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Log into Comics
Ross Ng Wing-yee
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| Ross Ng Wing-yee is MPhil Candidate
at the Department of Sociology, the University of Hong
Kong. This paper is an article she wrote for the Ejournal
based on the data she has been gathering for her M Phil
research titled "Comics Fandom in Hong Kong: A Study of
Internet Newsgroups." |
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Introduction
If I were asked to give one reason to my study on comics, I would say because I love comics. As a researcher, this passion may affect the objectiveness of my study. However, I would like to say this passion actually helps my study. Today, if you want to read about comics study, one may notice the authors often are comic lovers, like, Barker, Bongco, and Pustz, etc. All of them appreciate the media form. Even though there are scholars willing to research on comics, comics are still under-studied. Compared to other popular media forms, comics are probably the least studied (Bongco 2000). The few existing studies on comics focus on the harmfulness of the medium.
To explain this phenomenon, some comic studies, for example Bongco (2000), suggest it is closely related to the general backgrounds of comic readers. They tend to be young, lacking in economic power, and are usually less literate than the average population. The assumptions of these critical literature are similar to those of the mass cultural theory which assumes that the readers are passive and vulnerable to the media influence. One of the classical figures of traditional critical study, Fredric Wertham (1954) criticised American comics as inherently sensational, trivial and illiterate, depicting too much sex, violence, and anarchy.1 In fact, this is a typical critique over comics-there are only sex and violence. Bongco makes a remarkable note on this type of critique which I definitely agree with - "it is amazing how such an unsound and unscientific piece of research could have been so powerful." (2000, 15). And such powerful influence lasts til today: comics are still thought of as worthless and harmful to the "vulnerable young minds." But indeed, comics come in a variety; the methodology of traditional analysis could be highly biased and may have explored only the tip of the iceberg in the world of comics. However, the nature, function, and uses of mass culture-or sociologists today tend to use the more neutral term, "popular culture"-can no longer be conceived in such a monolithic manner in light of current cultural studies. For the purpose of this article, I am not going to give a detailed history of comics studies which can be found elsewhere.2 What I will do instead is to depict a fuller picture of comics from a cultural perspective.
My goal indeed is similar to the study of art and literature in general: to promote an understanding of the medium that sharpens perception and awareness, leading ultimately to a keener enjoyment of the form. Therefore, first of all, I must shift the gaze from pornography and violence to the audience themselves. Because, comics as a popular cultural form, the concept of popular should be constructed through how the audience use the popular cultural product and what pleasure do they derive from such use rather than by the superficial assumption that comics are full of sex and violence. In order to have a better understanding of the audience (readers of comics), I cannot disregard the medium itself - rather than looking superficially at the sex and violence in comics, it is necessary to take a closer look at what genre properties it possesses. Harrington and Bielby (1995) argue that the genre properties of a medium are important because they influence the interest, activities, organization, and pleasure of fans, thus furthering our understanding of the comic audience. Actually, a similar shift has happened in other media studies before-such as soap operas. This gives us new insights and encourages re-thinking of the study of popular culture. Hopefully, this similar shift will successfully take place in the study of comics too.
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Figure 1: the layout of how the newsgroup works.
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A
variety of methods are useful for research on comics, i.e. survey
and long interview. However, I have chosen to collect my data
mainly through the newsgroups. In brief, newsgroup is an Internet
communication very similar to that of BBS-bulletin board system.
Imagine a setting in which everyone is free to post anything
on a bulletin board and then anyone is free to give a response.
This is what we have, a kind of computer-mediated communication
(CMC), the main feature of which is anonymity. Recent
work stresses such anonymity is important in the creation of
alternative identities or reinforcement of the ones we already
have. Surely, on the Internet, race, rank, physical appearance,
and other features of a public identity are unknown. Even gender
cannot be known for certain, not to mention emotional reactions
(Baym 2000). Anonymity removes social norms, so everyone has
a chance to participate and speak their minds without any boundaries
(Baron 1984, cited in Baym 2000). In newsgroups, people participate
regularly and that logging on to a newsgroup becomes part of
their daily lives. And such online community of thousands of
topics will surely lead us to understand this mass medium in
the context of the everyday lives of interconnected individuals.
