One Punch Man was originally a crudely-drawn Web comic by a guy calling himself “One”. But then the story, with art by slick manga artist Yusuke Murata, was picked up for publisher Shueisha’s Young Jump Web Comics website in 2012. It subsequently became an anime, and the manga is available in English from Viz.
This week, Tim and Kumar take a look, to discuss whether the story is really served by Murata’s typical manga art, and the good and bad points of the comic as it exists.
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Tapastic is one of the many places online that you could put your comic. Why put it there? This week, Tapastic Editor-in-chief Michael Son joins Tim to explain the advantages of the site, issues they’re working to solve, what kind of audience is reading the site (and how reader demands have changed), and what new features are in the pipeline.
Jason McNamara is back with us after two years, and now his book with Greg Hinkle, The Rattler, has just been published by Image! He joins us to talk about the disturbing inspiration for the book, how the 2014 Kickstarter project for the book helped it get published, and more.
Maya Kern‘s “
FLASHBACK! Takehiko Inoue’s Slam Dunk is easily mistaken for a serious sports manga. Pick it up, though, and you’ll find instead a hilarious ensemble comedy that just happens to involve basketball. Still, the series is credited with basketball’s 90s popularity in Japan, and led Inoue to create several other basketball-related series. But is oeuvre isn’t all hoops; he’s also the creator behind Vagabond, a sometimes-violent but intriguing take on the life of 17th-century historical figure Miyamoto Musashi. Tim and Kumar dig into both series.
Yes, somehow it’s been ten whole years since Tim, Brandon, and Mulele sat down together and recorded 
This year’s International Comics Festival (Kaigai Manga Festa) in Tokyo was bigger than ever! Plenty of familiar faces from past years gave it a sense of community (long sought by many foreign comics creators feeling rather isolated in Japan), but there were plenty of new faces, too, many of whom flew in from Europe and North America to be here. Tim once again procured a media pass and went booth-to-booth gathering interviews! Photos and Web links for all interviewees are below.
Ogawa Burukku (a.k.a. Brooke Stephenson) has been enjoying great success with her magical-girl manga 
This week Tim travels just south of Tokyo to Yokohama to meet up with Chris Taylor (“Sketchfro”), creator of 
What are some advantages and disadvantages of comics as a medium? How can you show lack of motion in a comic? Is the lack of sound in a comic ever an advantage? How do you keep yourself going when you’re afraid that your work isn’t good enough? This and more this week with three Tokyo-area artists: Grace Mineta, who’s having considerable success with her 
