Whenever I go to the bookstore with my wife and son, I'm finding myself drifting from the graphic novels section into the nearby manga section more often.  I've talked before how I'm a relative newcomer to the world of manga, and how I used to regard it with disdain, but I've come to appreciate it a lot more this year.  It's odd, because I do like some anime.  Not the Narutos or Pokemons of the world, but in college I was introduced to Neon Genesis Evangelion, and missed an entire day of classes watching the series (subbed, of course!).  I've since become a big fan of the works of Leiji Matsumoto--Space Battleship Yamato (Star Blazers!!), Galaxy Express 999 and Captain Harlock being my particular favorites.  Still, I never really got into manga.  I think a lot of it had to do with not looking at the right stuff.  It all looked the same to me.  



This year, it really all got started for me when I finally picked up the Scott Pilgrim series.  Now, I know it's not a manga book, but it's packaged and marketed in a very similar fashion to manga, Plus, O'malley definitely has that stylistic influence.  I zipped through all five volumes (vol. 6 can't get here soon enough) and wondered, what else was there?  


Based on a recommendation, I checked out Hiroya Oyu's Gantz series.  Oyu and his team of artists really crammed a lot of detail into the pages and nothing ever felt over rendered or distracting.  The pages were bursting with movement, and the story was pretty compelling.  The anime is fairly true to the book, but honestly, I think I prefer the printed version.  


Recently, though, I've been devouring volume after volume of Pluto by Naoku Urasawa.  Urasawa's highly detailed art recalls a mixture of the old '70s anime feel of Matsumoto, as well as some of the stylings of Rankin/Bass.  It's a great story too, a sci-fi murder-mystery that evolves into a huge narrative about the relationship between man and machine and whether or not a machine can have a soul.   It uses the old manga Astro Boy as the base for which to build its story foundation.  There are lots of complex themes, and at several points it's equally suspenseful and heart breaking.  I'm only four volumes in, but I can't wait to get more.  

I've got a couple more series on my radar, but now I definitely know creators I like in the field and who I'm going to follow.  I'm trying to learn as much as I can from the art styles and storytelling techniques so I can incorporate some of them into my work.  Always try to learn new things!