What is the difference between story arcs in comics and manga?

From my experience in from reading comics and manga, manga usually follows one story arc while most comics usually have one plot arc as a part of a longer more encompassing arc. I could be wrong about this but what is difference between the two formats in terms of how stories are usually developed?

The main difference is pacing. American comic chapters have to be sold as single units on a monthly basis; Japanese comics are either sold in a similar way (but have more pages) or sold on a weekly basis, and in anthologies.

Japanese comics also tend to be collected in completely arbitrary units of chapters, while American comics tend to be collected in short but neatly ended arcs.

Japanese arcs tend to sprawl. A friend familiar with manga but not American comics was amazed at the briskness of the Blue Beetle Reach arc - a little over a year worth of comics, and a big story with over a half-dozen distinct villains and some major reveals, and it was all packed into maybe 260 pages tops. That same arc would probably have gone on for two years and ten 200-page volumes in Japan.

That sprawl means that the smaller parts of the arc get more focus, though. Fights can have a sense of individuality, can develop the characters, can have a lot of heft and strategy; American comics tend to treat them as perfunctory.

The comparisons get more complex from there, but those are some of the big differences to me.

The structural difference in American comics vs manga is dominated by Amercian comics' need to maintain the current status quo, accommodate the latest giant crossover event, and bow to the latest editorial mandate.

Manga pacing is a luxury that comics couldn't afford if they wanted it, and manga is free to develop long-term plans without having to worry that, say, the Ei C will decide that their main character has to be depowered and replaced with a more "diverse" character.

That doesn't really work anymore. Sure, there are still episodic comics that can get a story or joke told in an issue, but the popularity of decompression has made it so that most arcs take about 4-6, with the big crossover stuff needing at least 8.

When people say "comics" usually it is referring to the mainstream Marvel/DC stuff, and there are definite differences, mainly in the need to adhere to a larger universe and the ability to change the writing and art to keep a story going or to push it somewhere else. But look at graphic novels, or indie stuff, or creator-tied works like Invincible, and the differences blur.

.....I will say I've noticed two differences: different mindsets to handling panels, and different uses of flashbacks. And I'm not too entirely sure on the latter.

edited 28th Jul '15 7:05:30 AM by Watchtower

I've noticed that comics usually use flashbacks for early act characterization and premise setup, while manga use flashbacks as late-game reveals. Otherwise yeah, arcs in indie comics function just about the same as in manga, while big-name titles are a lot more constrained.

First of all, manga are comics. That's what the word manga literally means. Don't worry, I know what you actually mean.

You're asking the wrong question here. It's not a case of comics vs manga, but rather between different structures of comics.

One type is what might be called open-ended comics (my term). Open-ended comics don't have an overall story; rather, they have lots of stories. They are best thought of as premises, upon which stories may be built. Examples of open-ended comics are Superman, Spider-Man, Tintin, Judge Dredd, Ouran High School Host Club, and Dragonball.

Another type is what I term finite comics. These are ones that tell a specific story with a definite beginning, middle, and end. A finite comic may or may not be plotted from the beginning to have a set number of instalments; the however, the comic is intended to come to a definite end one day, after which it is over (though there may be sequels, prequels, and spinoffs). Obviously, a finite comic may have multiple plot threads or just one. Examples of finite comics are Watchmen, Kick-Ass, Requiem Vampire Knight, Nikolai Dante, Death Note, and Fullmetal Alchemist.

There's also a third, hybrid type. In a hybrid, there is a specific series goal which the overall events are gradually moving towards, but the meat of the comic is adventures which the characters have on the way. Examples of the hybrid type are One Piece and Rogue Trooper. Continuing past the ultimate goal is rarely a good idea, as exemplified when Rogue Trooper went crap.

(There are also gag comics, but they aren't relevent to this discussion).

Most of the American comic market consists of properties own not by individuals, but by companies - Time Warner owns the DC superheroes, Disney has Marvel, and I would say approximately half of the small part of the market not owned by DC and Marvel is licensed properties such as Star Wars and Transformers. The copyright holders naturally want to keep making a profit on their properties, which means keeping them in publication as long as possible; open-ended comics suit this business model perfectly, since all you have to do to keep them in publication is not write a story that renders the characters unable to have more adventures.

By the way, the preceding paragraph should not be read as an attack on capitalism (a critique, maybe, but not an attack). Plenty of creator-owned comics are also open-ended; I don't think Erik Larson and Mike Mignola have any intention of ever ending The Savage Dragon or Hellboy any time soon. Also, back when Marvel was an independent company with three members, one of the (many) things Stan Lee and Steve Ditko clashed over was apparently that Ditko felt Spider-Man should come to an end at some point as the hero matured and became responsible, while Lee wanted him to keep on having adventures.

In contrast, the majority of manga is creator-owned, and for whatever reason, Japanese (pop) culture appears to more favour structured, self-contained stories - hence, finite and hybrid comics are more popular.

(As an aside, this may be related in some way to television. Japanese TV doesn't generally show repeats or have seasonal breaks, so each show gets a specific number of episodes in a specific timeframe. This means ongoing, structured stories are the order of the day, as they keep fans coming back to see what happens next, thus increasing ad revenue. American TV, in contrast, shows lots of repeats, and programme planners want to be able to show whatever episode they want on a given day; hence, there has traditionally been a preference for more episodic storytelling without major continuity between episodes. The result is that Japanese TV is more finite, while American TV has traditionally been open-ended).

And now we finally come to an analysis of arcs. In a finite comic, an arc is like a chapter in a book - part of a bigger whole that advances one or more plot threads in a particular, planned direction. In an open-ended comic, an arc is more like a story in itself - it takes the characters and has them do something, which may change the status quo, but there isn't an end point that everything is moving towards.