My participation
would be in the form of an observer, who will not interact with
the participants (who are called "posters" in the Internet language).3
I will read the news/messages or what Hong Kong posters
call "posts" regularly. Instead of taking the role as a researcher
and someone as an interviewer in typical surveys or in-depth
interviews, the data collected by being an unwatched observer
will be more diverse and give us a different insight. Since
one of the weaknesses of interviewing is that these methods
only give you the answers of the questions formulated
by the researcher which cannot give you the real picture of
the world in comic fandom.
Initially,
I was not keen on participating in the comic newsgroups. I began
logging on to the newsgroups because I wanted to meet different
people, or finding a bigger variety of comic readers who could
be my possible study target. Later, after reading Baym's (2000)
work, I began to reconsider the use of newsgroups and to consider
newsgroups as a community. I began to search for more
newsgroup distributors, and noticed a special phenomenon: not
only does the Internet have newsgroups specialized for particular
comic books, but also each comic book has one such newsgroup
only. Overlapping cases are rare. By referring to the population
and the amount of posts in the newsgroups, I designated three
newsgroups that were dedicated to three different comics respectively
as my major sites of observation.
Genre Properties
What makes
the study of comics remarkably interesting is that the medium
itself is divided into many niches, resulting in very diverse
genre properties. These genre properties again allow for a wide
range in terms of use, so a variety of audience is created making
this study interesting.
Lìhnwàahntòuh and Manga
First of
all, comics in the Hong Kong market is basically dominated by
these two types: lìhnwàahntòuh4
and manga.5
Lìhnwàahntòuh are comics locally produced
in Hong Kong, by Hong Kong artists and publishers. A typical
lìhnwàahntòuh consists of around 30 pages
of colour comics in a size slightly bigger than B5 and are sold
at a price of about HK$13. Most of the local lìhnwàahntòuh
are action comics, in spite of the story background, time, and
space, i.e. martial arts and battles between gangsters. Apart
from lìhnwàahntòuh, the other major type
of comics in Hong Kong is manga-Japanese comics. As manga
have come of age in Japan, the medium is divided into many niches
and in each niche, many different types of stories are further
embedded. Meanwhile, the art and narrative techniques employed
in each niche are also different. The Japanese manga
is indeed a medium of many varieties. However, it is not feasible
to list out and discuss every niche of comics in this paper
and I am only going to outline three major manga niches in Hong
Kong.
Shõnen
manga, youth (boys') comics in Japanese. This type of comics
emphasizes on the storyline, the so-called "foreground" story.
And the target audience is aged from around 7-16 as the Japanese
term shõnen refers to this age range (Daijirin
2001). But of course, the readership in real life is usually
beyond this age range as many Japanese kõkõsei
(High school students) also read shõnen manga. Shõnen
manga itself includes many topics, e.g. sports (basketball,
football, tennis, and baseball, etc.), action, detectives, science
fiction, horror, and fantasy, etc. The main characters of these
comics are usually lads around the age of twelve to eighteen.
Shõjyo
manga, or girls' comics. Usually shõjyo manga
emphasizes more on the subtext-characters' appearances and psychology,
or the "background" story. This is often associated with the
extravagant effects-flowers, shining lights surrounding
the character, to make the character even look better. And by
adding text to reveal the thoughts of the character at the same
time, readers can have a glimpse of how the psychology works
as the character speaks and acts. Topics of shõjyo manga
include romance, family, and homosexual love stories such as
those between beautiful boys which make up a large portion under
this topic.
Seinen
manga, or young men's comics. The type of stories in this
category is very similar to that of shõnen manga,
though the stories have more serious themes. As the characters
are usually more mature than those in shõnen manga,
the stories are concerned with different things. Meanwhile the
focus of shõnen manga is on friendship, dream and
adventure, the focus of seinen manga is more political,
social, and on human relationships.
Seriality
Both lìhnwàahntòuh
and manga are published regularly. Lìhnwàahntòuh
are usually published in the form of weeklies or fortnightlies
as thin booklets in the size mentioned. For some very popular
works, a lìhnwàahntòuh will be also made
into the form of huhpdingbùn6
which is printed in finer quality and consists of several lìhnwàahntòuh
stories (around 150 pages). Although a huhpdingbùn
is released less frequently, but once a lìhnwàahntòuh
has been decided to publish in huhpdingbùnform,
readers can always expect there will be another one until the
story ends. Besides, while huhpdingbùn can always
be bought in specialized comic bookshops, it is impossible to
re-order lìhnwàahntòuh as back issues.
