We're near the tail end of a massive anime/manga craze. We watched things like Pokemon turn what was a cult thing into the mass-produced mainstream. Suddenly anime wasn't just for those creepy guys who combed VHS rental stores for that elusive Slayers video. Now sometimes it feels like more artwork on the internet is anime than is not.

But somebody had to teach us all how to draw that delightful new style from Japan! Obviously we'd all pay big bucks if somebody could just make a step-by-step de facto guide to drawing those saucer-eyed school girls and femmie demon overlords.

Where there was a buck to be made, there was Christopher Hart. Hart was a cartoonist who came from a western comics background, and that's where his strengths lie. He had already released several "How to Draw" books based on western comics, heroes, and villains, and they were arguably decent books. Suddenly the great big manga fad came along and Hart saw an opportunity.... if he could mangle his style into some semblance of Manga and get a book out the door, he'd catch a profitable ride on the Manga wave as it began to hit.

And mangle he did. Hart's book "Manga Mania" hit the book stores. Though including a lot of color and example artwork, anyone who was very fimiliar with anime and manga could instantly recognize that this was not a manga pro, but a western comics artist trying to approximate some of the general surface details of a style he did not completely understand. His art looked ungenuine and very western. Add to that the fact that much of the illustrations were unrefined sketches and sloppily enlarged pictures. Still, the book sold quite well.

To be fair, Christopher Hart did pack in some very good art pointers and panel layout tips. But for representing the manga style as a teacher, he failed. We're not quite talking the Katy Coope degree, but still... Hart even included sections on getting a job in the Manga/Anime industry, as if you could. I hate to break some dreams here, but even today, including anime in your portfolio is a great way to get your portfolio ignored. And don't even think you can travel to Japan for your manga job. Christopher Hart is selling you an unattainable pipe dream for $15.95 on paperback.

Hart didn't stop at Manga Mania. He released Manga Madness, Mecha Mania, Chibis and Furries, Anime Mania, Manga Shoujo, Manga Mania Video Games, Magical Girls, Manga Fantasy, Manga Villains, Manga Martial Arts, Manga "Xtreme" Art, and more.
Then, if that wasn't enough, he stemmed into Korean art with Manhwa Mania as if he was some expert in Korean comics.

Has anyone else seen these books and felt like he's not quite qualified to teach Manga art styles? Does somebody think there's actually some good to these books? I'd like to know what some of you other artists and comic-makers think.

Hart's a douche. I remember before I was familiar with him buying an anatomy book he had written, and one of his main points was "you don't have to know about the muscles you can't see", which is true if you just want a passable image, but great artists know not just how something looks, but why it looks that way. It was basically a whole book of "rule of thumb" stuff (the body is 8 heads tall, the nose can be broken down into shapes, etc.).

Yeah I've seen them around. I've bought a lot of how to draw manga books over the last few years, but not any of those. I was never impressed by what I saw in them. They just felt...ungenuine (for lack of a better word).

I've never found even the "good" how to draw manga books even remotely useful. Although I really don't find something like this any worse than the sickening number of books written on Japanese culture by otakus who haven't a clue what they're talking about. Writing papers on Japanese pop culture in college was an incredibly difficult task since most books were based on perceived culture through watching anime and not actual studies of Japanese people. I still have a few of those books which I take out every now and again to laugh at. Unfortunately, I find half assed books written to cash in on a craze tend to really hurt the legitimacy books used to have as a reliable resource.

Some of the worst are the "How To Draw Anime/Manga" done by gradeschool kids. WTF is gonna wanna know how to draw like a 13-year old?!

I have one of that dude's books. It's all a bunch of bullshit for the most part. The stuff only vaguely looks like manga and the best parts of it can all be found online.

Rich
I have one of that dude's books. It's all a bunch of bullshit for the most part. The stuff only vaguely looks like manga and the best parts of it can all be found online.

Same, I bought Manga Mania for some reason. I found Ben Dunn's version a lot better anyway.

