Comics.

♪~It's raaaanting time again!~♪ (To the tune of this gem: www.youtube.com/watch?v=67dVpg… )


OK. So comics in Hungary (and comics and me). Let's begin with the big reveal!

THERE IS SUCH THING AS A HUNGARIAN COMIC BOOK!

Actually there are currently two (relatively) big categories of it:
1) The classic.
2) The "artsy".

The 2nd category is... well... a product of the cons (the yearly Hungarocomix to be precise) where the hard core local fans try to prove the world that comics are art and they soooo have nothing to do with the manga reading children (more on this later). The world is uninterested. Are these things good? I don't know. I never read one. From some cursory glances they seem weird though.

The 1th category was mostly produced in th 70s 80s, consists almost exclusively of adaptations and was serialized in the magazine "Füles", which mostly printed/prints crossword-puzzles. It was also drawn by a handful of artists with not much clue about sequential storytelling so all have a dreadful tendency to tell not show... not to mention giant narration boxes full of text. In international perspective most are kind of average.

Historically these are the product of the late socialism, when the wise and benevolent party leadership finally realized that escapism is a need to be filled in the life of the victorious "working class", but still didn't abandon the idea of "we-will-make-you-cultured-even-if-you-die". (If someone gets the feeling that that time was paradoxically both snobbish and prone to anti-intellectualism... well, it was. It publicly railed against kitsch while gleefully creating its own.)

The whole thing later withered and died when imported / translated (and better) works became available from the mid 80s. Mostly French-Belgian titles, but American comics were not far behind (in superhero comics we got the Bronze Age 5-10 years later than originally published). And these are the comics of my childhood. Yeah. I grew up on Asterix, Smurfs, Garfield and Chris Claremont's X-Men amongst others... Despite my mom's best efforts as she is one of those people who think: "pictures are for those, who can't read" (Ironically I'm the one watching movies subtitled, though. Go figure.)

I admit I kind of lost sight of our comic publishing in the late 90s early 2000s because... well, I moved on to tabletop gaming and I had to choose between buying comics or source books and tie-in novels. I actually regret my choice in some cases*. And also because the local publisher lost the MARVEL rights... or this is what we were told as readers. Now I highly suspect they never even had it. The times after the fall of state socialism were murky and unregulated, yes, there were actual pirate publishers. There is a reason piracy is so rampant around here, not so long ago that was your only option and old habits die hard. So back to topic. I do know there was a slump in comic publishing at that time, I suspect the losing rights and the cheaper property not catching on was the main reason. Even when they tried to use the Sailor Moon / Dragon Ball craze to publish manga (unfortunate choice of titles like Video Girl Ai didn't help).

Speaking of manga I returned to comics thanks () through them in college (*cough*scanlations*cough*). And that's what finally helped the local comic publishing out of that low point in the late 2000s**, but it also significantly rearranged the landscape. Before this comics were generally published as magazines, and sold at the news stands. But manga publishing shifted this to trade paperbacks / collected editions which are sold in bookstores... yes, even that of American comics.

It still remains a niche pastime to this very day, and the supply meager but it's a lot better than 10 or 15 years ago.

Oh... What? I forgot to explain what I meant with the "manga reading children" and the comic fans? Well... There is a "bit" of friction. Older anime / manga fans tend to also read western comics. But in general the two sides ignore each other, or try to distance themselves from another. Which I feel is unfortunate. ... And fans of webcomics / fancomics have really nowhere to go.




* Hungarian tabletop gaming... that's a whole other can of worms. Maybe in a different rant.
** Why not earlier? Internet penetration. The local anime/manga fandom was born on the internet and could never become the force it is now without the SuliNet program which brought internet to all schools in the country. (Lot's and lot's of fangirls. I doubt our politicians were aiming for this.)