Japanese
manga is serialized by publishing each episode in comic
magazines (manga zasshi or in short, mangashi)
weekly or monthly. A few popular shõjyo mangashi
are published every fortnight. Such serialization is called
rensai7
in Japanese. Several episodes are then compiled into a little
book called "tankõhon"8
something similar to the huhpdingbùn. In the case
of rensai that is published weekly, after eight to ten
episodes, tankõhon will be published, and for for
monthly rensai, it is every three to five episodes.
Apart from
publishing regularly, comics are serialized in such a way that
they have multiple climaxes. Comic stories are composed of many
different events, and there is a climax after each of these
events. Meanwhile, all the events and climaxes lead to the same
final climax-ending. Finally, readers are attracted to stick
to the series and continue to buy the next book or issue.
Fantasy and Reality
Not all story
backgrounds of comics are based in the real world. Even if a
story is based on real world information. For example, in martial
arts stories, fantasy can still be seen in the power and weapons
of the characters, in the visual renditions of their strength
and fighting. Indeed, one thing common to movies, television
shows, or comics is that the medium is working on building up
their own worlds with their own internal logic. As the story
moves along, readers are able to perceive the worldview embedded,
and slowly they can visualize another world. Bringing the reader
into the story's fantasy world and at the same time separating
him/her from other worlds has the effect of making him/her stand
aloof of the common world. Unlike television or movies, comics
are not limited by the props, technology, time, and space. Comics
hence provide greater autonomy and space for the artists to
create their own worlds (Li, 1999).
However fantastic
a comic story may be, it always touches its readers on one or
more points. Even though the readers do not have the fantastic
abilities depicted in the comics, they are always able to find
something common between themselves and the characters - for
example, in personality make-up, in the need to face life choices,
and in experiencing psychological contradiction, etc.
Visual Stimulation
Any comic
story is first perceived visually, because people are initially
attracted to illustrations more than to words (Bongco 2000).
In shõjyo manga, such instinct is given full play
in that the artists will not only draw good-looking characters,
but also employ extra techniques to make the characters look
even more fascinating. Finding a character in shõjyo
manga who does not look good is not easy. There is a Japanese
term bikei - beautifying shapes - which refers to such
techniques of beautifying. Indeed, manga-Japanese comics-is
particularly famous for its "bikei jinbutsu" (beautified
characters). Short of being full-fledged bikei, shõnen
manga also contain some bikei jinbutsu. Regardless
of the intention of the comic artists in drawing bikei jinbutsu,
the consequence is always clear: that bikei is visually
pleasing and serves to grab prospective buyers' attention, thus
increasing their chance of buying the comic book.
Nevertheless,
this medium is a hybrid genre of pictures and texts (Bongco
2000). Image and texts together affect the style, overall design,
and aesthetic effect of a sequence in comics. Simply being visually
attractive cannot keep the readers forever. In fact, the two
interact in principal to aid readers to construct the characters
and the story. Now, the characters are not just good-looking
but have minds and bodies, and the story is not just a tale
but have its own logic and worldview. This combination of effects
is the key to success but of course, pictures have the effect
of capturing readers' attention in the first place.
Rich Technical Conventions
As both text
and pictures are fundamental to almost all comics, to seek understanding
without one or the other is to misinterpret the substance of
this hybrid genre. Readers must have some kind of comic literacy-understanding
the rules behind the comic construction. A few of these rules
are going to be examined here.
Narration
in frames: uses of panels or vignettes
 The
panel provides an enclosure unifying images and text
in comics: it forms a graphic unit which represents one moment,
one instant of action in the narrative. It is a graphic technique
specific to comics that effectively synthesizes two distinct
mediums (image and text) to optimise expression. The panels
also signal the relevant time and space dimensions in the narrative
of comics whereby a series of framed views interact to
cue and channel the readers' construction of a meaningful story.
Such framed views also coincide with the use of camera
angle in filming, that is, to vary perspective. For example,
a scene (framed view) shot from the top may evoke a sense of
horror, deep thought, while that shot from below, a feeling
of inferiority. Also, close-up shots imply importance or help
express a deeper emotion.
Vignettes
mean pictures without border and fading into its background. 
