Japanese-style Manga comics excite UBM students

A. Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Dozens of students at Bunda Mulia University were listening intently to Japanese comic artist Machiko Maeyama's presentation during the workshop on comics at their campus in North Jakarta.

Maeyama, who runs a manga school in Kemang, South Jakarta, was explaining and demonstrating how to draw manga characters, including the popular wide-eyed characters.

All the students were familiar with the drawing style.

"Manga comics are very popular in the world. They also have influenced many students here," said Fernando, a student at UBM's school of visual communication design.

However, Fernando, who has won several local animation competitions, said he preferred to combine the Japanese-style with the American style, which is particularly known for the macho looks of its super-hero figures.

According to him, Indonesian comics are different from Japanese and American comics, in the sense that the former features drawings with natural looks.

"Our comics are good. But, probably, they need more publicity," Fernando, who was also the head of the workshop's organizing committee, said.

The workshop was part of the "Komikasia 2005" event, which was held by UBM in cooperation with the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) and the Japan Foundation from Nov. 25 to Nov. 27.

Several comics by UBM's students were also exhibited in the campus during the event.

The comics depict the life of young people, often during sports and school activities, as well as imaginative things.

The influence of manga is strong. Wide eyes, small noses, thin lips and slim bodies in black and white or pastel colors are often chosen by the students for their figures.

Some of them were hand-painted, while the others were computer-generated.

ITB's visual design lecturer Hafiz Ahmad said he was excited to see the increasing attention of young people in comics, as well as the increase in the number of events held to promote the art.

"Now, so many young people want to be comic artists. It's very different from the past years," Hafiz said during a talk at the university's campus.

He said many companies and publications now needed people who had skill in drawing and animating for advertisements of their products.

Aside from business purposes, he said, comics could be used to promote education, as comics could make certain studying materials, such as math and physics, more interesting and understandable.

"Comics have been used as communication media everywhere. Sometimes, we do not realize that," explained Hafiz.

Speaking at the same forum, Retno Kristy, an editor of publishing company Elex Media Komputindo, said publishing companies were also in need of local comics. She thus invited young artists to send their comic art to her company.

"Making comics can be an interesting job," Retno said.

She added that her company would pay comic artists 10 percent of the sales.

The artists will get 25 percent of the royalty as a down payment after the books have been printed, regardless of the number of sales of their comic books.

However, Retno said her company required that the drawings should not contain violence or offend religions, ethnic groups, races of other groups.