To Flip Or Not To Flip, These Are The Comments From my comments section.
People talking about the last entry, and flipped manga RE: Bill Randall's article on the same. I was going to post in the comments, but until I shell out for unlimited posting it's just a pain in the ass... SO! Let's address everyone's comments:
CHASDOM WRITES: After reading the article, the following two thoughts came to mind:
1) If there is manga that suffers through "flipping" of the images, I don't think I have ever seen examples. Are there certain key works that exhibit this difficulty?
2) I think the best point he makes, which you do not quote, is that in "flipped" and translated manga the L-to-R dialouge and captions are running counter to the R-to-L actions. Maybe this seems too academic for most, but to me the structure of the page and panel and how it directs the reader to "take in" the whole of the art is of primary importance.
--Chasdom
1) As mentioned further down in the comments, Lianne brings up a few interesting examples. Being the type of person who supports the creator over the publisher in almost all circumstances, I'm willing to defer to creators. Most notably, it was stated by Viz that the reason that it took so long for Akira Toriyama's DRAGONBALL manga to arrive was that Toriyama would not allow it to be published flipped, only in its original orientation. (Sorry, no reference for this info, it's been quite a few years). It is believed that to test the North American market's willingness to read "unflipped" manga, Viz simultaniously released two editions of popular and long-awaited manga NEON GENESIS EVANGELLION, a flipped version with English sound effects, and an unflipped version with Japanese Sound-effects and a glossary of what the effects meant. Sales were strong enough on both formats, particularly in book format and espescially with the formats seemingly competing against one another, to validate their release 'unflipped'. I'm pretty certain that the simultaneous releases of DRAGONBALL and DRAGONBALL Z, uncensored (at first) were Viz's (and North America's) first unflipped-only manga releases, in both individual issues and in trade paperback. I think they translated the sound-effects though, it's been a little while. Dragonball did very well, and shortly thereafter Tokyopop decided to one-up Viz with their "100% Authentic" line, releasing ALL of their manga in the unflipped, straight-to-tpb format. Viz was slow to follow.
Anyhow, it's not difficult to extrapolate from Toriyama's position that there were other manga-ka with enough clout to disallow printing of their material in a format that they felt was detrimental to it.
As for any personal notice of manga that work better flipped than unflipped, I know that I found reading the 'unflipped' Neon Genesis Evangellion much more enjoyable. The original sound effects were, for the most part, spectacularly well-integrated to the art. The biggest problem with flipping the art is that backwards Japanese looks wrong, and translating the sound effects (which are often integrated into the art) can really easily ruin a composition. I have confidence in my abilities as a letterer (and let's say Mal's and a few other folks) to actually design lettering that's in the same style, size, and effect as the Japanese artists, but we're both retardedly detail-oriented when we want to be, and most letterists aren't going to put that much work in when Tokyopop and Viz are paying them four dollars a page.
2) It's not too academic at all, it's the kinds of discussions we should be having more of. However, the act of translation is one of compromise. It's about finding an acceptable middle ground between extremes. For me, reading the dialogue and then taking in the scene as a whole in it's original orientation, works just fine. I haven't had problems reading unflipped manga for quite some time though (I do still have problems reading shit manga though, I'm looking at you FIRST KING ADVENTURE). For most younger readers too, they pick it up very easily because they're young and it's easy to learn new languages when you're younger.
Actually, I'd say that reading comics is its own language. Reading l-to-r text on an r-to-l page is more of a dialect, and first hand experience working with school libraries points entirely to: kids pick it up easier than someone older, like Mr. Randall.
But that's besides the point. Here's a quick example on compromise. You have a panel of manga where a character is talking. There are two word balloons. The first balloon is much bigger than the other, with much more text. The panels are over a dense background and can't be moved, re-sized or editted. When flipped, the dialogue intended for the first balloon, the bigger balloon, ends up in the smaller balloon (and won't fit), while the short dialogue ends up in the bigger balloon. The solution is to re-write the passage and spread it out, either changing the verbiage while keeping the intent, or just keeping the dialogue the same and having it continue from one to the next... with... elipses... This disrupts the intended flow of the story. This is a compromise that runs contrary to the intent of how the sequence, and page, was intended to be read. It'd probably be considered a minor compromise (it used to happen all the time), but I'd easily put it on level with the l-to-r vs. r-to-l text/image situation. The reason? Familiarity with the dialect. Younger readers, the vast majority of new readers to manga, are effectively 'bilingual' and the difference just doesn't matter as much to them.
Then you add in the authenticity argument and the two combine to blow the objection to "taking in the page as a whole" out of the water. All translation is compromise, but the solution isn't only producing hyper-localized translations as close to an unrelated and foreign reading experience as possible (including, say, colouring a manga so the X-Men fans might pick it up, regardless of the quality of that colour). The solution is to let a new generation of readers train themselves how to read it and not let that sort of flow affect the storytelling.
(And to draw from personal experience, I found the balloon transposition in the flipped THE WALKING MAN by Jiro Taniguchi and published by Fanfare/Ponent-Mon, to be particularly distracting at points throughout the story.)
Thanks for commenting though, Chasdom.