I don't particularly care for Ben Dunn either, but at least he has some experience in something that at least vaguely resembles manga.

I own one of Hart's books. It's called "Fusion" about how to combine American and anime styles. What's sad is the guy doesn't even draw all the stuff in the books, and I can draw better than the stuff that's in the latter half. These things should not be on the bookshelves.

The only thing I consider worse is Katy Coope's book. That girl has no idea what the FUCK she's talking about. And I usually don't swear.

I scour the art books section, always looking for something good and interesting (best find so far: Ben Cadwell's Action Cartooning) and I'm always depressed by the shear volume of Chis Hart books. This guy must have written hundreds of how to books because he useally takes about two shelves! The how to books that Scott McCloud laments at the begening of Making Comics are exactly the books that Hart writes.

Hell, I'd bet dollars to pesos that McCloud was thinking about Hart specifically with that. Just has too much class to mention the bastard by name.

looks like Mr Hart has a deal with Del Rey now to do a manga.

http://www.mangablog.net/?p=856 [mangablog.net]

More power to him for the comic, I guess. I haven't bought any of his instruction books, though. My rule of thumb for buying most drawing books is to look at the instructor's credentials and professional experience. It's annoying that good drawing books are often crowded out by a glut of junk that prey on young artists who are looking for a secret formula to getting good.

On Katy Coope:

Wait, how in HELL does a sixteen y/o with average skills publish BOOKS that's being sold by B&N???????????????????????????????????????????

Either her daddy's got huge connections, or she's an amazing business prodigy. I want to know her secret. Now.

Katy was a regular on a forum I used to frequent. She wrote a journal rant on DeviantArt about how her books happened, but I can't find it. She said this, though -

"A company was approached by the main publishing company to produce the book for them, and then they went looking for young artists, found my website and asked if I would be interested."

I feel bad for her - she seemed like a nice person. She made that book a long time ago and people are still going up to her and saying, "Hey, your book SUCKS." (Well, that's the nice version of it.) I'd hate to be trashed on for work I did years ago, and I know if I was 16 and someone offered me money to make a book out of my works, I would have taken it.

http://www.artstudiollc.com/ I think is his site.

I've seen some of his books, he draws like that Totally Spies stuff, yknow the wannabe anime.

Feel bad?!?? If that's how it went down: "I was minding my own business and a publishing company emails me and asks me if I want to do a ****ING BOOK," I'd feel like I'm the luckiest 16 y/o alive! Aspiring artists send piles of portfolios everywhere just for a foot in the door, and she gets ASKED to do A BOOK at 16. I wouldn't give a flying **** if ppl came up to me and told me it sucked. I'd laugh in their face because I have a book being sold by BARNES & NOBLE, and they DON'T. And I'd tell them that.

I still don't believe she was that lucky. She must be a self-marketing prodigy.

Everyone rags on Scott McCloud but I read Understanding Comics and, just recently, Making Comics, and I really liked them. They have a lot of observation and insight that is really good, and because the books are also comics, there are working examples of everything on every page! :)

I've also got a book on perspective in comics by David Chelsea that is really great, it covers a lot of stuff and is in comic format too.

I just ordered a book by Will Eisner that I'm pretty excited about too.

Most of those are all about comic craft more in general though, and not 'how to draw' books... those never really appealed to me, I never wanted to draw LIKE something, I just wanted to know techniques on how to do my own drawings better. :)

McCloud is a genius when it comes to comic crafting; the bad part is when he gets to the "business" part of comics. And occasionally getting to caught up in gimmicks.

What, like the micropayments silliness that even he is giving up on now (the company that was managing the micropayments just went under and the comic Scott was trying to sell is going to soon be freely available online).

You know, I went and looked back in this How to Draw book that Chris Hart did, and I've found that the ones that he actually drew are crap. The only good illustrations in the book are done by someone he must have hired.

It's sad when a so-called "master" of so many styles actually sucks, and the only useful parts of his books are drawn by someone else.

if you are looking for pointers in realistic anatomy Burn Hogarth's "Dynamic Anatomy" is pretty great. Also Grays Anatomy (not the TV show).

