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Douglass, Jeremy, William Huber, and Lev Manovich. "Understanding scanlation: How to read one million fan-translated manga pages." Image [&] Narrative 12. 1 2011. Accessed 29Mar. 2011. <http://www.imageandnarr ... rticle/viewFile/133/104>. 
Added by: joachim (3/29/11, 8:11 PM)   
Resource type: Web Article
Language: en: English
Peer reviewed
BibTeX citation key: Douglass2011
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Categories: General
Keywords: Adaptation, Digitalization, Fandom, Intermediality, Japan, Manga, Translation
Creators: Douglass, Huber, Manovich
Collection: Image [&] Narrative
Views: 43/1416
Attachments   URLs   http://www.imagean ... e/viewFile/133/104
Abstract
One million fan-translated manga pages (“scanlations”) present new opportunities and challenges for studying global digital manga as it is produced and circulated in ways that cannot be easily described as “adaptation,” “remix,” or “transmedia.” In addition to using digital humanities approaches to metadata and network traffic analysis, we develop a new method. Using digital image analysis and media visualization to arrange image sets into graphs, we explore patterns within and across scanlation. This article employs three main types of media visualization: montages, comparisons, and image plots.
Montages of long-running manga series can expose variations over time in size, quality, and color; they highlight recurring visual structures such as flashbacks or two-page compositions; and they draw attention to the mashup aesthetics of scanlator-added credits pages, which differentiate themselves from the main narrative style in order to establish a distinct creative voice. Scan-style credits are fascinating exceptions to this strategy, while color analysis reveals traces of how scanlators not only construct their colorful identities, but also reconstruct an ideal black and white manga from cheap tinted newsprint originals.
Comparison visualizations focus on differences between multiple versions of the same manga page, emphasizing a difference between foreignizing and domesticating translation aesthetics that appears in text, typography, and the treatment of sound effects and background art.
Finally, image plots suggest a way of locating any page or set within the “style space” of a cloud of one million related images. This scanlation cloud represents one of many "mangas" in the global “manga universe,” a set of related spaces ranging from OLM to dōjinshi. The project’s snapshot of 883 scanlated series from late 2009 captures a unique moment in scanlation as a cultural form, marks the ongoing development of global media culture, and invites broader understanding of cultures of unofficial versions and their methods of creativity.
Added by: joachim  
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