Frank Miller produced two of the most influential Batman books ever, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One, within a short period in the mid-’80s. The stories present the end and beginning of Batman’s career, respectively. Tim and Kumar talk about what’s good, and in some cases maybe a bit annoying, about both books.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
A review of Web comic Dead Heaven by Chris Steininger leads into a discussion of Tim’s pet peeves about Web comics. Tim’s been reading the pirate manga series One Piece, and Mulele recommends a site centering on print design, that could inspire unusual ways to present your comic.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
8/24/09 Comics on the screen: Dick Tracy and Sin City
Many comics have been adapted to movies, but few have tried to reproduce the experience of actually reading a comic. These two did: Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy, and Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller’s Sin City. Tim, Mulele, Paul, and newcomer Rod discuss. Also: Paul and Mulele give Miller’s The Spirit a quickie review.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
8/17/09 Filling in the Word Balloon
John Siuntres was one of the first comics podcasters back in 2005, and he’s been interviewing big names in American comics ever since. Tim chats with him about his background, how he got started with Word Balloon, and the state of mainstream comics.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
8/10/09 Marvel Geek-out: Alternate Future Edition
Whether it’s Old Man Logan, Days of Future Past, or Dr. Doom’s recent hallucination of a utopian future, possible futures and alternate time-lines are fun for both creator and reader. Tim and Patrik talk about alternate timelines (is there one where Dark Reign is finally over?), plus un-rebooting books, and the lack of new heroes challenging the old guard for popularity.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
8/3/09 Awesomeness in Bolt City
Kazu Kibuishi’s Bolt City Web site is a smorgasbord of awesomeness, featuring the monthly strip Copper, early work Clive Cabbage, first pages of his book Daisy Kutter, and how-tos for working on scanned art in Adobe PhotoShop. Kibuishi is also the editor of a series of anthology comics called Flight. Tim and Mulele review the site and the first volume of Flight.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
This is what happens when the geeks get old enough to run companies. And governments.
Tokyo has recently unveiled a to-scale statue of one of the giant robots from the “Gundam” comic series, on the man-made island of Odaiba in Tokyo Bay.
Not to be outdone, the city of Kobe (pronounced “KO-bay”, by the way) is working on a (to-scale, of course) iron figure of an earlier giant robot, Tetsujin 28. The linked page includes video of the manufacture of the “robot” and of the TV cartoon from 1963. By the way, this cartoon got some play in the US and other countries three years later, as “Gigantor“.
Not unrelated, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso is trying to spend government money to build a Manga Museum. Aso being about as popular with the Japanese public as month-old bananas, it’s not too surprising that the opposition, led by Yukio Hatoyama, is bludgeoning him with this example of “wasteful spending”.
Guess Hatoyama wasn’t much of a manga reader.
(Photo from dannychoo.com)
Though it had a lot of buzz when it first appeared in 1983, Howard Chaykin’s dystopian-future comic American Flagg! had fallen off the radar until recently. Now Image Comics has released two volumes containing the first 14 issues. Tim and Kumar discuss.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Check out this listener’s comic. Mike Kloran, who’s also based here in Japan, has done some comics (with a rather bizarre sense of humor) and spot illustrations.
On a business trip to Yamaguchi Prefecture recently, I happened to see this bus, decorated with Shima Kosaku panels! Coincidence that Mulele and I had just recorded a podcast where we talked about this comic!
Continue reading Bound for promotion on the Shima Kosaku bus!