JEREMY TANKARD WRITES: From a purly graphic point of view there are problems with un-flipped manga. On a very subtle level we are more comfortable reading (looking at) images that face right. It's more "normal" for us to view things L to R.
The French are particularly good at producing comics that take into account all of the different and subtle nuances of telling stories with pictures. I believe the Japanese are as well, but many of those nuances are lost on us Westerners because we instintively read images the opposite way than the Japanese do.
On a personal note I believe that there is a greater level of competence among the Japanese and French artists when it comes to telling stories with pictures. We could learn a lot from each of them. Perhaps it's because Manga and BD are more acceptable in their respective countries. For instance, friends who have studied Graphic Design in France have told me that much time was spent studying BD because it's such a great place to learn how images interact with each other and the effects that it produces! Not too many art schools in N. America teach comics as a way to learn anything about graphic design. With schooling like that it's no wonder that Japan and France produce such fine comics art - there is active and ongoing discussion about it in the institutions where students are learning the craft. Interesting, no?
Besides, I thought they stopped flipping Manga in order to save money. It must cost a lot to get someone to flip the images an then make all of the needed touch-ups. This way the publishers probably have a smaller pay-roll!
-- Jeremy Tankard
Hey Jeremy. I'd certainly agree with you that, for those trained to read Western and European languages, it's definitely more 'normal' for us to view things L-to-R. But common wisdom is that if you want to teach someone multiple languages, you teach them as young as possible. I've been fortunate enough to see that the younger readers that we're selling to, and that we're eventually reaching through libraries, have no barrier to enjoying or understanding the action. They read it in a different way because, for the most part, they're still in school and still learning. Open minds and all. Which isn't to say that there aren't some basic inconsistantcies and difficulties there, between native language and learned behaviours and things, but even looking at the folks for whom money is no object, the scanlators and pirates who are translating raw Japanese manga into English for the web, they leave it as close to the original as possible. That's pretty powerful incentive for companies to release things in their native orientation, and whether it's a fad or not, it's teaching a whole bunch of kids how to read "backwards", I doubt it's a skill they'll lose.
Interesting points though, about the BD and design for the page. I think that's all really valid stuff, and definitely something I concentrate more on when I don't understand the language of the comics I'm reading: How the pictures interact with one another to tell a story. I've actually found that some of the better HOW TO DRAW MANGA books and articles have been fascinating, because there are manga professionals taking the time to really take apart a sequence of storytelling and make it work smoother and better. Show how it's done, how to lead the eye through the page. There's... nothing like that? In English? In English, much of the time, the best we can hope for is that the "How To Draw Wonder Woman Bathing In A River" pin-up tutorial will remind people to use real plants as reference...
Anyway, I didn't know that about the Design schools, I think that's great. I wonder who they're recommending, who the best (and clearest) storytellers are? I wonder if it's %100 overlap with the most historically popular stuff, like TINTIN and ASTERIX and whatnot...?
As for the decision to leave manga unflipped, I'd say that cost was a major factor, but not the only one (though printing the books unflipped allowed Tokyopop to hit the $10 price point line-wide, undercutting Viz/DH by between $5 and $9 a book...)
LIANNE WRITES: Unflipping manga saves a hell of a lot of time and money in touch-up, as Jeremy mentioned--it's very common for manga characters to wear tee-shirts plastered with English sayings, buildings have Arabic numbers, etc., and every time you flip a comic you need someone to individually cut out all those shirts/signs and flip them back to R-to-L. Not only that, but if the manga leaves in Japanese sound effects, flipping the comic leaves BACKWARDS Japanese all over the place. Having a real language appearing anywhere backwards in professional printed media in this country (save, of course, for creative graphic design or a Matrix screen) is, I think, just unacceptably sloppy. If memory serves, the original release of Peach Girl Volume 5 by Tokyopop (stuck in-between the flipped and unflipped crazes) was flipped but with Japanese sound effects left in. All that backwards Japanese just looked...well, it looked awful.
Chasdom--if you need a manga that suffers intensely from flipping, think of any baseball title. "He hits a single, dashes off the plate, and heads straight for...third?" I remember Viz a long time ago quoting this as one of the reasons the eternally-popular manga H2 by Mitsuru Adachi was particularly hard to import (in the days when everything was flipped).
Of course, then you get special titles with special handling--take Blade of the Immortal through Dark Horse. The manga reads L-to-R, but EACH INDIVIDUAL PANEL is flipped back to its original R-to-L. That way the art is kept as original as possible and the backwards swastika on the main hero's back doesn't ever become a real swastika. :) It can sometimes make for a hard read, but I can still see why they did it that way.
If you ask me, unflipped manga isn't just a fad--it's a cheaper and far more efficient way to import manga, but it's not traditional for our bookstores and it needed readers to be willing to read it that way. Since READING unflipped manga is a fad, the manga companies were able to usher in unflipped manga by the boatload, and now it's so common in the Western manga market that even when the "Don't change a thing!" fad washes from manga readership--if it ever does--the unflipped manga will be here to stay since people will have come to expect it. Everybody wins! That's what I hope, anyway.
