In one of our longest episodes ever, Kumar discusses at length Garth Ennis’s epic run on The Punisher, the greatest comic book series of the 2000s. Dana listens and nods politely.
How did Ennis define the character like no other writer? Is Punisher crazy? Should comics cover topics like human trafficking? All this and more.
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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!
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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.
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You wake up to discover that the zombies have attacked, and you now have super powers! Lots of other stuff has also happened, but some of it stays frustratingly off-panel in Bounty Hunter #0, by Sean Koury and Scott Twells!
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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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This week, an interview with Matt Emery, a comics creator from New Zealand who lives in Melbourne and has started his own publishing house, Pikitia Press. He’ll be talking with Kumar about the Melbourne comics scene, why he started publishing and how he got started in it.
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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
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