Some may not see the major differences between Manga and Comic books, there are distinct differences between the two artworks, that differentiate them. There are some who may think one is better than the other, with so many similarities, the differences they have aren’t enough to merit which is better. I will focus on the style of both here. One of the major differences to notice between a comic and a manga is the style and distribution, most manga are usually printed in book form, in black and white, and are fairly clunky. Comics are usually sold as magazines, with coloured print. The key difference is the manga tends not to be coloured, while comic books are.

Other differences to notice is that manga are usually read in the reverse order of comics, what westernized readers think of as the last page of the story is usually the first page. The panels on each manga page are mostly ordered from right to left instead of left to right, and the writings are usually vertical. Manga are usually more visual than comics, and contain fewer words. The drawings in manga are much more simpler than comics. Manga stories are usually longer than comic stories.

Everyone has their preference when it comes to comic and manga, and we cannot use their differences to determine which is better as that will be an endless debate. So the question to you is comics or manga?

Closure is the Tendency to perceive a whole out of incomplete parts and to fill in gaps in sequences and patterns. In other words, closure is the act of mentally filling in the gaps of what we observe, thus allowing readers to comprehend the action and meaning between two seemingly unrelated panels. The reader observes two separate panels and mentally pieces together what happens in between them, even though there is no panel containing what actually happened.

In comics closure helps create the illusion of time and motion out of static images. An example to help try visualize what closure means in comics and manga; when reading a superhero comic or an action manga, and there is a panel where two characters are shown looking at each other angrily, with one holding a stick, then the next panel shows one character on the floor in pain while the other character with the stick still stands, the immediate thought that comes to mind is that there was a fight and the one standing hit the character on the floor with the stick, the thought that comes to mind is the definition of closure. Although it was not shown that the two characters had a fight, a reader will be able to depict the meanings of the two panels as there was a fight, which means the reader used incomplete parts to make a conclusion on what really happened which is what closure is all about.

As explained in the book Understanding Comics, written by Scott McCloud, closure can take many forms, some simple and some complex. There are different categories of closure, as identified by Scott McCloud, depending on which type of page panel that was used, they are as follows:

Moment-To-Moment: this requires very little closure.

Action-to-Action are those transitions featuring a single subject in distinct Action-to-Action progressions,

Subject-to-Subject: this takes us from Subject-to-subject while staying within a scene or idea. The degree of reader involvement is necessary to render these transitions meaningful.

Scene-to-Scene: Deductive reasoning is often required in reading comics in Scene-to-Scene transitions, which transports us across significant distances of time and space.

Aspect-to-Aspect: this bypasses time for the most part and sets a wandering eye on different aspects of a place, idea or mood.

Non-Sequitur: The Non-sequitur offers no logical relationship between panels whatsoever. (McCloud, 1994).

The Concept of closure is one of the most important concepts in Comics and Manga writing, it is the reason why Comic is seen as a ‘cool media’. In movies closure is used every time to create suspense, and that is what draws viewers’ attention to most movies, and that technique has been employed in the writing of comics as well. Closure is very important for understanding comics because it allows the reader to understand the message and meaning between two panels that are not connected in any way, the reader observes the two different panels and mentally connects them to form a meaning of what the writer is trying to convey or how the two panels will be related.

Personally, the Archie comics series has been my favourite series of comics growing up, and a lot of other teenagers who were growing up the same time I was. What exactly really intrigued people especially the teenagers, is it the humour? teen drama? or the fantasy that comes from reading any of the Archie series?. Before I start answering these questions, just a brief introduction of Archie comics for those who have never heard of it.

