This week Tim travels just south of Tokyo to Yokohama to meet up with Chris Taylor (“Sketchfro”), creator of Relic Hunter: Riven, and James Stacey of Black Hook Press, which publishes Japanese translations of US and UK graphic novels. How do you prepare for conventions? Did you do comics differently back home? What’s different about tabling at German comics events? Why did Chris get in an argument with Archie Comics? That and more!
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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 Texan in Tokyo comics and YouTube channel: Pei-in Wu, a Taiwanese artist who’s juggling comics with a day job; and Yu Ohmura, who self-publishes comics about his travel experiences.
Some samples of Yu Ohmura work:
On the left side of the photo below is the girl falling in the snow, described by Yu during our discussion of showing movement (or lack thereof)
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Actually, several questions. I’ve become a follower of Yugata’s career since meeting her at the massive Comic Market (“Comiket”) event in Tokyo last December. At that event and also at Comitia in May, I bought some of her work. The juxtaposition of cute high school girls and creepy insects is interesting, but the main attraction is not so much the subject matter as that it’s just drawn and colored so beautifully. This is a lady with real talent.
| I feel I’d like to show characters who are both scary and cute. Putting horror elements together with cute ones, I think I can create something new and interesting. — Yugata |
Stunned that this twentysomething artist is not already the toast of the Tokyo manga world, I’ve been wanting to spread the word about her. I first inquired about doing an interview in January. She has a lot going on, but finally found some time to sit down with me on June 21, 2015, in the Nakano area of Tokyo. What follows is a transcript, translated from Japanese and edited for length and clarity.
(Note: “Yugata” is a pen name; as is not unusual in Japan, she doesn’t put her real name on her work, at least in part because moonlighting is frowned upon. She also declined to let me take a photo of her; it’s your loss, I have to say.)
DCP: Is making comics your job?
YUGATA: Well, I really want it to be my job, and lately I’ve been getting some things published in magazines. Continue reading Yugata, I’ve got a question…
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Kumar reports on the three comics shows he attended while in Canada last month: Toronto Comic Arts Festival (where he spoke on a manga translation panel), East Coast Comics Expo (where he had a table), and Vancouver Comic Arts Festival. (Click below for photos) |
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Then Tim and Mulele discuss Jason Brubaker’s “Sithra: Book One”. Brubaker recently quit DreamWorks — yes, that’s right, QUIT DREAMWORKS — to follow his muse, which prompts Tim and Mulele to think about their own career hopes, in comics or otherwise. |
Continue reading #454 Kumar Across Canada
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Nao Yazawa and Mokutan Angelo join Tim in what will hopefully be the first in a series of group discussions with Tokyo-based comics creators! Topics include Tokyo’s annual International Comics Festival, comics in Brazil, things an artist asks the audience to overlook, effects of traditional Japanese drama on manga and anime, and more!
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Critiquing Comics returns! Tim and Mulele dust off their neglected pile of submissions and look at Terra Kaiju, by Joe Badon and P.B. DeBerry — a comic with Japanese (and Chinese?) ideas, run through a Western filter.
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This week, an interview with Frank Santoro, who writes for the Comics Journal, teaches comics creation (mostly through the Web), and has published several graphic novels, including Storeyville and Pompeii. We discuss using geometry to design a comics page, the artists he draws attention to on his Comics Workbook page, the reason Pompeii is in such a rough drawing style, and more.
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Yoshihiro Tatsumi, although he was a somewhat influential figure in the manga of the 1950s and ’60s, is largely forgotten in Japan today. However, within the past 10 years he has gained some belated fame in the West, thanks largely to the efforts of Adrian Tomine and Drawn & Quarterly.
Tatsumi passed away last month, prompting Tim and Kumar to finally pull his comics memoir (which also includes considerable amounts of 1950s manga history) A Drifting Life
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Why draw in a manga style? Why are zombies popular? How can you represent the comics creation experience in a card game? These questions and more as Tim interviews Jason Thompson, author of Manga: The Complete Guide, the Web comic The Stiff, and Kickstarter project card game Mangaka.
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American comics fans were introduced to Ken Niimura back in 2010, when his art appeared in the Image miniseries I Kill Giants, written by Joe Kelly. Since then, Ken’s work has been seen in some short Spider-Man stories, and more recently, his book Henshin, which just came out in English from Image.
He currently lives in Tim’s stomping grounds of Tokyo, so this week it’s an in-person interview with Ken, about why I Kill Giants was in black and white, his story goals and storytelling techniques in Henshin, and much more.
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