I think the most efficient yet well-rounded way to bring over a manga is to leave it unflipped, don't touch the original sound effects, and put a sound effects glossary in the back of the manga so readers can look up the Japanese symbols and their meanings if they wish (see Tokyopop's Saiyuki Volume 1, I.C. Entertainment's Central City Volume 1, or a number of other titles for this). Of course, I've also heard otaku complain that sound effects glossaries "annoy them" in some way, but I guess that just goes to prove that trying to reach the perplexing standards of some hardcore otaku is a losing battle.
Thanks Lianne, I actually don't really have a lot to add there.
Anyway, this was sort of a nice and diverting thing to think about. Feel free to respond, I'll try to comment in a less verbose way next time.
The Comics Journal Special 2005 is very good. I've read a little over half of it, and am greatly enjoying it. Of course, this isn't to say that the comics journal writing about manga will be an entirely uncontroversial affair. Not by a long shot.
"Now, the standard of quality for many readers is manga that's as un-translated as possible. Un-flipped pages are considered more authentic than flipped, and original sound effects preferred to any changes to the artwork. Whether that's more "authentic" or not is an interesting question, as well as whether some of these books merit translating in the first place. ... "That said, un-flipped translations are at the very least readable. So are badly timed, typo-ridden subtitles on a fifth generation vhs bootleg. As to the question of authenticity, if it's that important, move to Japan, learn Japanese, and read it on the train. The point of a translation is to make a work intelligible to a completely different culture, to interpret it so that the barriers of language and custom are no longer insurmountable. Un-flipped manga is at best a half-translation, and while they are popular at the moment, it's a fad. The peculiar enjoyment of reading something from another culture is made more exotic because it's un-flipped. In the end, such pleasures fade to be replaced by new ones, and it makes good sense if manga publishers don't count on a momentary trend to define their publishing practices." - Bill Randall, from the article "Manga in English, for Better or Worse."
Tee hee. I can see his point and, in TCJ style, he doesn't mince his words even a smidge, but there's certainly quite a lot of room for argument there too (for example: Then why do we have subtitles on movies at all? Why not just only allow dubs with intense localization (see: Pokemon) and dumb down everything to the lowest common denominator? Answer: Because translation is a balance between understanding and preserving nuance and intent, and some work doesn't hold up to flipping...). Besides, the French don't flip their manga, and when it comes to picky-bastardness, don't we all think of the French? :)
Anyway, it's a very smart history of manga in North America. Biased and with a heavy viewpoint interpretting all events covered, but I think that's the way it oughtta be really. The whole thing is online, go check it out, and make sure to check out the rest of the table of contents for that issue at http://www.tcj.com/.
- Christopher PS: Follow-up post on the shoujo manga discussions coming later this evening.
THE 2005 TORONTO COMIC ARTS FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES NEW GUESTS AND EVENTS WWW.TORONTOCOMICS.COM
Presented by The Beguiling, North America�s finest purveyor of comic books, graphic novels and high art funny books, in association with Scholastic Books Canada
MAY 27-29, 2005
TORONTO, Ontario - The 2005 Toronto Comic Arts Festival is proud to announce its next wave of Festival guests, and the details of the kick-off party events on May 27. On Friday May 27, TCAF presents KID KOALA at the legendary music venue The Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto, Canada. Following up on two successful albums and his critically-acclaimed graphic novel Nufonia Must Fall, Montreal�s internationally respected turntablist and budding graphic novelist Kid Koala (a.k.a. Eric San) will be launching the Festival in style with an exclusive evening show. He will also be signing his graphic novel and albums on the main Festival dates, Saturday May 28 and Sunday May 29 2005. His show kicks off the second gathering of international independent cartoonists, comic artists and graphic novelists under the TCAF banner (the inaugural Festival took place in March 2003).
Featuring a diverse array of Canadian cartoonists, in addition to artists and graphic novelists from the United States and Europe, The Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) will showcase the talents of its guests with an ambitious programme of gallery presentations, lectures, workshops, discussion panels and interactive readings. Guests include graphic novelists and creators like Gary Panter, Chester Brown and Ho Che Anderson, and many others who have recently been featured in the pages of The New Yorker, The Globe and Mail, McSweeney�s Issue 13 (the comics issue), The New York Times, NYTRB, Time, and others. With this instalment, TCAF has expanded and will include over 6,000 feet of festival space, 100+ cartoonists, and 2 full days of programming and events. All of which take place in the in the heart of Toronto�s historic Mirvish Village district.
TCAF was founded in 2003 in response to the overwhelmingly positive feedback to interaction between the creative community and the public witnessed at similar alternative festivals around the world. TCAF is Canada�s opportunity to not only promote and celebrate homegrown artistic talent, but also to broaden its scope and showcase creators from the US and abroad, many appearing in Toronto for the first time. This prestigious gathering of artists will attract international and national audience.
JUST ANNOUNCED The Toronto Comic Arts Festival is proud to welcome the following additional guests (please check www.torontocomics.com often, as new guests are regularly being added to the line-up):
Kid Koala: Montreal Turntablist Kid Koala (a.k.a. Eric San) has released a number of albums that have defied expectations, including 2000�s Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, and 2003�s Some Of My Best Friends Are DJs, and each one featured an original comic book created by the artist. In 2003 Koala realized his budding skills with his first full length graphic novel, Nufonia Must Fall, which garnered crucial acclaim both at home and abroad. Koala is currently at work on his next graphic novel/album project, a continuation of the themes of Nufonia, due in 2006. Kid Koala will be performing a DJ set at the legendary Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto, accompanied with graffiti-styled comic artist Jim Mahfood accompanying him doing a live-art demonstration, as well as signing at TCAF on Saturday. Look to www.torontocomics.com for ticket information.
