Manga-- as a broad sweeping generalization, not as a 100 percent rule-- often develops an instant, irrational following regardless of content because of a sense of familiarity. This is how something like Return The Favor! can become a phenomenon with 7 pages and no plotline, etc etc etc ad infinitum. If you look at cross-listed sites like Onlinecomics.net you can see that manga fans tend to glom on to hundreds of manga bridging all kinds of genre and styles, pretty much attaching to anything with shiny eyes. On its surface, manga promise formula, characters whose roles and primary traits can often be identified on first glance based on model style, eye style, and costume. Manga revolves around several sets of feel-good concepts, whether it's the hamsters with sparkly twinkles feel good or the sexy robots feel good or the 'we'll be friends forever!' feel good, etc-- and you can usually identify which thing is being promised from the thumbnail that links into the site. It's very accessible, so it's not a surprise that people end up copying what they see and producing a torrent of indistinguishable comics. The closer a new artist gets to what's hot in manga, the more people will attach to the newest thing that looks like what they already can't get enough of. I agree, though, about the atrocious things it ends up doing to a person's sense of character and art. The 'how to draw' things don't help, teaching people to make little stiffly-jointed dolls and not how anything articulates or why things show weight or don't.

Furry, you're appealing to certain appetites and the people who are looking for their furry comics want specific things. They're not going to accept furries that don't look like what they expect, generally-- it's been a long time since anybody's mentioned a real development in the furry models used for furry art. Most of the furry art I hear mentioned is NSFW, and yeah, I'd like to hear less. But there are also therianthropes and people who grew up on anthropomorphic Disney dreams and they tend to revolve around things that are idealized, pleasing, and easily recognizable as the specific kinds of fantasies they entertain, so I doubt furry will change much until someone comes out with something that better tickles that predilection.

As for the rest, though, I think more and more people are trying to find their own ways... and occasionally something really good comes out of a style that at first seems derivative. Applegeeks has really gone a lot further, for instance, than anyone gave it credit for-- Hawk has his own voice. Like you, I think people often start with something familiar, especially if it gives them a better chance at starting out with a more welcoming reception, and then branch out from there. It's not actually a bad idea. Speaking from experience, when you hit people with a style that is wholly unfamiliar to their tastes, it can take a while to overcome their natural rejection of the unfamiliar. If people can't say, this looks like 'x' which is already popular, they often try to push the artist towards a familiar direction.

There really was a time when people pressured me to try drawing Malakhim in a /penny arcade/ style. I wanted to skin those people alive. It can be rough and aggravating to start out without the bonus of familiarity-- there will be a lot of sheeple who think if you aren't already popular the solution is to be like somebody who is, and will do their well-meaning best to wear you down until you change. I'd cut beginning artists slack if they weren't up to that challenge. As long as they develop their own voice as they go along, I won't necessarily put them down for starting with something that gets the proverbial foot in the door.

Some of the most successful artists in comics started out with other peoples' characters after all. Drawing them in their notebooks, I mean, not stealing-- and sometimes, continuing their storylines for one of the big publishers. This is a business that owes much of its progress to copycats.

"Manga" isn't a style anymore than "comics" is a style.

I think people are too concerned about finding an individual style. The most common reason a style is seen as unique is because the person looking at it is ignorant of what it is similar to, or they overlook the similarities because they like it, and saying it's not particularly unique is seen as a bad thing. And then they'll see a thumbnail of a face from another strip and write it off as hackery. Or they compare themselves to very dissimilar works - so a comic stands out because it is "not a manga or gamer comic", but it's probably something else quite similar to a lot of other "not manga/gamer" comics. There are seven fairly obviously manga/anime influenced comics in the buzzcomix top ten. None of them look like they're using the same style. None of them look like something you'd expect the average webcomic reader to be unfamiliar with visually. That is the way it is for most comics out there. None of the art from people who have responded to this post stand out in any big way, myself included. It's the same with a lot of comics influenced by strips. With their squat deformed characters and common expressions.At the same time, it wouldn't be said that Family Guy, The Simpsons, Futurama, Flinstones and The Critic all had the same style, although as far as indicating a general approach they aren't much different than the degrees of difference between many manga. in general An artist's individuality tends to show itself in their slight personal deviations from common approaches. This is why someone can say that Hawk's anime influenced deformed characters constitute a unique voice. And I think it's silly the way people who are in no way exceptional can slam their peers so blithely for being normal.

<a xhref="http://www.kiwisbybeat.com" target=blank>Kiwis by beat!</a>

Copying another artist's style is certainly not a situation you want to find yourself in after several years, but it is how most artists start out. Name any comics artist - odds are good they started out copying someone else. There's nothing at all shameful about it. It's a good way to get the basics of draftsmanship down. your own style will come later, or it should.

Oh, and to those who claim that manga isn't a style. This may be the case... it may be many, many different styles. Many, many different styles that all look the damn same. :)

Deliberately trying to draw a certain way because it's different from what's popular is, to my mind, not ideologically different from deliberately drawing a certain way because it's similar to what's popular.

I dunno, I just think that individual style is something that's likely to come from gradual evolution and artistic development rather than sitting down and going, "I must develop a unique style!! I must I must I must!!!" Of course, making effort to learn basic stuff like anatomy, perspective, etc. etc. can never hurt either.
_____
No Rest For The Wicked

___