Chapter 150: Graphic but Novel
The sales implications and societal acceptance aside, Alexander did have a lot of hidden tests that he was administering through this Februarian comic book.
Opening up the romance genre and earning money was the main goal that was being achieved but a lot of other factors were being checked up on.
The graphic novel release in itself is among the prime factors that Alexander put most of his attention to.
Children and teen readers love graphic novels because of their easy-to-read mix of text and visual content.
Graphic novels are just that preferable for readers of limited attention spans. Although literal literary books have much more levity in knowledge, it has much less appeal to many people who crave entertainment.
During the advent of the online age and smartphones, young readers' attention spans have shortened. Even schools have attached much academic recognition and mostly widened exposure to graphic novels.
Serial graphic novels make the digital format an efficient stocking medium, and tech-savvy teens respond better to digital content.
Adults with limited free time, or who are too exhausted when they have free time, are also gravitating to graphic novels and short stories.
Adult readers have discovered that graphic novels possess more depth than the comic books of their youth. The illustrated stories that unfold in graphic novels have the complexity, depth, and variety of traditional novels.
Essentially, with less text they are easier to consume; they stimulate enjoyment by being entertaining, and they have emotional appeal while providing the intellectual stimulation adults seek in novels.
Graphic but Novel. It is quite 'graphic' but still 'novel' to read.
Alexander's attention towards graphic novels has a lot to do with banking on that future trend and visual novelty.
Manga and comic books themselves are considered to be graphic novels but the one-shot, self-contained graphic novels are what he put most of his attention to.
'Hatsukoi Wazurai' just happen to be the perfect acclimatization of that as it has manga roots, has a self-contained story, and all that needs to be done was to make it akin to American comic books.
After its researchable market run, Alexander still has some major plans for such a picture-filled type of novel and how he could expand on it.
Hence and from all that, Creed Comics' first graphic novel was made.
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Alexander simply started out with the manga in his mind and worked his way from there.
According to John Dryden, 'Love is an incurable disease' and that is also where the original mangaka, Marina Umezawa, started things out.
Hotaru, a high school girl, hasn't been in love yet but wants to find out what love is. After seeing friends around her start dating, she wishes to experience it for herself.
Meanwhile, Shinri, the most academically achieving, popular, and handsome guy in school would be the one teaching.
Together, they learn what love is and both would have their own journeys towards it and ultimately coincide into one interpretation of it.
The premise in itself is as simple as that but it is still as complex as how love could be.
Lessons are how the story would unfold and how the mystery of love would be unraveled. Lessons also happen to be how the story is divided into and it has 3 all in all.
The first Lesson mostly concerns the clueless Hotaru expressing her interest into what love could be and the inadvertent Shinri being interested in the girl who was interested in love.
The second Lesson is about finding the middle ground between the protagonists, their thoughts about each other, and their respective reveals.
By the time Hotaru finally realized love, it turns out that Shinri never truly knew love at all. The poor guy was just popular with girls but the girls were just after the attractive factors that compounded around him.
Love was truly a fickle thing about timings, aligning, and coincidences. It just so happens that Hotaru and Shinri don't have that yet.
The final Lesson is, of course, acclimatization of it with the duo trying to make things work out and somehow failing in it.
Ultimately, the final stakes finally come in with a third party coming into the picture and catalyzing what Hotaru and Shinri truly want.
The entire story ends in the message where love is a disease. By the time, one is infected by it, one has already "suffered".
It tells of how love is somewhat inevitable and somehow incurable when it finally latches unto a person. As for the suffering part... well, anyone in love or in a relationship has a much more insightful view on that.
Love isn't all about highs but also about the lows after all.
Essentially, a quirky and light love story that deals with innocence, desensitization, discovery, confession, and sinking into the mysterious feeling of love that everyone sought after.
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Of course, it was all nice and all with Alexander has been tinkering things up as he usually does.
From a plunderer's perspective, Alexander changed up things here and there to fit the audience it was going to be shown towards.
While the message of the story itself can be easily be understood, some of Marina Umezawa's cultural settings needed to be shifted a bit.
The original Hatsukoi Wazurai is released in Japan and in 2013, so Alexander just had to make it semi-American in the 1980s.
Flip phones were shifted to telephone conversations, the school became a bit private to fit the uniformed teens, some of the school festival scenarios were changed to a school Valentine event.
To achieve a balance between Japan and America, the characters still retained their names to show their uniqueness. Character names revolving around the normal Western world have already been butchered by their mainstream common-ness after all.
It also happens that the popular long-haired teen look of Japanese manga and anime characters need not be changed as 80s society still wasn't a fan of the clean and short look.
There were lots of length in 80s boy teens with styles like the mullet, Jheri curl, long waves, perm, shoulder-length hair, wild natural curls, feathered hair, and a long comb-over.
If Alexander truly went on with plundering Japanese manga and anime, then he already has an explanation as to why most of his characters have such hairs that do have that wildness.
The only problem he has to worry about is haphazardly explaining why his characters would have "natural" hair colors that cover most of the color spectrum.
In any case, for the comic book industry, the versatile Alexander Creed did it again with a new art style that has a much smoother look and appealing-ly stylized version of real people.
Meanwhile, the storytelling itself is another exploration into the realm of romance and even the deep exploration of love.
All in all, the finished product was quite a satisfactory blend and everyone who read and visually saw it can pretty much attest to that.
It truly was a graphic treat to the eyes and a novelty storytelling for one immerse oneself into.