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Blue lock and fencing and sports comics
Jul. 4th, 2023 09:01 pmSo I binged all of Blue Lock in about three days, after turning my nose up at the very premise when it first dropped in 2018. And like... I like it. But not the way I like Haikyuu!!, which is also a sports manga that occupies a lot of my brainspace. Blue Lock doesn't make me want to draw fanart or write fanfiction. I don't even have a favorite character in it. I guess I like Bachira and Chigiri if I really had to pick, but I don't think about any of them often enough to do that. But it gets me fired up in a way Haikyuu!! rarely did, because its pace was a lot more...slow and steady?
Blue Lock is operating at 200% intensity, all the time. Every soccer game is accompanied by characters burning with symbolic fire, usually fire with skulls in it. Every single soccer player wants to be the bestest in the world at all costs, unlike Haikyuu!! where for most of the characters high school volleyball really was just a school club they didn't continue with after high school. They're all doing crazy soccer things at all times, and even though I know basically nothing about soccer and have no interest in it, seeing them doing their crazy soccer things illustrated with sharp, graphic visual metaphors like disintegrating puzzle pieces, fire, lions and tigers and snakes (oh my!) makes me feel excited.
But not about soccer. No, it makes me excited because my first thought is, "Oh, I can draw people fencing like this. I can make fencing look cool if I draw it like this. I want to draw my fencing comic again."
I've drawn at least 4 different comics about high school girls fencing, the quality slowly improving with each attempt. I've finally landed on a group of characters I think could really work for a longform story, but my art still has a ways to go before it's publication ready. So I'm practicing!
There's a lot of manga about baseball (obviously), and more than a few series about volleyball and soccer (Farewell, My Dear Cramer is honestly slept on even though it got cancelled before its time. The anime was a very sad excuse for an adaptation. Feral girl rights!), but as far as comics about fencing that are available in English in any capacity go, we've got the webtoon Infinity (genuinely slaps hard, art style's an acquired taste but the writing is smart, characters fun and they do make an effort to make fencing look cool while taking advantage of the vertical scroll format.) And the Boom! series Fence!, which I liked when it first dropped and then slowly realized it was in fact falling apart at the seams. And each new issue just makes the holes bigger. One of its biggest failings is, quite honestly, the art: the fact that it makes fencing look boring.
Fencing is not actually as visually interesting a sport as swashbuckling swordfights in movies make it seem: everyone wears white, faces are totally obscured by black wire mesh masks, and you can't even move from side to side in it, just back and forth! You have to use visual metaphors and, if working in color, emotionally expressive color to make fencing look interesting in a comic. But Fence! doesn't even differentiate the fencing uniforms from different schools realistically: it's impossible to keep track of who's from where when they're standing around. Infinity manages that and more. Like, okay, just look at this.
AAAAAAAAAAA.
Anyway, the other thing I realized is that the last few comics I've felt insane about, Blue Lock and Pyramid Game, have both been... unhinged. Lots of people behaving in ways normal people would never. Hand in unlovable hand toxic female friendships and singleminded homoerotic soccer obsession. But when I write original stories/make original comics, I tend towards things that people call "cute" and "sweet" and "nice." I don't think my work is cutesy or anything, and I'd like to believe I make things with at least some bite to them. At least a little darkness. But why am I so scared of writing the over-the-top intensity and character drama I love reading about so much? Why am I so afraid of writing failgirls, and totally unhinged girls? How do I channel the energy Blue Lock awakens in me, or the spite Fence! makes me feel?
Anyway, Blue Lock should've been a yuri manga.
Blue Lock is operating at 200% intensity, all the time. Every soccer game is accompanied by characters burning with symbolic fire, usually fire with skulls in it. Every single soccer player wants to be the bestest in the world at all costs, unlike Haikyuu!! where for most of the characters high school volleyball really was just a school club they didn't continue with after high school. They're all doing crazy soccer things at all times, and even though I know basically nothing about soccer and have no interest in it, seeing them doing their crazy soccer things illustrated with sharp, graphic visual metaphors like disintegrating puzzle pieces, fire, lions and tigers and snakes (oh my!) makes me feel excited.
But not about soccer. No, it makes me excited because my first thought is, "Oh, I can draw people fencing like this. I can make fencing look cool if I draw it like this. I want to draw my fencing comic again."
I've drawn at least 4 different comics about high school girls fencing, the quality slowly improving with each attempt. I've finally landed on a group of characters I think could really work for a longform story, but my art still has a ways to go before it's publication ready. So I'm practicing!
There's a lot of manga about baseball (obviously), and more than a few series about volleyball and soccer (Farewell, My Dear Cramer is honestly slept on even though it got cancelled before its time. The anime was a very sad excuse for an adaptation. Feral girl rights!), but as far as comics about fencing that are available in English in any capacity go, we've got the webtoon Infinity (genuinely slaps hard, art style's an acquired taste but the writing is smart, characters fun and they do make an effort to make fencing look cool while taking advantage of the vertical scroll format.) And the Boom! series Fence!, which I liked when it first dropped and then slowly realized it was in fact falling apart at the seams. And each new issue just makes the holes bigger. One of its biggest failings is, quite honestly, the art: the fact that it makes fencing look boring.
Fencing is not actually as visually interesting a sport as swashbuckling swordfights in movies make it seem: everyone wears white, faces are totally obscured by black wire mesh masks, and you can't even move from side to side in it, just back and forth! You have to use visual metaphors and, if working in color, emotionally expressive color to make fencing look interesting in a comic. But Fence! doesn't even differentiate the fencing uniforms from different schools realistically: it's impossible to keep track of who's from where when they're standing around. Infinity manages that and more. Like, okay, just look at this.
AAAAAAAAAAA.
Anyway, the other thing I realized is that the last few comics I've felt insane about, Blue Lock and Pyramid Game, have both been... unhinged. Lots of people behaving in ways normal people would never. Hand in unlovable hand toxic female friendships and singleminded homoerotic soccer obsession. But when I write original stories/make original comics, I tend towards things that people call "cute" and "sweet" and "nice." I don't think my work is cutesy or anything, and I'd like to believe I make things with at least some bite to them. At least a little darkness. But why am I so scared of writing the over-the-top intensity and character drama I love reading about so much? Why am I so afraid of writing failgirls, and totally unhinged girls? How do I channel the energy Blue Lock awakens in me, or the spite Fence! makes me feel?
Anyway, Blue Lock should've been a yuri manga.