Phoebe Gloeckner: Although Phoebe has created several graphic novels of note, including the remarkable A Child�s Life And Other Stories and Diary Of A Teenage Girl, Gloeckner is probably best known to the Canadian audience thanks to her appearances on the national television program SexTV, where she has talked extensively about her work. Tackling a number of difficult subjects and themes, Gloeckner�s work illuminates the life of an artist of remarkable depth and ability, and TCAF is proud to welcome her back to Toronto.
Tony Millionaire: In cooperation with Harbourfront Centre�s literary programme, TCAF is proud to welcome Tony Millionaire to Toronto as a guest of the weekly International Readings series. Tony Millionaire is the creator of the darkly hilarious syndicated strip Makkies, and the comic- and story-book series Sock Monkey. Millionaire will be in Toronto for an evening reading on Wednesday May 25.
Paul Pope: In America, he's been called the "comics destroyer;" in France, he's been called the "Jim Morrison of comics" and "comics' Petit Prince." New York�s Paul Pope creates comics that defy genre and period, straddling the line between artistic capriciousness and commercial appeal. One of a handful of young cartoonists consistently gaining critical praise and media attention, Pope has been featured in Canada on MuchMusic and Space channel, among others, and his work has appeared in print outlets like Spin, Entertainment Weekly, Jalouse, V Magazine and The Village Voice. He is also the only American cartoonist to have worked for Japan's largest manga publisher (Kodansha), for more than five years now. Pope�s recent work includes the near-future sci-fi romance 100%, the career spanning THB, as well as recent stints on iconic comic character series like Batman and Spider-Man.
Brian Wood: Brian Wood is a respected and critically-acclaimed artist/writer and freelance graphic designer trained at Parsons School of Design in NYC. His comics and graphic novels have been distributed worldwide, most notably his debut book Channel Zero, The Couriers, and the recent award winning comics series Demo. A designer with credits including Rockstar Games� Grand Theft Auto series, Wood launched his own t-Shirt line in 2004, called Northern Boy.
Other recently announced guests include:
From Canada: Amy Kim Ganter (Flight 2), Kalman Andrasofszky (iCandy), Eric Kim (Love as a Foreign Language), Johane Matte (Flight 2), Jeff Lemire (Ashtray), Tyrone McCarthy (Corduroy High), The Perro Verlagg group (Vancouver Art-Comix Press), Fiona Smyth (Nocturnal Emisions), Peter Thompson (Chronicles of Lucky Ello), and Zach Worton (Candy-Coated Press).
From the United States: Alvin Buenaventura (Buenaventura Publishing), Carla Speed McNeil (Finder), Zack Soto (Studygroup 12, Project: Superior), and Dean Trippe (Flight).
These guests join an already outstanding roster of attending cartoonists and illustrators, including Jeff Smith (Bone), Marc Bell (Shrimpy and Paul), Chester Brown (Louis Riel), Darwyn Cooke (New Frontier), James Jean (Fables), Gary Panter (Satiroplastic, and Emmy-winning set designer for Pee Wee�s Playhouse), Seth (Clyde Fans, Pallooka-ville), and dozens more.
SPONSORS The Toronto Comic Arts Festival would not be possible without the assistance of our sponsors, including:
The Beguiling, Canada�s foremost purveyor of comics, graphic novels and high-art funnybooks. The Ontario Arts Council The Toronto Arts Council Scholastic Books Canada Ed Mirvish Productions
PRESS Please submit all interview requests, press inquiries, and press accreditation requests to: press@torontocomics.com.
I tripped over a great article today. Toronto illustrator Julia Breckenreid is interviewed by Torontoist about her upcoming group-gallery show, BOYS CLUB. In it, she talks about being a woman in a male-dominated field, hardships she's encountered and the importance of paving your own path. She has some nice things to say about Graphic Novels as well:
Q: What do you think of the popularity of graphic novels? Has it helped you as an illustrator?
Breckenreid: I'm really jealous. I'd love to do a graphic novel. The idea of it is really appealing to me. I really like Chester Brown, Seth, Chris Ware. They're really great because from start to finish they can tell their story and tell it from whatever perspective they want. They can design the book, design the whole thing. It's a package unto itself.
I'm definitely going to try and hit the opening this week, and if you're in the area I recommend you try and check it out. Opening night is April 1st, Xspace Gallery on August. It looks like they're also doing a big panel discussion on April 4th (Saturday), hosted by Christopher Hutsul, which is pretty cool. Not I'm torn as to which one to hit up :)
"Speaking as a woman who has been in anime fandom since 1990, all I can really do is nod my head in disappointed, knowing agreement. Anime and manga are often not "woman-friendly". ... They're not as bad as American superhero comics... See, in American superhero comics, the subjugation and dehumanization of women is just TEXT, it's not even subtext. Unless women being murdered and stuffed into refrigerators has become a subtle code for "that bitch cheerleader was mean to me in high school". The stuff in anime and manga is much more subtle. The fans are told to cheer for sweet, innocent, sexually unthreatening Belldandy who loves to cook and clean and be supportive, quiet and lovely. They are told to boo the mature, sexy temptress Urd, who loves to get it on and who doesn't back down in arguments. ... Often, in the "magical girlfriend" genre, one of the most popular genres in all of boys' anime and manga (esp. in America), the girl is a goddess, an alien, a demoness, or a video girl from another dimension, but what remains the same is her unswerving loyalty and love of the hero in the face of any and all hardships. " - Elin Winkler.