The Archie Comic Series is an american comic book created by Archie Comic Publications, and the publishing of the Archie series started in 1941. The comic’s major characters are: Archie Andrews, Veronica Lodge, Betty Cooper, and Jughead Jones. The whole series basically revolves around these three characters, Veronica and Betty are best friends, who come from different backgrounds, Veronica has very wealthy parents and spoilt by her parents being she is the only child, Betty on the other hand comes from a normal average family and doesn’t have access to all the luxury Veronica enjoys. From the picture below you should be able to tell which is which

These two girls both have crushes on the orange coloured hair boy named ‘Archie’ who happens to be a ladies favourite and a lover boy, Jughead happens to be crown wearing best friend to Archie, who doesn’t seem to care much about any other thing in life than food. Pretty much this comic series storyline is based off of Teenage love, Teenage drama and a fallacy of living a life that there is never not drama happening. If you know of the show ‘Riverdale’ which is on Netflix, it is basically the movie version of the Archie comic series, just that the show has more tragedy and less humorous than the comic actually is, there were actually no extreme tragedies in the comics but the show does have a lot of that, and that makes one wonder if the show is really about the comic, but it really is.

Of Course for a series that was created since 1941 and is still ongoing till date, there would have been a lot of refurbishment to the way the series is presented. The Refurbishment for the comic started majorly in 2015, the title of the comic was shortened to just ‘Archie’, the outline and look were redesigned to be suitable for a newer generation of readers.

Back to the first questions on why people enjoy reading this comic, I mean it isn’t like any superhero comics that are lot of people like to be obsessed with. Being someone who was a fan of this comic myself, I would say the major attraction to it for me was the humour, in almost every page of every issue in the series, there is always humour attached to at least to one line, also the fantasy of living a teenage life as eventful as the ones the characters in the series had will be another major reason why the series has a lot of teenage fans, and in all the overall structure of the comic. I would end this by saying if you haven’t read any of the Archie series, and you don’t mind feeling like you’re a 12 or 13 year old, you should read one at least, it is worth the read.

From previous posts, we can all define manga as a style of Japanese comic books and graphic novels, Mangas are comics created in Japan, in the 19th century, and has a complex history with Japanese art, and it refers to both comics and cartooning in Japan. Another term that gets used with manga is anime, what is anime? anime is a style of hand-drawn and computer animation with its origin from Japan, Anime is a Japanese term for Animation in Japan, which means all forms of animated media.  Anime is also referred to as a style of Japanese film and television animation, typically aimed at adults as well as children.

so this brings us back to the question is manga the same as anime? even though the two terms are usually juxtaposed, although many may disagree, it should be very clear at this point that manga and anime are two completely different terms, although they both have their origin from the same source, which is Japan, manga is more of the written form of anime, anime is more of the visual form of manga. we could say both manga and anime are both hand-drawn, the former is in a visual form of a book, while the latter is more computerized and has its visual representation on screens.

According to a comment on Anime and Manga on a sci-fi fan site, (https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/39283/what-is-the-difference-between-anime-and-manga) The confusion between the two arises mostly because most times the same story will have both an anime and a manga version. The terminology might be different a little depending on whether the person you talk to is a Japanese person or a westerner, the writer of the comment also goes on o expatiate further on this, there is some debate as to whether non-Japanese cartons qualify as anime. A Japanese person would say that any cartoons at all can be included as anime, including western series like Avatar: the last Airbender or Spongebob Squarepants. Most people outside Japan use the term only to refer to Japanese-origin series, or at least to those which are inspired significantly by Japanese anime, so Avatar might count as anime but Spongebob would definitely not. As with anime, Japanese fans wouldn’t have much problem labeling comics from other countries as manga. In the English world it is more complicated, OEL manga (Original English Language Manga) is now a standard term for comics like megatokyo which are inspired by manga but produced in English speaking countries. there also comics like manhwa (Korean origin comics) and manhua which is a comic which has its origin from China, and both of these comics heavily borrow from manga. Japanese people would usually label all of those as Manga, but the difference between the two can be made by English speakers.

In conclusion, Anime is Animated Japanese cartoon, and Manga is images in a Japanese comic book, the similarity of the two is they both have their origin from Japan.

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