It may be called chìugaak9
in the comic language of Hong Kong. In comics, vignettes
are panels without the black border and may even be put
over the panels. A vignette can evoke a sense
of stand-out as the character stands on top of all panels,
attracting more attention than other framed views, or
used for denote something happening at the same time as other
panels, depending on the story.
<< This is a vignette.
Lettering
and balloons
Comics produce
no sound, we will not hear "shuuuu~~~" when a car is speeding
off, neither do we hear the characters' conversations. To express
the complexity-emotions, movement, sound effects, abstract concepts,
tone of dialogue and secret motivations, or intentions-comic
artists need the aid of texts. Like what I have just done to
express the sound effect, a special letter string is used. Obviously,
to represent sound, it is easier with languages like English
and Japanese, which are phonograms.
However,
simply using special letter strings is not enough. Creating
sounds will not help us to represent complex emotions and tones
of dialogues, we still need illustrated texts. In order to integrate
the texts into images, balloons are used. Balloons-the
intrinsic element of comics-at first, were used to enclose words
simply, now developed to more sophisticated use-enclose meaning.
Balloons are printed in different shapes and the texts
inside are also typed in different font-face, font-style, and
font-weight to express different emotion and tone. Apart from
producing sound effects, texts can sometimes be written without
balloons in manga. Texts used in this way may
represent narration of a third person, presenting the content
of something, or thoughts of the character at the same time
(McCloud 1993; Natsume 1997).
Rhythm
of narrative: timing and duration
Space between
panels is called "gutter." From experience and sense-making,
readers naturally fill the gutter with information and
cues supplied to them by the comics, so readers are able to
leap from one panel to another (Bongco 2000). Such leaping
will take different durations of time depending on the size
of the gutters,10
or the length of texts presented. While images are static and
may be perceived immediately, texts must be read in time.
Texts provide the silhouette of meaning too complex to be contained
in the images, and further offer information for readers to
clarify strange, imaginary, and other unfamiliar situations
and scenes. The presence of texts redirects the readers' attention
(from image to text, and from text to image) while it slows
down the reading of the story. Without text, the story goes
faster, e.g. to represent an action, a series of panels are
employed, perhaps accompanied by lettering to give sound effects,
or else, no lettering will be present. With all these symbolic
tools the comic artists manipulate the pace of the story.
The order
of reading
 By
combining all these techniques, comics should be read in a particular
way in order to arrange all information given to a meaningful
story. Different from western comics, since both Japanese and
Chinese dialogues are written vertically from top to bottom,
and right to left, both manga and lìhnwàahntòuh
are read from right to left and then top to bottom. In manga,
most manga artists still preserve the tradition in keeping
the gutter thinner between horizontal panels and the
gutter thicker between vertical panels.
Multimedia Ties
Comics are
especially conducive to multimedia and goods production. There
are pretty characters to produce character-based goods, fantastic
story lines to produce games, and action comics are predisposed
to produce accessories. But all of these may be possible only
when a comic book becomes popular, hence, producing multimedia
goods may not be the original intention of comic production.
Since famous manga artists have great autonomy and are
beyond the control of publishers, and no one can predict the
popularity of comics, multimedia products are less pre-planned
and industrialized, thus increasing the chance of unexpected
interesting products (as products are produced alongside the
story narration).
Beside goods,
popular comics can be transferred to other media forms (not
just comics only). In the case of manga, popular manga
will be usually made into animation (anime in Japanese)
in two forms: TV/OVA (Original Video Animation). If the TV serials
were proved to be successful, OVA and movie version may be followed.
Apart from anime, popular manga can also be made into
computer/TV games or other kinds of games, e.g. card games which
is extremely popular in Japan now.
Although
attracting outsiders into the field of comics has proved to
be difficult, comics being presented in other media forms still
increase the chance of extracting more money from the original
comic fans. This would also create a tie with the outsiders
(who would not stay too long inside the comic field) and encourage
them to spend in the comic market (Pustz 1999). Even if only
some of the comic fans are involved in these commercialised
activities, profit is still favourable.
Range of Fans Activities
Comics have
many genre elements-there are many attractive entry points inviting
young people to read comics. Young people are able to choose
what they can read and what they like to read.
Therefore, different comic niches and comic types attract different
young people, giving a pluralistic readership. The richness
of presentation techniques implies corresponding reading skills
in the readership, and this is called comic literacy.
