Manga influences and local narratives: ambiguous identification in comics production

Abstract

This paper examines the production of cultural commodities created in the era of transnationalisation. It focuses on discussing the aspects of manga (Japanese comics) influences and local narratives that are reflected in comics production based on empirical data generated from a qualitative study. In-depth interviews were conducted with ten Malaysian Malay artists, who were fans of Japanese popular culture, regarding their comics production and latest works. Through thematic analysis of the transcribed data, comics production was found to be a challenging endeavour in the presence of nations, locals, and ‘others’. There was discrepancy in the constructing of meaning represented in drawings and stories. Such meaning-making processes in the artists' comics production apparently involve the identification of the self and ‘others’. Furthermore, their negotiation with the view of ‘others’ contributes to unbinding their fixed sense of nationality in their products. This study implies that local production of cultural commodities such as comics could serve as a platform for analysis in order to expand and deepen insights into the root causes of contesting identification occurring among people who are assumed to be in the same cultural frame.