Public notebook

From manga to a drawing style of your own: when influence stops being copying

Learning to draw usually begins with copying. The question is what happens next, and there is no simple answer. This text brings together a case documented in detail, a laboratory study and the award-winning work of a Spanish author, and flags what they do not allow us to conclude.

An author who began by copying

Juan Albarrán, from Barcelona, draws Matagi Gunner, scripted by Shōji Fujimoto, for Morning, a seinen magazine published by the Japanese company Kodansha. He recounts this in an interview with The Comics Journal by Ritesh Babu and Ari Bard, dated 31 October 2022 (a date yet to be confirmed, as the page I read does not display it).

Nobody in his family read comics when he was a child, but he was given whatever was to hand: Superman and Spider-Man anthologies, Superlópez and European comics. He says he always needed to try it himself, and that "from reading those comics, I started copying them".

Manga arrived later. His initial encounter, during adolescence, was the film Akira; the manga was published in Spain owing to its success. He later collected Dragon Ball. In his view, anime served as the gateway through which manga entered Spain.

From copying to a profession

His career path was not direct. He abandoned drawing for several years, returning at approximately 32 or 33 years of age, when he enrolled at the Joso school in Barcelona. He worked as an inker for DC Comics for seven years. When the pandemic paralysed that market, he sought work as an assistant to manga authors, wrote and drew a baseball one-shot of his own, Play Ball, which a friend translated and an assistant lettered in Japanese, and submitted it to a competition for new authors at Morning magazine. A few months later, Morning offered him Matagi Gunner.

The original aspect of his work, according to him

This is his assessment, and I have not evaluated his pages.

Style. He notes that the female characters in his drawings appear manga-esque, while the male characters do so to a lesser extent, and that there is a distinction he cannot name. He would prefer to resemble the manga he reads more closely, and he considers that this difference may perhaps be an advantage. Editors sought a conventional and neutral style, and he designed over one hundred character variations over the course of three months.
Action. He explains that Morning lacked action manga similar to his own and that he brings a superhero comic sensibility to those scenes: he compares a confrontation in the series to one between Daredevil and Elektra.
Nods. He includes references to Kamen Rider and Ultraman, which he modifies to avoid complications. He further notes that editors are stringent regarding the use of copyrighted material for references.

Copying as a method: a study

Takeshi Okada and Kentaro Ishibashi published "Imitation, Inspiration, and Creation" in Cognitive Science (41(7), 2017, pp. 1804-1837). They conducted three experiments with university students who lacked specialised artistic training:

Experiment 1. They compared copying an artist's drawing followed by creating an original one; creating an original one without having viewed external work; and copying a work followed by drawing independently while imitating its style. The works were unfamiliar abstract drawings. Copying allowed for the production of creative drawings qualitatively distinct from the models, and analysis of the process indicated that cognitive constraints were relaxed and new perspectives were formed.
Experiment 2. They exposed participants to familiar styles, primarily representational, and unfamiliar styles, primarily abstract. Only the unfamiliar styles facilitated creativity.
Experiment 3. They compared copying the work, observing it closely for approximately twenty minutes, and thinking about alternative styles without copying or observing. Copying and observing an unfamiliar style facilitated creativity; merely thinking about alternatives did not.

The authors conclude that profound encounters with unfamiliar works, whether through copying or prolonged observation, alter one's internal representation of the act of drawing and facilitate original work. It is not maintained that any form of copying improves creativity: the effect depended upon the style being unfamiliar and the depth of the engagement.

This has clear limitations. It is a laboratory study involving university students without specialised artistic training, and I have not located the number of participants for each experiment. The works were abstract, not manga. It does not state whether manga is an unfamiliar style to someone who already reads it, nor what occurs outside the laboratory setting.

An award-winning Spanish author

Ana C. Sánchez is the author of Limbo, published by Planeta Cómic. The work won the award for best manga by a Spanish author at Manga Barcelona 2023, according to the festival’s official list of winners. I have not read any statements from her regarding her influences or her learning process, and I do not attribute any to her.

The case shows that there is recognised Spanish authorship in manga. It does not show how the influence of manga becomes a voice of one’s own.

Scope of the conclusions

In my view, within Albarrán's account, influence does not become original work by avoiding resemblance. He himself would prefer to resemble more closely what he admires. The distinction emerges in the decisions he makes under constraints: what he brings from superhero comics to an adult manga magazine, what he alters in a nod to avoid mere copying, and which references he may employ. This is my interpretation of a single testimony.

It cannot be concluded that copying manga produces an original style. The study by Okada and Ishibashi found an effect with unfamiliar styles and deep engagement, rather than with any form of copying. A case such as Albarrán's, a professional with editors and assistants, does not serve as a model for a beginner. Furthermore, this text contains no data regarding young manga learners.

There is a practical method for evaluating one's own drawing, which is mine and not derived from the sources. Ask yourself what you have altered regarding the reference, what decisions you have made concerning anatomy, framing, or rhythm, and what you have incorporated from other traditions. If you cannot find an answer, you are likely still copying; and copying, for the purpose of learning, is acceptable.

How to study using external references, and what changes when the drawing is published, is addressed in Using visual references for drawing. Publishing or selling those copies is a separate matter, explained in Fanart: what you can do with third-party characters. If you wish to submit your work to a competition or a portfolio review, Manga competitions and portfolio reviews in Spain outlines the conditions. And to organise the terminology, Manga, manhwa, webtoon and comic: what each word means.

An open conversation

This text distinguishes between verified figures, inconsistent figures, and interpretation. If you work in publishing, bookselling, libraries, or reading research and can clarify any data, you may write to me.

The author's relationship to the cases

There is no financial, professional, or collection-based relationship with Juan Albarrán, Kodansha, The Comics Journal, Planeta Cómic, or the authors of the cited study.

Sources

Discover more from Juan A. Esteban

Subscribe to receive the latest posts by email.