Graphic Novel, Manga, and Doodle Fiction: Similarities and Differences

     Graphic Novel, Manga, and Doodle Fiction: 

Similarities and Differences

Introduction

    Literature has played an important role to society. It is the human's way of entertainment, information relay, and preservation of culture. It is important to everyone because it preserves memories, emotions, knowledge, lifestyle, and etc. Literature has drastically evolved through the times. During the 21st century, these literary pieces have transcended from paper to the digital world and has never stopped ever since. The most iconic pieces of literature of today's world are called memes. However, memes wouldn't exist without the other forms of Literature.

    In this blog, I am going to specify three very important and renowned 21st Century Literary Masterpieces, and then I will compare and contrast them. The three pieces are the aforementioned on the title: Graphic Novel, Manga, and Doodle Fiction. 

    Graphic Novels are narrative and written in comic book formats. These novels can be employed in broad manner, encompassing non-fiction to fiction, from short to long stories. An example to this is the Archie Comics by John Goldwater and illustrator, Bob Montana. 

    Manga, a Japanese word for comics, is a generic term for all comic books and graphic novels originally published in Japan. Manga has many genres as well, some of these are Shonen, or boy's manga (e.g. Naruto), Shojo, or girl's manga (e.g. Sailor Moon), Seinin, or men's manga (e.g. Akira), Josei, or women's manga (e.g. Paradise Kiss), Kodomo, or children's manga (e.g. Doraemon), and many more. 

  

     Lastly, Doodle Fictions are literary presentations where the author incorporates doodle writing, drawing, and handwritten graphics in place of the traditional font to enhance the story, or to add humurous effects. A perfect example to these are The Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney.

Similarities

    All of these genres incorporate drawings, illustration, or graphics in telling a story. This is just basic definition of each of the genre. Doodle Fictions use doodles for a more humorous and/or engaging effect, while both of the Manga and Graphic Novels use a comic book style. All of these styles, to be even more obvious, contains pictures that engages viewers effectively. These are all from the 21st Century. Each genre couldn't come into being without the assistance of a computer or through digital mechanisms.

    For the specific contexts, Manga and Graphic Novels are both in comic book style as aforementioned repetitively. They use panels with illustrations and texts for readers to quickly understand. Doodle Fictions and Graphic Novels are not necessarily from a specific country, as long as the literary piece contains elements with or defines itself as these genres, they can be branded likewise.

Differences

In Terms of Elements

    Although they have their many respective elemental similarities, they're most common elemental difference is in art style and narration. Doodle fictions use handwritten elements to write its text and drawing. Manga use a very specific Japanese art style to draw the graphics, also they are read from right to left. Elements in Manga always pertain, exclusively, to the Japanese. These Japanese elements include culture, the people, environment, behavior, and the likes. Whereas, the Doodle Fictions and Graphic Novels can be from any country. Lastly, Graphic novels use a very Americanized art style in drawing the comic, and must be read from left to right.

In Terms of Structure

    Structural differences in Manga and Graphic Novels are very little since both are in comic book style. Both of which have panels to separate a scene from another scene. In terms of text, they vary their language and structure in the formality of the pieces. Basically, the most obvious difference in structure is in contrast to Doodle Fictions. Doodle Fictions follow a novel or story book type of narration, unlike the Manga and Graphic Novels. Doodle fictions show both text and pictures in a way like articles are written, while, the comic book styles don't.

Conclusion

    The three of these 21st century literary masterpieces have many similarities and differences in terms of structure and elements, yet, these don't actually matter when you read them. Just have fun, be entertained, appreciate the art, and live life at your fullest. Always remember to keep rekindling the fire of literature.

All sources for the definition of each literature came from 21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World.