Cartoon is Navy’s envoy to anxious Japanese

[unhappycamper]

Comic book diplomacy
Hapless fictional sailor introduces GW


Cartoon is Navy’s envoy to anxious Japanese
By Philip Ewing - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Jun 14, 2008 6:59:58 EDT

Damage Controlman 3rd Class Jack O’Hara is a bumbler. On his first sea tour aboard the carrier George Washington, O’Hara is seasick, gets lost, gets chewed out for showing up late to his work center, kills his shins on the knee-knockers, and, when he runs to the wrong space during a general quarters drill, a supervisor tells him he’s just been “killed.” He has to play a corpse for the rest of the evolution.

But O’Hara isn’t just any novice sailor on his first deployment. He’s the Navy’s fictional ambassador to the people of Japan, starring in a Japanese-style comic book, known as “manga,” designed to introduce the nuclear-powered George Washington to an uneasy nation that until now has hosted only conventionally powered carriers.

The George Washington is scheduled to take over late this summer for the oil-fueled Kitty Hawk as 7th Fleet’s forward-deployed carrier, and commanders commissioned the comic “Manga CVN 73” to introduce the new ship.

Unveiled June 8 by Naval Forces Japan, “Manga CVN 73” was a hit in manga-mad Japan, where 800 people lined up around the block outside Fleet Activities Yokosuka to pick up their free comics, produced in kanji and English editions.

Command spokesman Cmdr. David Waterman said that using the manga format was crucial to reaching the Japanese.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/06/navy_comicbook_061408w/



uhc comment: 'Comic book diplomacy'...... Yea, that about sums it up. Rather than take care of the problem, we give them comic books.