While I was at Anime Expo I had a conversation with another manga editor, and we both agreed on one strange fact: the vast majority of "manga-influenced" and "OEL" comic artists in America today are influenced by shojo manga, far more than shonen manga.
There are exceptions, like Empowered and MBQ and perhaps Sharknife, the last of which I haven't read (all of which are enjoyed by an older and more "comic"-y audience than the majority of Tokyopop/Seven Seas/Del Rey OEL material), but the vast majority of successful and recognizable OEL manga artists seem to be shojo-influenced (such as Svetlana Chmakova's awesome work, or the as yet underappreciated Tintin Pantoja, to name two people I am pretty familiar with). There are some artists who, I think, have a good mixture of shojo and shonen influences, like Joanna Estep, but her work has also not reached its ideal maximum audience yet. Where is the shonen OEL? When I was the editor of Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z, we got tons of wretched fan art from 8-year-olds, who presumably did not die in a plague, but years have passed since then and I am still hard pressed to come up with the name of a really solid OEL comic showing a Dragon Ball influence. Considering all the people reading Naruto and Bleach and other Shonen Jump manga today -- or Dragon Ball and Yu-Gi-Oh a few years ago -- why are we not seeing a vast boom in people drawing "boyish" battle comics?
The other editor felt that the reason was, this audience hasn't matured yet. Prior to Sailor Moon and the Tokyopop explosion (which was mostly buoyed by shojo manga and shonen romantic manga like Love Hina), the number of seriously manga-influenced artists in the U.S. was negligible. Since then, a whole generation of excellent artists has developed, mostly influenced by the things which manga did which American comics didn't do -- shojo and romantic material. This other editor felt that the future Naruto-and-Bleach-influenced artists simply weren't old enough yet. In other words, "The time has not yet come."
This is a pretty good explanation, but let me toss some other potential -- and I stress, potential -- explanations out there:
* the audiences for shows like Dragon Ball Z and Yu-Gi-Oh and Naruto are so "mainstream" that they don't contain a large portion of "manga" fans. These phenomena are such big business that they don't really inspire loner-artistic-types the way that a "cult" phenomenon like shojo manga once did (five-ten years ago when it was still a cult phenomenon, that is... and even today, all shojo manga is a cult phenomenon compared to Naruto, for better or worse). Most of the fans of these shows don't get into manga in general, they just grow up, stop playing Yu-Gi-Oh! and start playing Magic: The Gathering, and in general move on to other things.
* women not only read more than men, they also draw more than men. Men are a bunch of lazy-asses.
* people who are into "action" and "battle" comics, like the shonen ones I'm describing, are the most likely to be seduced away by superheroes, American's indigenous action comics. It's clear that "manga-ish" techniques have disseminated throughout American superhero comics in the last 15 years -- speedlines, an openness to more cartoony styles, etc. For me, though, color superhero comics just don't hit the same pleasure center in my brain, no matter how manga-ish they are. (Unless they're by Adam Warren, but his stuff is way more satirical and tongue-in-cheek and witty than shonen manga, so it's still a very different thing.) Despite the common element of fight scenes, storywise, the conventions and format of superhero stories and shonen manga are so dramatically different that it's like substituting chicory for chocolate.
* my own snobby idea -- a lot of inexperienced artists who are into manga become enthralled with a particular idea of "manga style" which is in fact specific to shojo manga. (Admittedly, there is a lot of crossover between shojo and shonen styles nowadays, but...) Layouts, for instance. Some people, including more than a few art directors I've worked with, think that "manga" automatically implies some kind of crazy, florid page layouts with screentone everywhere, and a very vague sense of spatial relations. But if you look at shonen manga, particularly shonen manga for young readers like Zatch Bell and Dragon Ball Z, you often see *very* straightforward panel layouts, square and rectangular panels, and a highly selective use of screentone. (Shonen manga in general tends to be more high-contrast black-and-white, such as One Piece and to a lesser extent Naruto, whereas shojo tends more towards screentone.) It reminds me of Yoshihiro Togashi's answer to an interview in the American Shonen Jump, when he was asked "What do you keep in mind when thinking of new ways to show action on the page?" His answer was, "The most important thing is making it clear what's happening."
* shonen manga sucks (or is only good as raw material for Boy's Love dojin) and therefore no one should ever bother to imitate shonen manga. Obviously I don't agree with this explanation.
Speaking personally, as much as I love shonen romantic comedies and shojo, seinen and josei manga, I really do love shonen battle manga. Most of all, I love shonen battle manga which has: (1) clear, easy-to-understand, dramatic action scenes, (2) character designs which are exaggerated, cartoony, distinct and memorable, (3) art which has the confidence to be high-contrast instead of overrelying on screentone, and (4) the particular kind of Gung-Ho, ass-kicking, cliff-hanging stories particular to battle manga. Shojo manga has (2) and (4) -- good character designs and awesome melodrama is a major factor in all manga -- but shonen battle manga has a near-monopoly on (1) and (3). Particularly (1)... good action scenes are actually really hard to do. For instance, when I look at the sloppy, convoluted action scenes in a pseudo-shojo action manga like Broccoli's "Kamui", or a mediocre shonen manga like "Tetragrammaton Labyrinth" or "Haridama," I just get irritated. Perhaps one reason the action scenes in weekly shonen battle manga (i.e. Shonen Jump, Sunday, Magazine, Champion) are so good is their extremely high page counts, which are better-served by the weekly format than the monthly format.
So, where are the good shonen OEL artists? I actually want a show of hands: if you consider yourself to be a shonen-influenced OEL artist who can point to a body of work, POST HERE AND SHOW ME YOUR STUFF!
I want to see a manga that has the clear action scenes of Dragon Ball; the heartwarming melodrama and great action scenes of One Piece; the cheesy melodrama of Yu-Gi-Oh; the weirdness and great action scenes of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure; the cartooniness and awesome character design of Shaman King; the exaggerated art and great action scenes of Zatch Bell; the mean-spirited melodrama of Iron Wok Jan; the brutal violence and exaggerated art and action scenes of Hellsing (okay, so that one's not actually a shonen manga).
I do love shojo manga, but I feel like I'm waiting for some generational shift to occur before America starts producing really good shonen-influenced artists. Will it happen?
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