Anchorage Daily News

The toy manager at the Eagle River Wal-Mart lives a double life. By day he deals in Transformers, board games and kid bikes. By night he negotiates a fantastical world of heroes and villains, outrageous fashion and extravagant armory.

Brett Uher doesn't just read comics; he draws them. His illustrations appear in the first volume of the graphic novel series "Dark Moon Diary," the story of an orphan girl who suffers the trials and insults of high school while living among vampires, werewolves and witches.

Long before he got hooked up with series creator Che Gilson and a few years shy of finishing his studies at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art in New Jersey, Uher did what a lot of Anchorage artists do when starting out -- he entered the Bosco's Manga/Anime Art Contest.

"I was already drawing in the manga style, and I figured it would be a way to win an easy prize," said Uher, 29.

It wasn't. Fresh from his first year in college, he managed only an honorable mention the first time around. But he kept entering drawings and eventually nabbed first places in 2002 and 2003.

Back then, it made sense to enter contests and get more exposure, but life as a working artist makes it hard to do much else these days, Uher said. Now he spends most nights working on Volume 2 of the "Dark Moon" series with an expectation of seeing the script for book three soon.

The Bosco's contest doesn't have an official professional category, so Uher no longer submits his work.

"I guess I could submit something if I wanted," he said, "but it would be better to let everyone else."

THE PEOPLE CHOOSE

A lot of young women and men win the contest every year, but last year's people's choice winner is a coot by comparison. Gabe Brause, 34, developed his fascination with anime as an 11-year-old watching "Robotech" on Channel 5, before most of his competition was born.

"I really loved the way the animation and story were presented, the way the characters were presented, the way emotion was expressed with the least amount of lines," he said.

Anime heroes simply come across as more human, more empathetic than the superheroes of American comic books, he continued.

From an early age, he made sequential art a part of his life, even spending several semesters at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia.

"Ever since then, I've been a working artist," he said. "I only recently realized what I can actually do. I just started to learn to tattoo, and it seems to be a natural outlet for my style. I do freelance graphic design as well."

He also does custom cabinets and kitchen design as well as other jobs. But taking a few art classes at the University of Alaska Anchorage convinced him that drawing the same characters over and over would bore him. Instead, he focuses on what he calls "one-off" pieces in the anime style, a few of which he entered in last year's contest, gaining a fan base in both the color and black-and-white categories.

"I really liked doing the contest because I got to see some amazing art at the show," he said. "The guy who won in the over-16 group is like 17 years old and the most phenomenal artist I've ever seen."

NINE YEARS AND RUNNING

Adolescents and teenagers definitely take to the anime/manga style, including a plethora of girls and young women.

"That's one of the nice things about the anime and manga formats," said Eric Helmick, manager of Bosco's in Spenard. "Until a lot of the anime started coming over from Japan and got translated, a lot of comic books were mainly read by young males. A huge part of anime is specifically written for and targeted to women, and lots of creators and writers are women."

Anime establishes a format, not a genre, he continued. Readers can find everything from police dramas and teen romances to horror stories and mysteries within the graphic novel format. The treatment of characters varies considerably, he said.

Helmick, who has been involved in the Bosco's contest since its beginning nine years ago, offered only one piece of advice to people thinking about entering: "No matter what you think your artistic abilities are, go ahead and submit something."

The commitment to entering a drawing means doing the drawing, and practice is the only way to get better, said Brause, who also suggests getting any of the many how-to books in town and taking life-drawing classes.

Most of all, "just keep drawing," Uher said. It never hurts to study art either, he added.

And it won't hurt to drop off an illustration or two at either Bosco's store before closing time Friday. Who knows? You could win some confidence, a little fame and maybe even a prize.

Find Dawnell Smith online at adn.com/contact/dsmith or call 257-4587.

BOSCO'S MANGA/ANIME ART CONTEST: The submission deadline for the ninth annual Bosco's Manga/Anime Art Contest is by closing time Friday (8 p.m. for the store at 2606 Spenard Road, 9 p.m. for the store in the Dimond Center).

There are three age categories, for elementary-school kids and older, for both color and black-and-white drawings, with prizes for first through third places in all categories.

Entrants from schools with 10 or more submissions will also get a chance to win additional prizes. Read the contest rules and see some of the previous winners at www.boscos.com.

Winners will be announced and displayed at the Dimond Center Bosco's at noon April 26.

How do you pronounce 'manga'?

That very question generated about 100,000 hits on Google, so we're not the only ones wanting to know.

If we assume it's the first syllable, not the second, that stumps people, then try saying the word more like "conga" or the way a Jamaican says "man," as suggested by someone on the Anime-Planet forum (www.anime-planet.com/forum).

But Seeressa the Sage from Brodart (www.graphicnovels. brodart.com) offers the most exacting advice: Bury the "n" sound in the back of your throat and say "mah-n-gah."

Aaron Albert on the "Manga 101" page at About.com (comicbooks.about.com/od/manga/ss/manga101.htm) suggests making it three syllables: "Maw -- Nnnnn -- Gah."

If that fails, just say it the way you say it. Everyone else does, even the local artists who create it.

Anime? Manga? What's the difference?

To keep it simple ... "Anime" refers to animated drawings and cartoons, and "manga" to comic books and graphic novels. In the United States, anime usually refers to Japanese animation, though China and Korea are also sources of the style.

So why do we hear the words used interchangeably or next to each other? Consider this passage from Anime-Universe.com:

"Manga are Japanese graphic novels, illustrated in the same distinct style that is found in anime. These novels are often serialized, often for years, with dozens of titles. Anime is the animated form of manga, often shorted and more action-oriented. There's a great deal of crossover, with series available as both anime and manga. This is especially true from a Western perspective, because much of the manga that gets translated is first released in the West as its animated cousin."

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