Reman Mythology
Amy Kim Ganter
Free
Epic Manga Done Right
by William G.
with commentary by Amy Kim Ganter
Hi there, I'm William G. and this is my debut on The Webcomics Examiner. You may know me better as the guy they interviewed hereabouts for the July issue. I was also the first artist to have a comic reviewed here. That's right, I'm "Who's this guy?"
Joe Zabel asked me if I'd like to do some writing for the site, and after I figured out that this would be a marvelous way for me to keep slacking off on my own webcomic, I immediately said yes. But I wanted to do something a slight bit different from the typical "I like it cuz' it's purdy" webcomic review. What I want to do is take a closer look at a comic and the things that I think work about it. And then I want to turn around and ask the artist "What were you thinking?"
That's right, a review with artist feedback included. Ain't dat wild? Obviously, I'm trying something a little new here, and if we're lucky, this will work, people will love the concept all to death, and maybe, just maybe, we'll see peace in our time. If not, my next review will be, "I like it cuz' it's purdy." Ready? Lets begin.
This month's comic is Reman Mythology, by Amy Kim Ganter. Ganter's bio states that she was born in 1980 in the state of New York. She began drawing early, and her interest in the manga style bloomed when she traveled to Korea with her mother as a teenager. There she was exposed to and fell in love with Japanese shojou manga and Ranma 1/2. She graduated from the School Of Visual Arts in 2002, co-habitated, works as a freelancer, and is granting us a nice comic on a weekly basis.
Here's a quick summary of the series:
Somewhere out there are two worlds named Rema and Nonak. Nonak is a dying planet that has a habit of dropping in and putting the boots to Rema from time to time. The Remans would prefer that they not do that, so they have taken to sending agents out across the universe to find some sort of something that will help Nonak flourish again. On Earth, depressed-yet-hawt fangirl Tabby catches moody-yet-hawt Reman prince Philip performing some magic. As most would do in this situation, Tabby follows the magic-using hawt guy into the woods all by herself. Thankfully, this is a fantasy comic, and instead of something dreadful happening to her, Tabby winds up on Rema. Epic fantasy-type hijinks ensue.
--The Writing--
One of the promotional blurbs for the comic mentions "the death of religion." This seems like a pretty hefty topic to be tossing around for one's storyline. In fact, this seems to have all of the earmarks of a comic that one could easily label "an epic." Unfortunately, the web is littered with the corpses of similar intended epics, so what makes this one any different?
For one thing, Ganter seems to be satisfied with taking her time and establishing the characters and the world they live in. We're currently about two hundred pages into the story, and Ganter has yet to jump the gun by having something earth-shattering occur. That's not to say there hasn't been any action, but the action is not there just for the sake of itself. It serves the much more lofty goal of explaining to us just what's going on in the world of Rema.
In a way, this makes reviewing the comic a bit difficult. If you can imagine reviewing The Lord Of The Rings even though you've only read up to the adventures of Tom Bombadil, you'll know what I mean. And if you don't know what I mean, I can only suggest that you read a book sometime. Thankfully, Ganter's writing style is both easy to follow and highly competent. While she does seem to understand the otaku vibe of her comic and the demands of the otaku audience, she doesn't let that carry the story away. She's able to balance on that line between telling a good story and giving her audience what they want.
She could have easily gone 100% otaku on the rest of us and used a lot of strange Japenglish-sounding names while swimming in every manga cliché like a pig in mud, but she doesn't. She sticks with fairly universal characters, giving the non-otaku audience a chance to enjoy the story with easily understandable character names like Philip, Paeter, and Tabby. There's not a "Mariko-chan" or "Lahleelooley Lowe" in the bunch.
The webcomics world is filled with an over-abundance of niche-marketed comics that seemed designed to alienate those not in the know. Don't own an X-Box? Too bad. Ganter seems to be aiming for a more general audience, and her writing has risen above the crowd because of it. I feel that this ability to balance all of the demands of various audiences while making the story she seems to want to be making is admirable, and I feel that this is her main strength as a writer.
Ganter Sez:
After reading this review on my writing, the first thing I think of is: "Man, I'm AWESOME!!" haha~
I also let out a sigh of relief. I've been working on this story for 10+ years now, and it's a constant state of wondering whether or not my message is getting across the way I want it to. You've picked up on the things that I'm trying achieve with my comic so far as well as understanding that the story is still in the beginning. I'm always worried that I'm telling my story too slowly, but I don't want to rush things and no one has complained to me about it yet, so I guess I'm doing alright.
The topic of the death of religion is a very hefty one, but I try not to get too wordy or abstract with my stories. I want to guide the reader through an experience, and I suppose that experience reflects my own thoughts on life and humanity. I figure if I just draw out the story as honestly as I can, it'll speak for itself and people can come to their own conclusions. However, since the comic is planned to be 10 books long, that conclusion won't be reached for a long time. Maybe by that time I'll lose all my readers because I was taking so long heh heh...
As for my attitude on hitting a general audience, you've again picked up on my true goals. I want my story to be easy to read for anyone, not just a fan of one thing or another, the story deals with broader subjects that are universal (I hope).
--Art--
One of the universal "rules" of webcomics is that the comics that have legs are the ones that start off pretty unremarkable, artistically speaking. And then much like the ugly duckling in the story, the art blooms into something memorable.