I know that Johanna and JennyN were really, really dismissive of the article but a big part of my getting behind it was that it seemed to fit, very closely, my experiences and observations of fandom. Elin's experiences (she's been in fandom for quite some time) seem to reflect the level of concern of the young writers of that article.
Johanna's point, "The authors of that essay seem to miss the basic point that presenting something in a story isn't the same as justifying it." is a valid one and, just like I don't think that everyone who reads about a murder will go and commit murder, I don't think that picking up a manga dooms you to a life of abusive relationships. I've encountered a number of younger (and older) female readers who think that the doormat lead of HOT GIMMICK is an absolute dolt (waves at Kirsten and Noel), and not a figure to aspire to. But (as Elin's experiences will hopefully impart), there are some folks, male and female, who determine gender roles and take relationship advice from manga, for good or for ill. It's not an inconsiderable number either, and I think that warning people to actually think about what they're reading (and using words like 'dangerous' to underline their points) is both valid and encouraged.
Let's not forget that Tokyopop was originally going to call their "Relationships Manga For Boys" title BOYS BE something to the effect of "A Guy's Guide To Getting Girls". To find out why that's particularly discomforting, read the book.
Anyway, go read Elin's entry on the subject, it's good and benefits from a true lifetime of experience.
- Christopher PS: Please, for the love of all that's good and holy, track down a copy of EVEN A MONKEY CAN DRAW MANGA and read it. Irreverent Japanese manga-ka deconstructing the manga publishing industry and their associated genres with a broadsword. An absolute must-read.
Ultimate Gwen Stacy's Corpse Continuing the blogging about gender issues...
It's a great day for imagery, isn't it? In a previous post I think I mentioned that the alternate-universe version of Spider-man's ex-girlfriend (who this year was retroactively revealed to have been sleeping with his enemy, The Green Goblin) was done away with. What I didn't realize is that the whole experience had been so gracefully captured in Plastic.
Gwen Stacy's Corpse Inaction Figure (Comes with Ultimate Carnage Figure). Suggested Retail Price: $18.99
Spoiler is a character from the ROBIN books, one of Robin's friends who took up the mantle of superhero/adventurer. A teenaged-mom, Spoiler was a minor character in the Robin books, even retired at one point (to take care of her baby I think?) until the beginning of last year. At which point, she got back into crime-fighting, was promoted to the female Robin to get her some more 'face-time' for a few months, then fired by Batman for being useless, then setting up a gang war, then extensively tortured and killed. Poor girl never even got an action figure.
Neat Find: BIZARRE BOYS The Lost Grant Morrison, Peter Milligan, and Jamie Hewlett Collection
I was going through some old catalogues and documents I had aquired, when what should appear but the 1994 DC Editorial Presentation booklet, with all of their 'upcoming' series. 1994 was the year of the VERTIGO VOICES, which saw the excellent one shots FACE and KILL YOUR BOYFRIEND amongst others. A planned-yet-never-released one-shot (referenced in the introduction to Peter Milligan and Duncan Fegredo's excellent ENIGMA trade paperback) was BIZARRE BOYS, and I was just fortunate enough to get the booklet onto the scanner before it burst into flame, as DC's lawyers fired their OMAC sattelite at it from space. Here's the unreleased promotional art for the series (click on each for the large version):
Very cool, I think. I also managed to get a bunch of other scans, including unreleased promotional art for PREACHER, INVISIBLES, KILL YOUR BOYFRIEND and more. I'll try and get them up when I get some time.
I generally tend not to link to or really discuss any negative articles about comics or manga. For one, it tends to set people off, and for the other, I'm generally not interested in propegating negativity about the medium. Sure, I'm negative enough on my own when the situation warrants, but the times are few and far between where I trust anyone else's take on the medium enough to point to their big criticisms. As such, I've been on the fence about linking to an article called She Was Asking For It, by two pseudonymous writers "Lianne" and "NotHayama". It's about the rolls that many women play in manga, particularly in manga for women. You can find the article here:
I guess to explain myself a bit further. I was genuinely surprised by the sheer stupidity of some people responding to the censorship/editing issue surrounding DC Comics and TENJHO TENGE with "awww too bad the anime fans can't get their rape comics". I'd tried to inure myself against stupidity on the internet a long time ago, but that really never works. In the Tenjho Tenge controversy I found an issue that had so much to sayabout American Comics, worthwhile and worth looking at from any number of angles. The reaction of boredom or disinterest from folks ostensibly charged (or rather, charging themselves) to comment on the medium of comics was disheartening, but the folks writing it off as just "rape comics" (PARTICULARLY GIVEN HOW AMERICAN COMICS HAS TREATED FEMALE CHARACTERS IN THE PAST 6 MONTHS*) was galling.
