Sometimes simplicity is best. Just take a look at the work of Graeme McNee, a Scottish/South African who makes his home in Kobe, Japan. With just a few lines, sometimes a complex idea or story can be communicated. This week Graeme talks to Tim about how he got into doing comics and developed both his simple style of drawing and his distinctive way of publishing them.
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Ian McMurray‘s Square #11 is a tour de force of autobiographical cartooning, eschewing chronology, switching up styles, and closely observing himself and the things and people around him. He digs deep within himself and still makes it a fun read. Tim and Mulele discuss.
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Having grown up with feet planted firmly on both sides of the Pacific, Aya Rothwell has always been observant of cultural differences, and this shows up in her comics. Who else would do a comic about a human visitor to an alien world, with the biggest conflict being that the human keeps getting the aliens’ names mixed up?
Aya also fills us in on using watercolors in her comics, her journey to comics via the worlds of biology and film, and more.
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Udon Entertainment is a network of creators who produce original comics (much of it in Japanese style) as well as doing work in Hollywood, video games, and toys, and translated manga. This week Tim talks to Eric Ko and Matt Moylan at Udon headquarters in Toronto, about their history, their recent projects, and the future of digital comics.
Then, Udon member and Japan resident Steven Cummings talks about what he’s done for the group, how he feels about the inking on his pencils, and more.
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Our report on the October 20 International Manga Festival (Kaigai Manga Festa) at Tokyo Big Sight concludes, with analog cloud computer support, an unexpected Boston Comics Roundtable connection, a young boy in strange lands, talk of censorship, Bulgarian comics, and finally, the artist behind Blacksad, Juanjo Guarnido!
Info on all the exhibitors we talk to in this episode is below!
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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!
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The residents of a Mexican town start killing each other. A planeful of people simultaneously get amnesia. Strange happenings abound in Matt Kindt’s MIND MGMT volume 1. Tim and Brandon review.
Then Tim is joined by our new manga reviewer Kory to discuss Kiyohiko Azuma’s hilarious Yotsuba&!, a slice-of-life (yet slightly wacky) manga filled with memorable characters and the intriguing relationships among them.
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by Kory Cerjak
Life as a salaryman in Japan is already difficult enough. 30-year-old Daikichi works well past 7 p.m. each night and has way too much expected of him by higher-ups. Add in that he has to raise a child, who happens to be his grandfather’s love child, 6-year-old Rin. Such is Yumi Unita’s first (and so far only) manga, Bunny Drop (Yen Press).
What makes Bunny Drop so endearing is how Unita slowly, almost methodically, characterizes both Daikichi and Rin. There are little moments woven throughout each chapter that give us more and more insight into Daikichi and Rin. Arguably the biggest moment comes near the end of chapter one. Daikichi is Continue reading “Bunny Drop” Bypassess Josei Manga Tropes
Shotaro Ishinomori was a very prolific creator of manga, a number of which became staples of live-action children’s TV, such as the Power Rangers and Kamen Rider. Many of his series deal with the relationship between technology and humans, and this week Tim and guest reviewer Deb Aoki discuss two such series, Cyborg 009 and Kikaider — both recently released in English via Comixology.
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