KEY POINTS:
Most people will be familiar with the Bible (the single most popular book in the world, with more than 5 billion copies circulated worldwide). Perhaps less familiar is Manga, the name given to the pocket-sized Japanese-style comics into which Western youth has been inducted in recent years, as America's superheroes have struggled - and failed - to retain world comic book domination.
Manga are different to American-style comics in a number of fundamental ways. Japanese script is read right to left, meaning that to Western eyes, Japanese comics appear to be read backwards. In English translation, Manga pages are often printed in mirror image to the originals, so the frames may be read from left to right in traditional Western fashion. Increasingly, however, Western audiences accustomed to the reverse reading pattern of the Japanese originals, are choosing to read translations in their original format - starting at the back and reading their way forward. Like text messaging, I anticipate this trend presenting a challenge to English teachers.
Wherever they have been published around the world, Manga have proved more attractive to both sexes than traditional American comics, which are written for a predominantly male audience.
Japanese comics display a wider array of subject matter than their American counterparts, and have a broader general audience, ranging in Japan from housewives to corporate executives. Cute 'girly' cartoon drawing styles sit happily alongside more masculine, action-figure archetypes, in stories less inhibited about depicting sex and violence than American comics, while displaying a literary richness and clarity of image that is distinctly Japanese in style and cultural mores.
Ironically, I have always assumed that much of what is characteristic about Manga, is due to the lack of Christian inhibition in Japanese culture.
The tightly clad superheroes of American comic books always seemed to be sublimating sin with their heroics, while Japanese comic characters seem rather to revel in it with gay abandon. And the creative result is generally superior.
So, is it unusual to see the Bible portrayed in Manga? Well, no, actually. Comics are an ideal form for communicating succinct propaganda messages and the Christian message is no exception. Back in the 1940s and 50s, when the New Zealand diet of comics was restricted by import protection and censorship laws, the Bible in comic book form was one of the few American comic books allowed into the country. So the Bible as a comic is nothing new.
In fact, The Manga Bible is not the Bible at all. It is the New Testament, the story of Jesus Christ and his disciples retold.
Neither is it Manga in the strict sense of the word. Japanese pop culture now so dominates the world of commercial comic books that this book, written and drawn by two British Nigerians, goes by the name Manga probably simply as a way to better attract the publisher's target youth audience.
Through many decades, Christians have given the Bible new guises, so as to spring their messages more effectively upon the masses. Like Godspell this is simply a re-packaging of the old-school text, this time for a generation of high-tech video-gamers and power fantasy fans.
The Manga Bible is available in two formats. NT Extreme features the full text of the New Testament in the second half of the book. NT Raw is the standalone comic book version.
The Jesus character the book portrays is 'not cuddly', according to artist Siku.
'I've deliberately made Jesus more imposing than anyone else throughout the story, and darker. He's creepier,' the artist says.
Meanwhile the dialogue of writer Akinsiku, Siku's brother, is delivered in modern 'street' talk that gives the stories a clipped brevity. The apostles refer to Jesus as 'bro' and say things like: 'We healed the blind, cast out devils. We kicked butt!' Reversion to cheesy one-liners seems more in keeping with American-style superheroes than your average Manga. 'It's kinda hard to say no to God, especially if he asks you nicely, in person!' exclaims Paul after being blinded by divine light on the road to Damascus.
It is tempting to make comparisons with other comic book depictions of the life of Jesus. Canadian underground comic artist Chester Brown serialised the book of Matthew in his comic books Yummy Fur and Underwater, during the 1990s. Brown depicted Jesus as a fearsome prophet, speaking in riddles and driven by a self-conviction bordering on megalomania. Unlike The Manga Bible, Brown was not trying to convert, and was thereby perhaps less intimidated by the weight of the text, which nevertheless remained closer to the original than in this new Manga version.
Osamu Tezuka, one of the fathers of Japanese Manga, wrote some hefty tomes, and while never tackling the story of Christ, did complete a 12-volume biography of Buddha. (As already suggested, Manga are generally not so concerned with notions of Christian morality.) Tezuka's Buddha traces the journey of a prophet, similar to the Brown story of Christ, engaging and sincere.
Both these examples show that religion and scripture can be good material for comic books - full of human drama and moral tension. Sadly, little of that humanity is reflected in The Manga Bible. This may be explained by the necessity of its authors to be true to their faith.
Like the Bible comics of the 1940s, this has its own agenda. As a work of entertainment it is something of a charlatan. This is a comic book designed to proselytise.
-Detours, HoS