With concern given to not having to listen to the truly stupid (and loud) weigh in on this, does manga need any more bad press? Hell, does comics in general?
That said...
"Mike is always the one to initiate sex. When Mike's jealous of another boy talking to you, he forcefully kisses and/or has intercourse with you, and you're touched by this sign of fervent love for you (and therefore fall in love with him further). He's possessive, and you're happy. He's dominating, and that's the way you like it. You two live happily ever after.
"And there you have a typical "risqu�" older-shoujo romance, the likes of which you'll find in Cheese phonebook manga magazine or the popular mag Shoujo Comics (aka Sho-Comi, the magazine Yuu Watase's titles run in)."
The folks in this article are making a number of very smart, salient points about the depiction of female characters in today's most popular manga. Most of the ones I've recommended, books like HOT GIMMICK or SNOW DROP for example do have these sorts of... incredibly intense relationships. Hot Gimmick in particular (and it's one of the titles cited in the article) has an incredibly spineless, helpless lead character. That said, as soapy fun for a 27 year old gay man, I think it's great because it's so ridiculous and over-the-top so removed from reality. The two younger female writers of this article talk about what it might mean to younger girls though:
"What has happened recently is the more dangerous Japanese titles, series like Hot Gimmick, Boys Over Flowers (aka Hana Yori Dango), Sensual (AKA Kaikan) Phrase, and the soon-to-be-released Haou Airen, are joining the ranks of American bookstores. These series feature possessive and controlling men, young girls who find male domination a standard and a turn-on, and the concept that sex is something only men initiate. Where in American media have these themes ever been encouraged? Despite the large readerships of these shoujo titles, few readers seem to be commenting on these detestable morals, and it makes us wonder if people are noticing them at all (possibly because these themes are limited to a select few titles in America as of this writing, but similar series have been licensed and are on their way). More readers need to start thinking about what they're reading before these values unconsciously become some sort of twisted standard. Believe us; if you read enough of this shoujo, before long a boyfriend raping his girlfriend won't make you bat an eye."
That last sentence has probably piqued your interest.
It's a good, passionate article that I'm growing increasingly hesitant to link to now, because I can just see some dolt in the comments section at THE BEAT (sorry Heidi) quoting bits of this back out of context next week to support some sorry-ass theory about why we should all buy more copies of John Byrne's DEMON, but... Yeah. Good points are made, and the conclusions are pretty solid too.
"The ultimate problem here isn't actually with manga. We're worried about the way some girls view themselves and their relationships, their desire to make others happy at the expense of their own happiness, and their tendency to get pushed into things they don't necessarily want by boys. Manga and other types of fiction reflect and exaggerate real-life problems. The only time this is dangerous is when a reader uses a work of fiction to reinforce the bad, unhealthy opinions that she already has about the way the world normally works.
"Please think about what you're reading. Manga is fun, but don't let it ruin your life."
Remember that bit of context at the end there when you're swearing vengence against Greg Rucka after you read COUNTDOWN TO INFINITE CRISIS at the end there. Comics aren't worth ruining your life over...
- Christopher, who really does like THE BEAT.
*For my readers who aren't that up on American comics, off the top of my head last year in American comics women were treated badly in the following ways: A character called The Scarlet Witch was shown to be suffering from intense post-natal depression (ie: madness) and she initiated events that made her kill a bunch of heroes; the wife of a superhero was raped, and then killed, and the killer turned out to be the wife of another superhero who was shown to be crazy and locked in an asylum (this is considered the biggest comic series of last year); Wonder Woman was blinded (she is now blind, apparently); various characters written by a guy named Chuck Austen displayed as being severely unstable (mostly in the X-Men books, though he also had a go at Wonder Woman too); Spider-Man's first girlfriend was revealed in a flashback to have been sleeping with his enemy, who later killed her, oh and there was something like 25 years age difference there too; an alternate-universe version of that character was also quite unceremoniously killed a few months back; Stalwart Lois Lane was shot-up too, and then threatened with death too! That's off the top of my head, there could be more. Just so you get my meaning.
Yikes. Sorry for radio silence. I really do like posting here, but (perhaps unsurpsingly) this week's been hella-busy. Lots of press stuff, lots of finalising the book (and I have to say, it's going to be pretty awesome indeed. Big thanks go out to Chip Zdarsky for all his work on the design and print-stuff. It's a really solid book, and I can't wait for people to get a look at it.). Lots of post-trip-hangover, and every day has been a full one. That said, things are looking a little more leisurely for the weekend. Sort of :). At any rate, I really want to catch up on Previews Review... Soooo much good shit in there, and it'll give me an excuse to read BECK too.
All of that said, I bumped into a BAD SIGNAL mailing from Warren Ellis in my inbox this morning that I liked. It's not a laser-focussed piece of change, but more of a description of the situations and opportunities involved in self-publishing via the internet and internet cultures. I just think it's something people should hear, other than the 6900 people on the mailing list already of course... Particular these same webcartoonists itching for a chance to see their work in print, and giving up whatever it takes to do so...
bad signal WARREN ELLIS
6900 people on the Bad Signal. Won't be a STREAMING this week again, as The Pulse is still having server problems, and I don't want to smoke what little bandwidth they have left.
