methods, and this book, with chapters like "The Bad Boys of Manga" and "Manga's Fantasy Realm," doesn't disappoint. Recommended for public libraries.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Watson-Guptill (April 1, 2001)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 144 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0823030350
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0823030354
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.02 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.52 x 0.42 x 11 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,998,679 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #377 in How to Create Manga
- #1,294 in Arts & Photography Study & Teaching
- #8,730 in Arts & Photography Criticism

Customer Reviews:
101 ratings

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Christopher Hart

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Christopher Hart is the world’s best-selling author of How-To-Draw books. Readers have gobbled up over 8 million copies of his titles, and his work has been translated into more than 20 languages. Chris has had the rare distinction of having the top 1, 2 & 3 art books in the country, simultaneously, as reported by Nielsen BookScan. He has had over 100 books published.

Christopher is known for his ability to create cute and dramatic characters, brimming with personality. He focuses on the most contemporary styles, genres, and techniques, in order to give his readers and fans the very latest in art instruction.

Join the online conversation today!

YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrd1j_IoMQDv_MEEGKLoFJg

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/CARTOONS.MANGA

Website - http://christopherhartbooks.com/

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5

101 global ratings

5 star		76%
4 star		13%
3 star		8%
2 star		2%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Andrew D. Bremer

Incredibly Fun to Study this Book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 26, 2021

Verified Purchase

I read a lot of art instructional books from different disciplines in order to build up my own skill, but this one was the most enjoyable. I was very excited about applying the techniques covered in this book to my own style and seeing what might happen--just great to learn from this one.

Just as a side note: if you are trying to read some of these art books and you are having trouble, get a dictionary and really sit there and literally read the entire art instructional from cover to cover; because you will get a lot more out of the material that way. This particular book is not the hardest to understand; that is just a general bit of advice for some of the other ones.

One person found this helpful

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Kaylee Hale

I love this book it remains of my childhood

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 28, 2018

Verified Purchase

I remember borrowing it from a friend when I was little, I practice drawing manga in elementary school by learning from this book. But I never bought it until now, I love this book it remains of my childhood.

3 people found this helpful

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C. Mitchell

SKETCH BOOK

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 9, 2007

Verified Purchase

MY SON LOVES THESE BOOKS. THEY GIVE HIM IDEAS HE NEVER THOUGHT OF. HE HAS TO TURN IN A SKETCH FROM HOME EVERY WEEK TO HIS ART TEACHER. THE BOOK MAKES IT EASIER FOR HIM TO FIND SOMETHING TO DRAW. WE ARE VERY PLEASED!!

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Lori L Cutrer

Great artist/author

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 14, 2012

Verified Purchase

Same comments as Mecha Mania, same art classes and teacher, same great series of Manga books. My kids love his colorful, yet accessible series.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Liz the Knitting Genius

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 5, 2015

Verified Purchase

This has been a big help to many of my projects.

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Rodeo Joe

Accept it for what it is, and it's quite good.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 2, 2003

My little brother took this book out of his high school library for me, and now I plan to purchase it, as I found it an invaluable resource for figure drawing, Manga technique, and especially storytelling technique.
First off, this book is basically a primer for beginners, dealing with "Americanized" Manga. If you are looking for a book for experts, or one that really delves deep into what the anime/manga die-hard snobs call "true" manga (whatever that is supposed to mean -- while there are certain stylistic differences between your epic anime or manga fantasy Japanese original and your Pokemon, the same basic techniques are employed to varying degrees, depending upon the genre), then this is not that book.
This book IS:
1.) A good primer on figure drawing. Not great, but very good. I already knew a little bit about figure drawing before I started this book, but since having worked with it, my figure drawing skills have improved dramatically.
2.) A good primer on techniques used in Manga. I personally found the sections on eyes and expression very helpful. Because Hart doesn't spell it out for you all the time, sometimes when reading this book you have to interpret the drawing samples in tandem with Hart's instruction to figure it out on your own.
3.) An EXCELLENT book about storytelling. Having studied film and theatre (and thus storytelling theory) extensively, this book is highly valuable in that regard. It offers information on techniques for how to visually tell your story effectively, particularly in the sections about comic book panels. For this reason, I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in film or theatre, even if they have no interest in drawing.
This book also offers at the end a section about "making it" as a manga artist. I found this section rather blah and unhelpful, though it would be informative and somewhat helpful for young people (i.e., children and teens).
This book has several minor weakness in its structure and style, but nothing worth going into detail about in this limited space, so long as you don't take the style in which the book is constructed too seriously (come on -- "Drop-Dead Manga Babes???" Of COURSE you're not supposed to take the style of the book seriously!). Overall, this is an excellent resource for anyone looking to improve their figure drawing skills (even if not manga), the beginning/novice manga artist, and anyone who would like to learn more about storytelling technique.
I would not necessarily recommend this for anyone who is a more advanced manga artist.

