You are joking, right?

I always wanted to see manga styled comics that depicts our own social lives. Instead, what we get in Gempak are watered down imitations of the Japanese settings, with authors shamelessly naming the characters in Japanese and mimicking typical Japanese school life. If i want a Japanese setting, i would read Japanese manga.

Some attempts to relate more to Malaysian kids' life did pass, but the artists that managed to do this often disappear after 3-4 mags. I suspect that something wrong happened between them and Gempak's editor, which i know had some dirt on his own.

Ujang used to have a few manga-styled artists, but they often got stamped out by Gayour,,who claim that the style is 'not Malaysian' Ironic since Ujang's and Gila-Gila's styles were heavily influenced by the US-made MAD magazines. Then again, these morons didnt learn history.

For me, art styles are nice, but its the CONTENT that matter. I always wanted a manga that I can relate with as a secondary school student IN MALAYSIA, not some foreign setting like Japan, from our own manga style artists, but people think of me as weird.

In my opinion, manga style artists can sell more books if their storyline and settings are more relatable to the Malaysian crowd.

Of course, i tried doing it myself, but i lacked the skill so i could never make it happen.