So, some idle thoughts: growing your own subculture.
There's a nice garagey purity to webcomics that are just webcomics. But it's always seemed to me that, in a net full of people looking for creative experiences that speak directly to them and their lives, needs and identities, that the smarter and more zeitgeisty webcomics could and should have a more powerful presence than print comics.
MEGATOKYO is a great example. That thing has grown its own culture in many marvellous ways. The site runs the comic, creators' notes (including a little graph showing the state of completion of the next page, which always tickles me), and a community.
There's a term I nicked from Jenna Gura's PRATE: "Computer Channel." It kind of infers a rich feed, doesn't it?
Back in the 90s, if you lucked into an idea that really spoke to people, a live subculture, internet communities sprang up in response: Barbelith for THE INVISIBLES, to name but one. With retail outlets for print comics fading but more people coming online every day, webcomics are most likely where the next big wave of genuine "cult" works will happen (and, yes, there's a fair load already, though real breakout seems to be a problem in many if not most cases). Provided you've got access to a way of getting pictures on to a computer, you're part of the crew of comicsmakers. As far as I'm concerned, the only entry level to becoming a maker of comics is being able to finish something and put it out.
Right now, you can open your work for conversation instead of waiting for someone to do it. You can, in fact, do the job of any serious subcultural work: tell someone they're not on their own. Any subcultural community is at heart about finding people interested in the same things as you. The net makes that a worldwide thing. Real connections grow out of that. Art grows out of that. People move on and start their own gig, and do the same for other people. It all rolls on. And that's how culture evolves.
Knocking all this together a bit, because I'm losing the thread, as you can clearly see: if you can steal the bandwidth, the opportunities are there now to blow your webcomic open into a computer channel. You can actually make a thing behind the webcomic that infests and infiltrates the digital space around the reader. Web communities can be made to do a lot more than the average messageboard, but I'm talking about more than that, more than sticking a journal on the comic. I'll time you -- thirty minutes to find how to put a graphic from your webcomic on a mobile phone as screen wallpaper. Broadcasting audio or video from your site will cost you anything from five dollars a month to nothing.
(The wallpaper thing? You just create the image in the right dimensions and run directions on how to do it. A lot of phone can handle mp3s, now, too, so you can make ringtones for people, too.)
There's got to be an appeal to beating major publishers at their own game, right?
This was all scarily random, wasn't it?
--- Sent from mobile device probably from the pub
Hopefully this doesn't all seem like the ramblings of a crazy old man, that it sort-of-fits with some of the stuff you folks out there are doing, or thinking about doing. I think more about group blogs, more web magazines, more ways to get people talking about content all the time. I have a very strong feeling that, post TCAF, I'm going to end back up in the comics activism game online. There are too many smart people talking and too many good comics out there worth looking at, not to have the two brought together. But that's not for months yet.
Anyway, thanks to Warren Ellis for letting me reprint that here.
Our nation's capital is dull as dishwater, as the saying goes, as at 10pm on a Sunday no one is on the street, or in a bar, and most bars seem to be closed. Not that bars are the only thing to do, but no other entertainment options seem to have presented themselves. Perhaps we should go to this "market" place I keep hearing about, though I'm wary of going anywhere described as being "thick with those A&F types". I mean, it's fun enough to look at, but not really my idea of a good time. I've only myself to blame, with this being a last-minute trip and not having made any plans with any of the people I know in Ottawa (and having left everyone's # back home), but... geez.
So I'm just bored enough to be checking my e-mail in the hotel's business centre before heading either back to bed or hopping in a cab. We'll see how it goes. Sorry for the bitching/personal post, expect bitching/personal posts about comics to resume tommorow.
New comics were neat this week. There was too much to pick up though, between 100%, Buddha, and the Art of Porco Rosso... I just decided to buy the new issue of Giant Robot instead, as goddamn that magazine is fantastic. It's something you don't see in comics, even online really. It's a magazine with a purpose, that relies on advertising revenue and is unquestionably a lifestyle/entertainment book, but still has bite and sells it straight to its readership. Over the years, the idea of an "Asian" lifestyle magazine broadened considerably to really try and take in all of Asia (rather than, you know, the 'cool' bits from Japan) and the broadened vision has been for the better I think. It's also to the credit of the writers involved that they're able to make some pretty 'mundane' stuff like a trip to the auto-show a decent read. I ended up burning through most of the magazine already (I'm saving the McGinness interview for later), and I realised that they only published 4 issues last year (they mentioned it in the book somewhere), which made me think maybe I should have savoured it a little more. Ah well, I've still got 2 issues of The Comics Journal for the car trip this weekend... I'm going to Ottawa to see a play...
I beat Katamari Damacy and that makes me incredibly happy. If you've got a Playstation 2, you need to own this game. Essentially, there has never been a game made like this before, it is something entirely new and yet very 'familiar' and easy to get into. It's between 20 and 25 bucks depending on where you shop, pick yourself up a copy. If you already know the joy of Katamari Damacy, you'll probably be happy to hear that the game's creator won a very prestigious industry award this week, the "2005 Game Developer's Conference Choice Award in Game Design". The creator, Keita Takahashi gave a really interesting presentation where he talked about the need to innovate and create things with meaning, and I honestly thing it's a sentiment a lot of comics commentators and pundits will appreciate. Check out this coverage of the presentation at Gamespot: http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/03/11/news_6120232.html.
