Comics commentary from our podcast regulars.
Sortafellas, a comic submitted to us by Ed M., is set on the mean streets of 1970s New York; a police “bag man” goes to “Junkie Central” to pick up bribe money for his superiors. Having seen only 10 pages, Mulele & Tim aren’t quite sure where it’s going, but would like to see more!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
by Kory Cerjak
Title: Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin)
Author: Hajime Isayama
Publisher: Kodansha
Attack on Titan is, as I know it, an anime that took the (anime) world by storm upon its release on April 6 of 2013. Newly formed Wit Studios (created by former members of Production I.G) took up the task (with the help of I.G) to make what has the potential to be the biggest title that the US anime market has seen since Fullmetal Alchemist hit the scene in 2001 (manga) and 2003 (anime). Kodansha has said on tumblr and Twitter that the numbers for the manga have gone up and up and up and they’re just riding the waves of success until—or should I say if—it slows down.
Simply put, Attack on Titan is really, really fun. I’ll admit that, through volume eight, it doesn’t have the depth that Fullmetal Alchemist did at the same point in its run. But that’s not to say that Attack on Titan is without depth. The titans represent fear incarnate. The innate fear that each human being holds within him or herself that Continue reading “Attack on Titan” fun, has great tone
Jason McNamara, last seen in a San Francisco Italian restaurant, returns to the podcast! He talks with Tim about his latest comics, Shorthand and The Rattler, publishing through Comixology, The Martian Confederacy, and Superior Spider-Man, and we also discuss the art of writing.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
by Kory Cerjak
Title: Princess Knight
Author: Osamu Tezuka
Publisher: Vertical
I’ll give Princess Knight a praise that I haven’t given any other manga I’ve read yet, and it’s this: Princess Knight is the most interesting failure I have ever read. The story of Princess Knight goes that God decides what gender an unborn child will be by giving the child a boy heart or a girl heart. But Tink had already given a child a boy heart when God gives him a girl heart. The child, Sapphire, is born as a girl into a kingdom where only boys can ascend to the throne.
This is what’s interesting. Published in 1953 in Kodansha’s Shojo Club magazine, it is perhaps the first foray into feminist manga in Japan, and perhaps the first ever comic to be a true tale of feminist literature. I say it’s a failure because of Continue reading The “interesting failure” of Tezuka’s feminist “Princess Knight”
On October 20, Tim and Mulele visited the International Manga Festival (Kaigai Manga Festa) at Tokyo Big Sight. Comics creators from around the world were exhibiting their work to an enthusiastic mostly-Japanese crowd. This week: part one of our report.
Info on all the exhibitors we talk to in this episode is below!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
This week, another comic involving science — Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra’s The Manhattan Projects — and thus another visit from comics-and-science-loving podcaster Ryan Haupt! He and Tim speculate on the meaning of Hickman’s tag line “Science. Bad.”, examine which parts of the story are fact and which are extrapolation from fact (or just plain made up!), some facts that Hickman got wrong, and more. Plus: how can the writer of such a wacky book turn around and write such dark, funless Avengers stories?
Read issue-by-issue analysis at Multiversity Comics
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
By Kory Cerjak
Title: Apollo’s Song
Author: Osamu Tezuka
Publisher: Vertical
Osamu Tezuka: the man, the legend, the God of Manga and the Godfather of Anime. Born in 1928 in Toyonaka, Tezuka is perhaps the most well-known figure in the manga/anime cultural pantheon. I’ll skip some of the finer details and move to 1946. In 1946, Tezuka was just graduating from medical school and had to make a decision: medicine or comics. He loved both fields, but loved one just a little more. He got his degree, but ultimately decided to pursue comics. In 1952, Astro Boy began its syndication in Shonen magazine. The rest, as they say, is history.
Apollo’s Song opens with an amazing visual metaphor of 500,000,000 people all clambering to become the king to the one queen. The metaphor ends up being of a sperm and eggs, and is used really effectively to represent humankind as a whole, in the sense that only one out of 500,000,000 people will be that special one. But it’s not just Continue reading Tezuka’s “Apollo’s Song” explores love, with stunning visuals
By Kory Cerjak
Title: Helter Skelter: Fashion Unfriendly
Author: Kyoko Okazaki
Publisher: Vertical
Kyoko Okazaki is a relatively well-known figure in the Japanese manga market. However, given that her most famous works are josei titles (which historically haven’t done well in the States), I hadn’t heard of her until Vertical announced they would be putting out Helter Skelter and Pink. A lot of her titles are published in French, though. According to Wikipedia, and you’d have to talk to someone like Vertical’s Ed Chavez for more detail, Okazaki is one of the spearheads to the trend of shojo/josei manga (especially in the late ’80s and ’90s) regarding “gal” (gyaru) manga, which is about girls but also about sex and drugs.
Helter Skelter is about a young(?) woman named Liliko who has undergone extensive plastic surgery to achieve her current look. I don’t remember the exact quote, but it was Continue reading Sex, drugs, and vanity in “Helter Skelter”
As it’s widely regarded as one of the best comic book series of all time, Dana and Kumar try their best to rekindle their love for Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN nearly twenty years after its conclusion, only to find the plotting leaden, the art inconsistent, and the world-building frustrating. Has time stripped the series of its lustre, or are these two jerks just too old for it?
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Autobiographical comics are par for the course, but in 1972, Justin Green broke ground for the genre when he published Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary. Some of that broken ground hasn’t been trod since; how many autobiographical comics about a battle with mental illness have you seen done as wacky parody comics? Lightning-quick pace, phalluses everywhere, and a helpful instructional arrow pointed at a bunch of bananas? It’s unlike any autobio comic before or since, and your take on the subject matter may greatly depend on your upbringing. Tim and Kumar examine.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