This literacy includes the understanding of the meanings of
different balloons and the order in reading panel. Despite
the physical techniques, some comics even invite the readers
to speculate about further development of plots and characters.
More mature readers are attracted by these features and by interpreting
and manipulating these features, and so a variety of fan activities
can be expected.
This article
will briefly run through my observations in the newsgroups and
I will present some of them in greater detail. First of all,
I have to classify these fan activities in the newsgroups according
to their content.
| Type
1 |
1.1 |
Average
fan activity |
| 1.2 |
Character
discussion |
| 1.3 |
Story
(plot) speculation/discussion |
| Type
2 |
2.1 |
Commercial
Activity (discussion about related product/multimedia) |
| Type
3 |
3.1 |
Group
regulation and off-topic (OT) discussion (chat post) |
| 3.2 |
Headmaster
as active poster |
| Type4 |
4.1 |
Deploy
esoteric knowledge |
| 4.2 |
Exclamation
at characters |
| 4.3 |
MUD
(Multi-user domain) |
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The above table is a simplified version of my classification. Within each of the four types, fan activities are further divided into specific activities.
Fans logging on to the newsgroups are usually involved in Type 1 activities. As Type 1 discussion uses only a few genre properties, discussions can go on as long as the posters have read the comic books. Posters (people who post message on newsgroup) in this category need not understand the comic book thoroughly - having only a brief idea of it is enough for participation in the discussions of this type. You do not even need to own the comic books, since character discussion involves only knowing something about the characters and the story plot. Readers who have read the story once, or have read by renting or borrowing are also able to join. However, most newsgroup posters are usually comic series owners.
Type 2 posts involve more advanced readers/fans. These posters not only buy the latest comic books regularly, but are also willing to spend extra money on other products branched-out from the original comic books. Once logged on to a newsgroup, these posters will share information about and update each other on new products, their pricing, and where they are available for sale. Some posters will also take pictures of the goods they own and make them available for view by others in the newsgroup. This would give them a sense of privilege as having something not everybody could have-showing that the poster possesses esoteric knowledge about the comic series.
Although my research is done on the Internet, types 1 and 2 activities are also possible in real life. Types 3 and 4 activities are more specific to the Internet and to the newsgroups. In Hong Kong, a newsgroup is usually started by a poster, and usually this poster will also become the newsgroup's headmaster.11 Of course, sometimes there will be more than one headmaster and in some circumstances, a headmaster may resign and someone else would have to be chosen to replace him/her. The job of the headmaster is to keep peace in the group, delete unwanted posts, and keep up the number of posts. Failing to achieve these, newsgroup distributors will stop running the newsgroup (what Hong Kong posters refer to as "jàambàan"12). Keeping peace means stopping arguments that would become too violent and preventing people from posting foul language on the newsgroup. In order to achieve peace, most newsgroups will have their own set of regulations. In the case of breaking regulation, the most severe measure a headmaster can exercise is to ban aparticular poster from the newsgroup forever. Unwanted posts include posts that cannot be seen by posters under eighteen years of age, advertisement, and off-topic (OT) posts or chat posts. Some groups think OT posts is a serious crime, while others do not. The attitude toward OT posts depends highly on individual posters and newsgroup distributors. In one of the newsgroups I regularly observed, around 30% of the posts were OT discussion which was exceptionally high. As some posters mentioned that they were disappointed by the story plot, my hypothesis is that posters use OT posts to keep the existence of the newsgroup. Since if there are too few posts in a newsgroup, most newsgroup distributors will stop running it. OT posts are therefore used to ensure the amount of posts. Also, OT posts are able to keep group intimacy as posters will still have topics to discuss about and continue their union on the Internet. Apart from OT posts, to keep up the amount of posts, the headmaster is usually one of the most active posters who posts the most number of messages in the newsgroup.
Type 4 has the most obsessive fans compared to the other three types. For example, activity 4.1 refers to posting esoteric knowledge, which includes information that is not obvious or not mentioned in a comic series. Deploying esoteric knowledge is similar to giving inside scoop to the newsgroup. Only insiders are granted the right to hear and pass on the scoop, since scoop means a piece of information that is not yet widely known-but among the privileged few (Levin and Arluke 1987). The one who gives out insider scoop becomes the centre of attention in the group and thus attains a sense of privilege.