Mal: I will give you back your game now, and try to find a place to buy my own.
My friend and past Previews Review co-writer Scott Robins is blogging again at AllAges (http://allages.blogspot.com/) and his recent entry with a sort of news-round-up-with-opinions is quite good: He's like the restrained version of me. :) His comment about the smoke-and-mirrors feel to Marvel's 7-11 announcement is bang on as well...
Alan David Doane wanted me to link to Chris Allen's blog. Allen was a writer at PopImage while I was editor, and since then has gone on to do a lot of stuff on the comics-internet. Every entry at his blog seems a little like this, more of a personal thing (entries include his kid's T-Ball game, etc.) so I don't know if it'll be of much interest to the comics folks, but what the hell? Check it out: http://www.chrisallenonline.com/
Wednesday, March 16, 2005 Cuts Hit ADV Manga Unit The increasing numbers of manga titles are beginning to take a toll on publishers. PW has learned that Houston-based ADV, a new manga publisher and one of the largest distributors of anime in the U.S., has restructured its manga publishing operation and laid off staff from both the manga and anime divisions. Sources familiar with ADV say that as many as 40 employees may have been laid off, with perhaps about 25 from the book unit.
Chris Oarr, a spokesperson for ADV, declined to provide specific figures but confirmed layoffs. John Ledford, cofounder and president of ADV, says the company faces a saturated market and more discerning customers. "Anyone can see that there's only so much shelf space available to manga and to anime. We've adjusted our schedule to keep pace with the opportunities for shelf space."
ADV is refocusing its manga publishing on "winners," Oarr says, and will publish about 50 titles in 2005, down from as many 80 books last year. Oarr says ADV will focus on properties "where we have both sides"--both the manga and anime licenses--pointing to the upcoming release of the much publicized Cromartie High book and anime series.
ADV also publishes NewType magazine, a category leading anime/manga fan periodical, and much of the editorial and production work for the manga books has been shifted to the staff producing the magazine in a new publishing divison. "Many personnel from the manga division were reassigned to the new division," Oarr says, "but parallel capabilities in editorial and design were eliminated."--Calvin Reid
Here are a few posts worth of reviews. I'm severely backlogged, but I figure I owe it to the nice folks who've sent me books (particularly as I don't have a disclaimer like Johanna does). So, here's a few hundred words on a bunch of books:
TIMES TWO By Shouko Akira Published by Viz $9.99, Digest Format, One Shot
Viz has just started their shoujo line in earnest, and so I took it upon myself to sit and read the first volumes of as many of their line as I could get through in a weekend. TIMES TWO (designed as "X2" on the book's cover) stands out for being a stand-alone volume of short stories rather than an ongoing series, and it doesn't look like the author is quite up to the challenge of telling an entire story in 35 pages, for the most part. While many authors can easily tell a compelling story in the equivalent of a one-shot story (Grant Morrison's SEVEN SOLDIERS #0, for one) the author doesn't manage to accomplish it. In asides the author complains that she had a rough go of getting the plot into the short-story, and that the thematic similarities between the short stories, of 'yearning for love', are her favorite. When it works, in the story "Experation Date 2001" for example, you get a meaningul glimpse into the mind of the protagonist just in time for the end of the story to leave you wondering what will happen next. Slight, but moderately powerful and interesting-enough. When it doesn't though, you end up getting a loose character sketch with no real resolution, and it gets both boring and repetitive. These extremely staid stories start to venture into the supernatural towards the end of the book, but even that can't hold your interest as the stories don't manage to rise above the cliche of many shoujo manga. Competently assembled with poor-to-average touch up, this one-shot is going to have a tough go of it without further volumes reminding people it exists.
SOS By Hinako Ashihara Published By Viz $9.99, Digest Format, One-Shot
In this one-shot manga for OT (Older Teens), we learn the important lesson that Capitalism should always triumph over attempted rape. Which is sort of a dubious moral lesson actually. In the main story of the volume (also entitled SOS), a girl good at setting up her friends starts an in-school dating agency with a hot guy and a bitchy girl. This being manga, she falls in love with the hot guy, and due to a misunderstanding gives him up for the bitchy girl. Then, one of the girls they set up on a date almost gets raped, then one of them almost gets raped, and three panels later they're back at work pimping people out... This general ickyness spoils an otherwise fairly interesting and attractively drawn short story that, at 100 pages or so breathes nicely and concludes well. The second story in the volume ('That Sweet Organ Song") actually almost made me cry, about a woman at the end of her life around the time of the Kobe earthquake, looking back on the great romance of her youth set in pre-war Japan, a girl's well-meaning and romance-fueled advice ends up in tradgedy and a life-unfulfilled. A little obvious and sappy, but damned if I didn't start to well up a little towards the end of the story. The last story, "The Easy Life", was really good too. A girl gets sick of putting up with her momma's-boy boyfriend, and finds the guy of her dreams... maybe. