Manfra

The will manfra (or franga ) is a term appeared in 2005 to gather works of Cartoons carried out by authors French-speaking S (in general French, Belgian or Suisse S) who wish to work in a format, a style of drawing and a kind of narration inspired by the Manga or the Manwha.

The terms will manfra and franga is Néologisme S contracting the terms “Franco-Belgian” and “manga” in only one mot.

Still today far from widespread in France, there exist nevertheless some titles published in various editors.

Dofus (Ankama editions)
Dreamland (Pika Edition) (by Reno)
Dys (Pika Edition) (by Moonkey)
Pink Diary (Delcourt) (by Jenny)
Sentaï School (Semic) (by Cardona and Torta)

The French editors of manga thus opened the way with a format identical to that of the mangas, and reserved to the young draftsmen who wish to launch out in the creation of data bases inspired by the mangas. A " second vague" of will manfra (or euromanga for the editor) broke on France as from October 2006 with the launching of Shogun Mag by the Humanoïdes Associés. Via this publication, more than thirty new series were produced by French and European authors.

Characteristics

These data bases have characteristics very close to the mangas or manwhas:

drawing (rather dynamic style, small nose, large eyes to allow to show the feelings, expressive characters, super-deformations, exaggeration of the attitudes…) ;
dialogs and texts (many presence of the Onomatopée S, sound effects, Interjection S, sounds various, text which repeats the feeling, forms bubble S…) ;
page layout (little boxes by page, boxes nonrectilinear, page layout exploded, framing and put in scene cutting out an action in several boxes…) ;
narration (topics and kinds approached, put in scene, “simplicity” of the dialogs and the scenes (not or few ellipse S), lines speed (Speedline, x-ray line)…)
format of the book (dimensions, many pages, direction of reading, in black and white (with screen S)…)

In addition, they answer same the segmentation S of the market (Shōjo, Shōnen…), use similar topics or kinds (lovesong, fantastic, etc). One can find also there sociocultural references and influences as in the Manga S.

Other terms used

One can sometimes find the term moonka to indicate will manfras them. This term appeared on the site mangaverse.net is a Néologisme formed starting from “Moonkey”, the author of Dys , and of “manga” in order to give a term resembling Manhwa, Manhua or Manga.

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