4.2 refers to a particular situation in girls' comics. It is the reaction of seeing a bikei jinbutsu (beautified character). Consider the following case:
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Yuki is a character from Natsuki Takaya's famous work "Fruit Basket",13 a shõjyo manga. In the first post, poster Peter Sum【Yui】attached a picture of Yuki in his post, poster glutinous rice p responded by exclaiming three long "oh"s is indicating excitement. Words in parentheses "( )" implies an action on the poster's part. In glutinous rice p's first post, there was an action-(hug). It means she's hugging Yuki, the boy in the picture posted by Peter Sum【Yui】. Also, an emoticon14 "XD" appears in the post of Little candy candy hyacinth, this emoticon is equivalent to the face of "laugh-out-loud". Adding more "D"-mouths after the emoticon "XD" means the poster is laughing even more crazily than the normal emoticon "XD". As shõjyo manga emphasizes on bikei, the characters are so pretty that they can make the readers exclaim in the wildest way. In our society, the traditional female role is expected to be timid and subdued, females are not expected to shout, not to mention crazy laughs and screams. Females are also not expected to actively hug a male. But in the situation of newsgroups-in a virtual reality where individuals remain anonymous except for their user names-, these "don'ts" in real life become possible.
Another strange phenomenon was observed in another newsgroup, which was dedicated to the extremely popular work "Hunter x Hunter" by Yoshihiro Togashi.15 It is an MUD (Multi-user domain).16 At first, several posters proposed to establish a "fake-Genei Ryodan". Genei Ryodan is the fictional criminal group that steals and kills in the comic series of Hunter x Hunter. There are thirteen members in Genei Ryodan, hence thirteen posters designated themselves to be members of the fake-Genei Ryodan. The net nicknames of these posters are also changed according to the names of the members of Genei Ryodan. Consider the following case:
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Case 2 |
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Poster 雪貓‧偽‧查路拿古
posted on 16Apr2002 @ 1756, subject "旅團（偽）成立!!
1 .) Tabris‧偽‧幻影團長
2 .) 雪貓 ‧偽‧查路拿古
3 .) 飛坦 ‧偽‧佛達
4 .) Non ‧偽‧畢索加
5 .) Chiyuki‧偽‧哥路多比
6 .) simple‧偽‧麻子
7 .) John Chow‧偽‧芬克士
8 .) 幽冥小小天‧偽‧小霞
9 .) 戰鬥之成Zero‧偽‧羅布拿加
10.) 小悠‧偽‧柏古諾特
11.) 吉他-支劍‧偽‧胡步勁
12.) YMY‧偽‧波諾尼
13.) 吉姆‧偽‧法蘭基
有咩號碼上轉變~ 請提出~一切團員名請依上表為準! ^^
不要打電話！
因為在最重要的時候便會接不通。
也不建議你接電話，
因為三次之中會有一次是死神打來的。 |
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Poster 吉他-支劍‧偽‧胡步勁
posted on 16Apr2002 @ 1801
都係你做到野,..,
啜.,.,.,.,^V^ |
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Poster 雪貓‧偽‧查路拿古
posted on 16Apr2002 @ 1817
哈哈~~ 都說免了的說~ =p [=P] |
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English translation, italics are posters' name and words inside brackets [ ] are added by me:
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Snow cat.fake.Sharunaaku
posted subject "fake-Genei Ryodan established!"
[list of fake members' name]
[email signature of Snow cat.fake.Sharunaaku] |
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Guitar-jiken.fake.Ubõkin
You're the one who's really able to do something,..,
Kisses.,.,.,., ^V^ |
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Snow cat Sharunaaku
haha~~ I've said "no way" already~ =P |
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In the first post, you can see all fake members are required to add their corresponding comic character's name behind their usual net nickname. For example, poster Snow Cat becomes Snow cat.fake.Sharunaaku, notice the word "fake" was added in the middle. They actually keep their own identities and at the same time act as members of Genei Ryodan by combining their own and Ryodan's identity. In fact they really act according to their corresponding character. In the post of Guitar-jiken.fake.Ubõkin, he wanted to kiss Snow Cat.fake.Sharunaaku as "thank you" which is exactly the same as what happens in the comic story. In the story, Sharunaaku also rejects Ubõkin's kiss, and so does Snow cat.fake.Sharunaaku. The significance of this kind of game is that the fantastic bonding between fake members is imitated after that of Genei Ryodan. Originally, the fake members do not know each other in real life, but on the net, they have become friends. They share their love towards the comic book because their real-life friends do not share with them this happiness of reading, not to mention understand what ryodan is.
