Harlequin Manga Free
Abigail Tyrie
As the new century dawned, manga began to become more popular in America and Harlequin saw yet another opportunity for growth. In 2005 the company licensed Dark Horse Comics to translate and distribute their manga titles back to English.
Another interesting element of these six editions is that while the original texts all had different authors, and the manga translation was done by five different artists, they were all translated back to English by the same person. It raises fascinating questions of whose voice is really represented in the books.
Another unique aspect of these books is the way there were presented. Two separate lines were created. The first, Harlequin Pink, was intended for all ages. Typically, these were from the Harlequin or Silhouette Romance lines, so they tended to be pretty chaste. The books in the Harlequin Violet line were Harlequin Presents books, which tended to have a higher heat level, but were still closed-door. The Violet books were marketed as being for readers age 16 and over.
For more than a century, romance fiction has served as a mirror for societal ideas of gender, class, and race. I explore the stories behind the books to shed light on how authors, publishers, and editors shaped the genre.
All Harlequin Manga titles come from their Japanese book catalog. Editors select titles and then work with artists to adapt them to the comic format. The process is intensive. The artists draw character sketches and summarize the original novel so that they can fit it into a manga structure. From there, they work with their editor to bring the story to life via panels and dialog balloons. Depending on the work involved, it can take anywhere from three weeks to four months to adapt a Harlequin novel into a manga.
Harlequin began to enter the Japanese manga market in 1998. Around this time, the North American manga market was beginning to grow. In a few short years, the industry would explode into the manga boom of the 2000s.
More significantly, the order of captions and dialogue was sometimes wrong. I tried to read all of the text in a panel, only to find out that the intended flow jumped back and forth, not the natural way to read.
The artistic choices also confused me. I kept feeling that the panels were too small, that the action I was supposed to be noticing was cramped. The result was hard to read (in a different way than the above) and felt as though the original material had been cut too much in adapting it to manga, that the artist was trying to shove too much into the space she had available. The best part about the art was how attractive the couple was.
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I used to wonder why Digital Manga only published print books, but over the past few years the company has made all sorts of inroads into the digital realm. The latest: bringing Harlequin manga to the Nook, Barnes & Noble's e-reader. These Harlequin manga are quite a phenomenon: They are actual American Harlequin romance novels that were adapted into manga for the Japanese market. A company called Softbank has been localizing them for American readers and publishing them on Digital's eManga site, and plans are also in the works for French, Chinese and Korean editions. There will be two versions, one optimized for black and white, the other for the color Nook; the price is $5.99. If you're not tied to an e-reader (I have both the Nook and the Kindle apps on my iPad), you might check out the Kindle store, where the Harlequin manga are two bucks cheaper per volume. Most comics look like crap on the Kindle app because of its small size and poor resolution, but the digital files for these manga are somehow better and they look fine.
Sometimes the difference between a success and a flop is how you market it. Digital CEO Hikaru Sasahara told me last April that the Harlequin manga are among the best sellers on the eManga site. That's not surprising, as Digital's specialty is yaoi (male-male romances) and as Sasahara observed on some field trips to bookstores, both genres appeal to the same demographic, women of a certain age. The pink and purple are gone, the manga are priced at $4.99 a volume on the site ($5.99 on the Nook), and most importantly, they are placed where readers can find them, on the web and now in the Nook store.
The original Harlequin was a foe of the Golden Age Green Lantern and later became his wife. The second Harlequin originally debuted as the Joker's Daughter and was a member of the Teen Titans. The third Harlequin was a member of the Injustice Unlimited supervillain team and battled Infinity, Inc. The fourth Harlequin has only appeared on a few occasions and is an enemy of Alan Scott.
Mayne developed a crush on Scott and, donning a colorful costume (which included harlequin glasses, a conical hat and a mandolin), started a life of crime to attract his attention. Her crimes tended to be harmless and mostly for show, although the two clashed on several occasions in the late 1940s.
She briefly joined the Injustice Society until she turned on them by aiding the Justice Society of America. She had a deep running altruistic streak, which occasionally led her to join forces with her enemy/would-be love interest. Despite being attracted to the Harlequin, Scott never entered into a relationship with her and she eventually gave up in despair. She made a deal with the government in which she went on intelligence missions in return for amnesty for her past crimes and then quietly retired. On one occasion, she assisted Green Lantern, Superman and Lois Lane in capturing another foe of her love, the Sportsmaster.