6 people found this helpful

Helpful

Evil Tim

Practically useless

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 28, 2015

From cover artist Francis Manapul showing an almost Liefeldian talent for drawing a man with two swords vaguely associated with his hands I probably ought to have known this would be no good, but I can plead ignorance as an artist back when I bought this on that point. Not sure what his excuse is.

The back cover and splash page showcase some truly hideous digital colouring which thankfully isn't indicative of the general standard (I'm not sure who thought scrawling lipstick on the business suit bad guy was a good plan) but certainly doesn't give an encouraging start. A look at the "contributing artists" page gives the curious insight that Hart only actually seems to have done three sections of the book: a picture of a robot, most of the "designing scenes" chapter (which isn't drawn in manga style) and the cartoons for the entirely useless Japanese phrasebook section, seemingly present for people so entirely delusional they think they're going to get a job as a comic book illustrator in Japan while holding a copy of a how-to-draw book.

The other artists vary from people who know what they're doing (Colleen Doran's Tezuka-inspired stuff and Svetlana Chmakova's really rather good martial arts and fantasy illustrations) to the utterly clueless. Some of the illustrations border on "what not to do," such as the "dynamic fighting" pose on page 45, which is a "what the hell are they *doing*?" worthy of Image comics, or the incredibly botched perspective on the leg of the Deunan Knute knockoff on page 93.

Any quality in the illustrations is summarily ruined by Hart's ridiculous generalisations and rubbish quips in the descriptive text. If you want a list of views on anime and manga cultivated by someone who saw Akira a couple of times and thinks he remembers it, then this is a must buy, but that's a fairly niche audience. He's at his worst when he's trying to talk about history or culture (the section on Samurai habitually fighting with two swords, for example, is flat-out wrong), and clearly not at home talking about the style; the only chapter where he switches into a mode approaching informative rather than "do this, I guess?" is the one he actually illustrated about panel design. Though even there page 116 is kind of...special.

Almost all of the illustrations follow the standard of unhelpful how-to guides, going from basic shapes to a sketch to a fully worked-up figure without actually telling the reader how to do that (I suppose saying "study anatomy" would mean Hart sold fewer useless how-to guides), so it's a curious case of a book being too advanced for anyone who might actually want it while too, well, *wrong* for anyone who might get any use from it.

The "dramatic" splash page on 108 and the commentary leading up to it deserve special mention; we are told having a scene of a robot throwing punches at another is somehow more "banal" than the two standing apart from one another firing laser guns, despite that anime robots almost always either throw punches or fire gigantic volleys of missiles because laser guns are too banal. We are then "treated" to a totally lifeless battle scene which lacks any sense of continuity (both combatants seem to have simply appeared in their current locations without doing any damage to the area around them prior to the scene itself) and has no sense of motion (due to the lack of debris, sparks, movement lines and especially dust and smoke). Two fleeing characters seem to be struggling to remain conscious as they witness this tedious display, while high above Chris comments on the "overturned cars" he forgot to tell Mike Leeke he was supposed to be drawing.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 8, 2015

I've actually had my copy for 10 years, and I still go back to it now and then. Love this book.

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

dean oxley

Too oldschool

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 12, 2020

Verified Purchase

I'm sure some people would still like this but it's very basic and outdated

annasedale

Excellent

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 19, 2014

Verified Purchase

I bought this for my grandson who, at 10, likes all things to do with japanese comics and wants to create his own version of characters. This book gives step by step ways of drawing the characters which he then adapts to suit his own imagination. Good buy

Warren Brown

A must for Manga Fans

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 18, 2018

Verified Purchase

This is a great book with details about drawing Manga. A must for any comic book enthusiast who wants to start drawing Manga.

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