Last updated in november 2005
This is made because of the huge amount of questions I get in the form of comments to my W.I.T.C.h. fanart. By making this, I can refer to this place, instead of writing the same stuff again and again in my commentreplies. ^_~
What is W.I.T.C.H.? W.I.T.C.H. is a Italian comic that later was picked up by Disney and published in other counties. The comic has had different storywriters and artists thoughout the time, but has generally kept the originally drawingstyle made by Barbucci who drew the first magazines*. W.I.T.C.H. is basically a mix of European and Japanese drawingstyle, and tells a magical girls story about five young girls, who have to defend the universe by turning into older 'fairy-like' versions of themself, and fight by the help of magic based on the four elements and a fifth 'all in one' element. This - ofcource - causes a lot of problems for the girls, who also have to function as normal girls in their own world at the same time (with boyfriend problems and parents that doesn't understand what's going on).
Besides from introducing a lot of 'Japanese concepts' (classic magical girl story, bishounens, compleks storylines and 'grey characters') into a story told in a more traditional European layout, the drawings themself are a very good mix of these two cultures as well.
* Magazine number 49, which by writing time is the newest in Denmark, seems to have changed style to something that is closer to the animation. Not a good thing if you ask me, but I don't know if that will change back yet.
Number of W.I.T.C.H. magazines: This is tricky, since W.I.T.C.H. are published in a number of different countries, and that naturally means that there's a difference in how far people are in the storyline. At february 2005 W.I.T.C.H. was published in 68 different countries.
W.I.T.C.H. was originally started in Italy, so that's the country that's got the highest number of magazines.
At June 2005 Italy had reached W.I.T.C.H. magazine number 51 (fourth season). At the same date, the W.I.T.C.H. magazines in Denmark had reach number 40 (last number in the third season). The European W.I.T.C.H. magazines are all around 70 pages big and in colour.
I can't really figure, wether the W.I.T.C.H.-books american people refer to, are comics called 'books', or the actual books that's been written over the universe. At first I thought it was comics because of the frontpages I found (which are the same as the frontpages on the European comics with only a few modification). But when I visited Disneys Book-page, and realised, that the american version of the W.I.T.C.H.-books came with these frontpages. So the basis are there for a lot of confusion. I'd need some help from a smart U.S.-citisen to figure this out. - What's the connection between the W.I.T.C.H.-comic and the W.I.T.C.H.-books in the U.S.? Are they both publiced, and if so, does the american W.I.T.C.H.-comics come with the same frontpages as the books?
W.I.T.C.H. books in U.S.A.: It would seem that the american readers gets something different than the European.
Apperantly, W.I.T.C.H. in the states consist of books with a few comicpages at the beginning and the end, and the rest of the story written in pure text. This apperantly follows the same storylines as the comic. I am however in doubt, and I would love to get more info on this point.
W.I.T.C.H. The Animated Adventures: An animated serie was aired in january 2005. It came in Denmark around september. W.I.T.C.H. animated adventures are losely based on the first season of the comic. VERY losely. The drawingstyle is different and more "japanese" at first look, the girls powers are different, and as explained, the story is... Very different.
Apperantly, Disney didn't have the guts to make a "girls only" catoon, and tried to make the show more appealing to boys (not that you would ever fool a boy into thinking this isn't a magical girls cartoon, don't ask me what they were thinking). At the same time, they made the target-audience younger, so that the show wouldn't be to scary. At top of that they needed to make 20+ episodes, so... Looooots of fillers and extraplots were made to fill in (For starters, Elyon doesn't really get a part in the story for the first half of the show so that they can delay the story). At the same time they seemed to decide that Caleb was to look all human (thus ruining a rather makor point about Meridian you find in the comic, as well as ruining Calebs character), and that a goblin sidekick would be perfect for comic relief... People who knows the original story should be ready to scream by now. Those who has only seen the cartoon. Trust me, the original plot from the comic is different, better made, and targeting people older than 10.
I like reading the comic, but I feel that the cartoon insults my intelligence, AND I would at any time prefer a japanese magical girls anime instead, there they actually isn't afraid to make the targetaudience girls, instead if this feeble attempt at entertaining, where they try to be everything, but ends up being nothing. Those of you who has only seen the animated series... Get hold of the comics instead. Like said, they are better! First season especially are worth reading.
W.I.T.C.H. Books: There's a number of actual books written about the W.I.T.C.H.-girls as a spin-off from the comic. As far as I've figured, there should be 13 books by now. The authors on these books are: Lene Kaaberbøl, Ruben Eliassen, Cecilie Eken, Josefine Ottesen and Maud Mangold. All of these authors are from Scandinavia (3 of them Danish, 1 from Sweeden and 1 from Norway), and most known is probably Lene Kaaberbøl, who wrote the first nine books about the girls (she's also the one who wrote the fantasy series about 'The Shamers'). I haven't read the books, but they've got some quality authors writing them, so there's a real possibility that they're worth a look.
W.I.T.C.H. the manga: That's right. Although the European version of W.I.T.C.H. is a European comic with manga-inspired elements, W.I.T.C.H. does exist as a regular manga. The japanese version of W.I.T.C.H. is a compleately remade and redrawn manga, that is in full mangastyle and uses more pages to tell the same amount of story. Also, the layout of the pages are very Japanese, where the European version follows European layout traditions. The W.I.T.C.H. manga are in black and white with greytones, and is read from right to left. My guess is, that they redid the entire thing, so that it could be published in the huge 'phonebook-like' mangas they put out with a collection of different series in Japan. Also, Japanese girls are used to compleks layout. Those layouts would confuse most European girls, whereas Japanese girls probably would find European layouts boring.
They published a W.I.T.C.H. special in Denmark showing the first 70 pages of the japanese version. Persently I prefer the European version. Cedric is a lot cooler in the manga, but that's pretty much it. The manga is made in a *very* mainstream mangastyle, and all the girls seems to have lost their visual personality when drawn in that style. You can however, learn a lot about the differences in traditional Japanese and European storytelling, by putting the first Japanese and European magazine next to each other, and compare them to each other.
My opinion of W.I.T.C.H.: Now, perhaps I should start out by mention that I'm not a die-hard W.I.T.C.H.-fan (even though it could seem that way). I just like the comic. I especially love the fact, that W.I.T.C.H. was the first quality comicmagazine for girls 'not interested in horses' to hit the Danish kiosk-shelves in a *very* long time. I realise I'm a bit older than the targetgroup, but my hope is, that this will make the publishers realise 'that girls like comics as well' (as well as getting more girls to buy things, so that it's profitable to publish girls comics).
other than that, I think W.I.T.C.H. is a textbook example of how European and Japanese comicstyles can be mixed with a good result.