Years later, after the death of his first wife Rose Canton, Alan Scott realized that he had loved Molly all this time and they got married. As the years passed a problem developed for the two; the Starheart (which gave Scott his powers) had reversed his aging processes, so he was physically a young man while Molly had since aged into an old woman.
In despair over the rift this had caused between them, Molly sold her soul to the demon Neron in return for youth during the "Underworld Unleashed" storyline. Her body became that of a young woman (who had the power to create nightmares) but her soul remained in Hell. Scott fought his way through Hell to obtain it and, with the help of the young Green Lantern Kyle Rayner, returned it to the Harlequin's body. This resulted in re-aging Molly, but making her whole once again. Some time thereafter, Scott himself was returned to his true physical age, as well. Mayne and Scott remain happily married to this day.[3]
During the Brightest Day crossover event, Molly briefly appears when Alan's daughter Jenny arrives at the Scott home in search of her father's old lantern. Molly informs her stepdaughter that Alan had been depressed in recent weeks, as Jenny had not been to visit her family since her resurrection at the close of the Blackest Night crossover event.[4] Later, a doppelganger of the younger, villainous Molly is created by Alan's ring after he goes insane and battles the Justice League. The doppelganger is briefly seen torturing Starman.[5]
A panel in "The New Golden Age" one-shot revealed that Harlequin has a son named Michael Mayne through an unknown man. Michael would later become Harlequin's Son utilizing some of his mother's technology.[6]
Duela Dent is the second character to use the Harlequin name. The character was introduced in Batman Family #6 (July/August 1976). Originally appearing as a villain, she called herself the Joker's Daughter,[7] and not only claimed to be the daughter of the Joker, but also of the Catwoman,[8] the Scarecrow, the Riddler and the Penguin as well.[a] In Pre-Crisis continuity, she later revealed her true father was Two-Face, joined the Teen Titans and renamed herself the Harlequin.[9]
Duela's age has been retconned many times during the course of her history. When introduced she was a teenage girl, but in the later books, she was portrayed as a much older woman. Recently, she has been returned to a far younger age.
In current continuity, Duela continues to claim various supervillains as her parent. Freely alternating between heroic and villainous roles, Duela is considered a delusional former member of the original Teen Titans, but later becomes a member of the evil Titans East. She later betrays Titans East when offered membership with the current team.
Soon after, Duela is killed by a rogue Monitor in issue #1 of Countdown, following a failed kidnapping attempt on a celebrity and pursuit from Jason Todd. It is later revealed that she is a native of Earth-3 and the biological daughter of the Jokester and Three-Face (Evelyn Dent), that world's heroic equivalents of the Joker and Two-Face.
As a youth, Marcie Cooper was recruited by the Grandmaster to join the Manhunters. Her grandfather, Dan Richards (a.k.a. the Manhunter), also encouraged her to join the group as he had years ago. The Manhunters gave her a job working at KGLX radio in Gotham City, alongside Molly Mayne-Scott, who was a former agent called the Harlequin. Marcie began dating Northwind and later Obsidian, both of Infinity, Inc., and infiltrated the super-team from within.
When the Manhunters began to strike at Earth, Marcie stole Molly's illusion-casting glasses, taking the identity of the Harlequin. She failed to recruit Obsidian to the Manhunters and tried to kill her grandfather after he betrayed the Manhunters.[10] Dan Richards was later killed by the Manhunter Mark Shaw.
Single-minded in her attempt to destroy Infinity, Inc., she joined Injustice Unlimited and masterminded the assassination of Skyman: it was on the wedding night of Hector Hall and Lyta Trevor; the Harlequin posed as Jade and used Solomon Grundy as her pawn in killing Skyman. She then took Grundy, gathered the Dummy and took the pair to meet with Artemis, the Icicle II and Hazard. The plan to murder the Infinitors was told to all and put into action. Pat Dugan was used as bait to bring the heroes to Stellar Studios, but the battle went bad for the villains. When Solomon Grundy realized he had been manipulated by the Harlequin, he savagely beat her. Afterwards, she was given over to the authorities.[11]
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