This also accounts for the different use of flashbacks. In a finite comic, things are planned in advance in a general way; hence, a flashback reveals information that is already true, and the story has been written with this in mind. In an open-ended comic, things aren't planned out that far in advance, prior stories haven't been written with the flashback information in mind, and so using a flashback to illuminate a character's motivations and actions, particularly if the flashback is set prior to the current arc (or prior to the current writer's run) reeks of retcon. And, as a general rule, retcons suck.

TL;DR: It isn't actually about manga vs American comics, it's about a form of comics which is more popular in America than in Japan vs a form of comics that is more popular in Japan than in America.

edited 28th Jul '15 1:30:25 PM by VampireBuddha

The key difference between American comics and manga is that American comics are written in the U.S., while manga comes from Japan.

@Vampire Buddha

That actually makes sense, I always thought that there might be difference between how story arcs are structured in manga and comics. I really had no idea that they were actually more similar than I thought.

I could have sworn a big chink of Cosmic Marvel was written in the UK.

American comics, Eurocomics, and manga all contain both types of arc. The difference is how frequently the different types are used in different markets.

I guess I stand corrected and advised.

In regards to manga, I'd say the structured nature is at least partially out of necessity. The manga industry is notorious for being very cutthroat, and while many series do end in the way they want to, there are many others that don't have the sales numbers and get cancelled by editorial. In that way, it's smart to keep to a "hybrid" style, since you can milk the series as much as you want and still have a way to properly wrap everything up.

Of course, if a work does really good with being open-ended, it can become as immortal as the American superheroes. Take the biggest example Kochikame, which will basically run until the day Akimoto drops dead.

EDIT: Forgot to note also that a lot of the blurring also comes from taking inspiration; as noted on the trope page, the decompression that's become the current standard is based on manga-style pacing. You're going to most likely see more East-to-West than the other way around thanks to the Anime Boom of the 90s.

edited 29th Jul '15 8:46:52 AM by Watchtower

True that.

Decompression can work in manga because instalments typically have more pages to work with. While such a thing is fine in a graphic novel, since it all comes out together and can be whatever length the writer and artist want, it's just a bad idea in a 24-page monthly comic.

Manga is a cutthroat industry where writers are tasked with writing the chapters every week whereas the West is somewhat more lax from what I can tell.

That partly comes from the combination of corporate-owned vs creator-owned, and how they are published.

Corporate-owned comics have a succession of writers. If someone writing Wonder Woman is poorly received, DC can simply replace them with another writer while the comic remains in publication.

With a creator-owned comic, there are no replacements. If people don't like the way Kentaro Miura is writing Berserk, there are no replacements; Hakushensha either loses Miura and Berserk, or it keeps them both.

In America, most creator-owned comics are self-published. Those that have the backing of a corporate publisher are written by people who have already established their credentials either on corporate-owned comics or indie publication (or both). The only western publications I know of that try something like the Jets Comics/Shonen Jump/whatever approach are CLINT, which lasted less than a year, and Judge Dredd Megazine, which publishes one chapter of a creator-owned comic each issue and lists it as a reprint, allowing them to get away with paying less.

Hmm.

Thinking about it, I'm not sure manga actually is much more cutthroat, really. Rather, since manga is more popular in Japan than other comics are in their home countries, there is a greater demand for more material, which means a great many more submissions actually end up published. In America, there is a whole lot of competition which we don't see because only the cream of the crop actually gets widely published.

Admittedly most of my knowledge comes from following the Shonen Jump rankings thread, so I don't know how it differs across the other magazines, but what makes WSJ cutthroat is that they must add and remove titles every couple of months, as a way to keep it from getting stagnant. A low enough ranking and low enough sales means editorial will cut you off in hopes of making room for a potential hit.

I have seen Marvel and DC continuously throw new series and gimmicks in order to spark up sales, and I've seen them stop series that were bombing and not worth the cost, but I've never seen either forced by company policy to make those decisions. The fact that American comics are sold individually and not in a bundle might have something to do with that.

from what i know the cutthroat nature of manga magazines mostly applies to the big weeklies like Shounen Jump.

i don't have a source for this admittedly but i've heard monthly seinen magazines like Ikki are a lot more lax in this regard, and frequently allow unpopular manga to run for long periods of time without fear of cancellation.

edited 30th Jul '15 3:55:35 PM by wehrmacht

I guess the difference between the two mediums is how they write the story arcs.

Due to its' nature of having only one writer creating the world, Japanese manga's story lines are usually continuous compare to American. The entire story has a set beginning and ending to it, so story arcs must be interconnecting to one another to tell the whole story. These comics tend to be more plot focus.

American comics, on the other hand, have more self containing stories put into them. Due to its Depending on Writer motive, never ending story telling and shared universe, comics story arcs are important in their own respective story line. While some plot element can be mentioned in other stories, they are merely a continuity nod and serve no real purpose to the other stories plot. For most part, its all about characters of those stories rather then the plot.

Like X-Men for example, in spite all of the character development, members coming and going and villains they have stopped, its seems like the whole status quo of mutants being hated and fear never change. All that matters in those comics seems to be more focused on the characters dealing with these issues then the problems actually being solve.

The same could be said for Batman who overtime went from a controversal, mistrusting anti-hero loner who uses questionable tactics to a somewhat open, quiet hero who tactical skills make him a great ally to the biggest super hero team. Gotham City is still a crapsack place, but Batman change to a bit more idealistic hero over time.

So in short, the difference is manga is all about plot, and comics are all about characters in terms of writing a story arc.