Now, before you all start clamoring to give me an award for stating the obvious, I'd like to point out that this growth that happens before our eyes is something lacking in the print world. If you submit art to a representative of the big publishers, you'll never hear them say, "You need to improve your anatomy and panel layouts. The best way to do that is for you to have a twelve issue Superior Man series of your own. Let's get publishing!" They don't want you until you've reached a certain level. Not to say that the big names of the industry didn't have their own growing pains as they learned their craft, it's just that we didn't see them.
I think that's one of the things that attract people to webcomics. The ability to share the growing experience with your favorite artist. That documentation pulls the double duty of making the fans feel like they're part of the experience, as well as showing the up and comers that, yes, even that smooth-looking artist had trouble drawing hands at one time. It's encouraging.
Ganter's Reman Mythology series is no exception. Now, I'm not claiming that her first few chapters sucked. "Sucked" is such a subjective term. Having graduated from the School of Visual Arts with a degree in Cartooning, Ganter was already well equipped with a complete set of artistic skills when she began work on her epic. Anatomy, character-object interaction, hands- Those were all there. But for me, her early work seems a bit on the flat side. She seemed to be a lot more comfortable with drawing nature than with things such as buildings. As a result, I couldn't get a feeling for Tabby's environment.
Practice makes perfect may be an old cliché, but it's deadly true in the art world. As Ganter shifted the setting from boring old Earth to Rema, she seemed to have kicked herself into high gear. It was a natural move to make -- if you're going go to an alien planet, then you're going to have to show why it's an alien planet -- but also a smart one on her part. Having to show that Tabby was no longer home, Ganter had to start putting more work into her backgrounds to make Rema seem more "real." She began utilizing gray tones more effectively than she had before, and suddenly Rema was a world filled with amazing depth.
While Ganter is no artistic slouch, her highly skilled use of tones is what has propelled her art above all of her manga style comrades out there in webcomic land. She could have easily aped a lot of the Japanese toning methods like many do. But, like her writing, she again was able to step away from her influences and strike out on her own.
Recently, she has won the WCCA's award for outstanding environmental design. This is well deserved. It makes sense that in a world where people know how to fly, that their architecture would have a lot more emphasis on being above the ground. And that they would equip their buildings with many ledges for the weary flier to take a rest on. It seems like a given when you think about it.
It's these simple things that tend to get overlooked by a lot of artists working with fantastical worlds. Thankfully, Ganter knows what she's doing, and we're rewarded with a living world.
Ganter Sez:
I'm really glad I didn't have internet access when I was in high school and still developing as an artist. I ripped off Rumiko Takahashi and Sailor Moon every chance I got.
I would've surely been labeled as a wannabe manga artist and, considering how sensitive and reclusive I was in high school, I might've given up if told that enough times. Whenever I see kids on forums posting their manga stuff, which are usually promptly followed by someone commenting on how they need to change their style, I always try to encourage them somehow because I know I started out the same way. Once you find that you DO have something important you want to say to the world with all your soul, your style will change into something more unique. This is my belief, anyway.
There're many subjects I don't know about, architecture being one of them. In fact, the inspiration for the thing about platforms to rest on came from playing a Castlevania game. There was this tower, there were no stairs. There were only platforms and you had to jump up them. How impractical would that be in the real world? But it was perfect for a world with flying. Also, this way I don't have to draw stairs! How sweet is that!?
There's lots of subjects involved in creating a unique world that I'm not really well-versed in (Language for example...), but I'm not sure it's a requirement. I believe if you give enough hints of what the world is about and include weird details in the background, the reader will put the pieces together to fill in the blanks. The world will become something they had a part in putting together as well, like in a dream. Or, this is something I strive to do with my environments.
I think the grayscales thing came about because I was frustrated with using tones and hatching. They weren't giving me the sheen I was striving for, even though I wasn't really sure exactly WHAT I was looking for. I just kept experimenting, which is how pretty much all of my work comes about. I usually pencil and ink using traditional material (inks are done with micron pens). I work on Japanese comic paper, just because I happen to have it lying around. The inks are scanned, then I separate the line work into a transparent layer in Photoshop where I add grays, sometimes referencing to older pages to keep the tones consistent. I'd say that my reliance on grays has become such a part of my process, that my line work alone represents only half of the finished page.
--The Rest--
One of the more overlooked aspects of webcomics is the site itself. Bad site design turns people off. There are a few things that I feel should be taboo by now. For example, multi-colored text on a black background. Using other people's images to decorate your site. And not having your site's navigation obvious and easy to follow. I'd link a good example of what not to do, but then the owner of the site might look at the increased hits as a sign that they're doing a good job.
Ganter's site is presented in frames. To the right is that week's comic and some bloggery below it. To the left are the site navigation links. It's all very simply laid out and very easy to look at. She's using a neutral blue background that doesn't distract you from the comic. Below her current page are the archive links. But I would suggest trying to find her archives through her "Comics" links. On the Reman Mythology subpage, you'll find what I assume to be an older version of her site. On it there are some pieces of reference art that gives us a bit of a look into how she conceptualized her world.
Over all, this is a smooth web-viewing experience.
That's it for now. I'd like to thank Amy Kim Ganter for her participation. Have a good one.