The definition of youth is not clear, so the identity of a youngster is not clear either. Youngsters do not understand their social position. They are at times considered adults and have to bear the responsibility of their own actions; however, unlike adults, they are powerless, whether in terms of authority or financial means. They begin to question the norms, adults, and society, but at the same time learn to incorporate themselves into it. Such an ambiguous situation makes them become "outsiders" of society. They have low social position and often feel isolated and lonely (Li 1999). Nevertheless, with a fantasized relationship like that of fake-Genei Ryodan, it helps them to reduce isolation, and acting as someone else also serves as an escape from real life powerlessness.
Conclusion
Since I have not finished my data collection and analyses, it is too early to draw any conclusion. However, I am confident that this would be an interesting piece of work since this is not only a study about comics, but also a study about youngsters and the Internet. Indeed, with faster communication, everything seems to be condensed in one container and so is this project. While the growth of communication network shortens the distance between human beings, the distance between adults and youngsters seems insurmountable. I do not intend to do a youth study, but as a comic reader myself, the adult-youth struggle always remains to be my primary concern. However, in the process of working on this study, I notice that whether this struggle is true or not, it is not the youth readers' primary concern. Their primary concern is to read their comic books, to know the latest story, to share and chat with friends having similar interests. The pleasure thus derived is above all else.
This research is far from finishing, but after reading this, I hope you would also find the study of comics interesting, and comic books are not just something merely about violence and pornography or without any value. I did not research on the capacity of comics to provide us with knowledge, but I do believe that readers could gain a lot of pleasure from reading them and making use of them.
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Endnotes
1 Fredric (1954)
The Seduction of the Innocent. New York: Rhinehart
and Wilson. As Bongco (2000:15) describes, "it is amazing
how such an unsound and unscientific piece of research could
have been so powerful." It predispose the bad image of comics
until now.
2 For those
who are interested in the development of comic studies, particularly
to know the reason why comics are always portrayed as the
"bad guy", Bradford W. Wright's work (2001) may be useful.
3 Since I am still collecting data at this point of my research, I may give up the role as an observer at the finalstage if I find any questions that must be asked.
4 連環圖 in Chinese characters.
5 Manga is the pronunciation of the "comics" in Japanese, and I would like to use the term in referring all comics produced in Japan. As a reference, manga is 漫畫 (maahnwà) in traditional Chinese, and 漫画 in Japanese.
6 合訂本 in Chinese traditional characters.
7 Rensai, 連載 in Chinese, which has a meaning of published serially in a publication.
8 単行本 in Japanese kanji. Similarly, Hong Kong Chinese version manga in such a small booklet is also called dàanhòhngbún (單行本) in Chinese.
9 超格 in Chinese traditional characters meaning "going over the panels ( gaak in Cantonese)".
10 Duration is presented in a variety of methods. In manga, sometimes a blank panel is also used to represent "some time has passed away," letting the readers know that the events in consecutive panels do not necessarily follow each other in time. However, blank panel can be used to represent other abstract meanings also.
11 In Hong Kong, the group headmaster is called bàanjyù (版主) or gùkjyú (谷主), bàanjyù is taken from the idea of BBS as BBS is a bîkboubàan (壁佈板) in Cantonese, and gùk is taken from the pronunciation of "group" in the term "newsgroup". And therefore a newsgroup is usually called "XX gùk" or "XX bàan", "XX" represents the main topic of that newsgroup. For example, a newsgroup dedicated to comics is called "comics gùk" or "comics bàan".
12 斬版 in traditional Chinese characters.
13 Takaya
(1998-).
14 Emoticons are symbolic pictures made from the keyboard. It is used in computer communication to convey emotions, constructed by arranging standard keyboard characters that are usually to be viewed sideways, turning your head 90 degrees to your left shoulder.
15 Togashi
(1998-).
16 MUD, full name as multi-user domain, means a virtual online space in which several participants can contribute to a communal project, for example, a collaboratively written story or a game for several players.
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