People should know better than to buy a how-to book written by a guy who doesn't even work in the field he's teaching. Unfortunately, the situation here in Colombia is even worse, because that kind of book is the norm rather than the exception. Poor manga fans have to deal with instructional books written in Spain and Mexico (besides the Christopher Hart gems) and schools that promote manga courses taught by people who have absolutely no idea what they are talking about, like yours truly. I mean, I applied to teach anatomical drawing, for Pete's sake!

The "how to draw manga" books were the only how to draw anime style books I bought waaaay back when. At least they were made by the Japanese. I do use an actual anatomy book for drawing sometimes. ....and picture references.

beastmaster
schools that promote manga courses

Schools promote manga courses? That's pretty bad. I mean, by doing that they're clumping manga into a tiny little category, and not considering the fact that you MUST know how to draw from life if you're going to do a good comic.

schools should promote life drawing...the best mangas are those that have good background in lifeclasses. manga is a style like cartooning.

My point exactly. And the worst part is, there is no selection, all you have to do is pay. I taught manga lessons simultaneously to 18 year-old guys and 8-year old kids. Mostly, they had never taken a basic drawing course, so they had no idea of anatomy and all they wanted was to learn how to draw Dragon Ball characters in cool poses. It was absolutely depressing. Actually it was one of the reasons I decided to leave manga altogether and take a classic American style.

There's no classic American or manga style. I mean, look at a guy like Ed McGuinness. He draws Batman/Superman among other things for DC Comics, but his style is kind of like a mesh of American style with some manga features. He tends to put a lot of really bulky muscles on his male characters, but the features and hair look really manga-ish.

But that guy obviously knows how to draw from life, or he wouldn't know where all the muscles go or how weight it placed when people are falling backward, etc. Taking a "How To Learn To Draw Like Ed McGuinness" course would be a waste of time, because what happens if that artist suddenly isn't popular anymore? But the human body always stays basically the same, so it's a fantastic learning tool. It's about knowing how to pick up on basic proportions and how the muscles work and how to body moves and applying that to fictional characters whose exterior designs you create.

i think he means classic american style like norman rockwell

Manga classes, interesting. lol! When I was in school (high school and college), drawing in manga style was not only discouraged, but downright forbidden in a lot of cases.

Maybe it's just the schools that I went to, but I share the same opinion as most of my teachers - you need to learn to draw from life before you start taking on manga if you really want to get good at it and develop your own style. Yes, you can pick up a "How to Draw" book, memorize it from cover to cover and draw manga exactly like it shows you how to, but honestly? 90% of that stuff is just cookie cutter and probably isn't going to get you very far if you want to do it professionally. To me anyway, the manga I generally enjoy is the stuff that shows that the artist has a firm grasp of the basics outside of "look, I can draw people with big eyes and tiny mouths".

I dunno. I suppose the same thing can be said for Western comics. It's just more prevalent right now in "manga" style because that's what seems to be popular at the moment. =p

It depends on the school you go to and what program you're in. Generally, high schools want to focu on the fine arts. They may make some exceptions for art which is already pretty refined and artists who have shown an ability to draw which extends outside the stylized comic forms. Most of the peple who draw in the manga style, especially those who think they can learn to draw through the "how to draw" books, lack the artistic background to even make their cookie cutter stuff look right. They can copy images andposes, sometimes, but when it comes to creating heir own work, they get lost.

On the college level, it really depends on the school you go to an what program you're in. Obviously, a liberal arts college is usually a less likely place to find art programs that encourag comic or manga styles. Most only have fine arts programs. At an art school, however, in the proper context, you might find teachers who encourage the style if you're good at it. Truthfully, in the animation industry it's becoming an increasingly good thing to be able to mimic the anime styles. Most TV animation is either direct from Japan or anime-wannabe shows. In sequential art and illustration, the need for manga and anime style art is also getting greater and teachers are more likely to encourage a style of art if it's what employers are looking for.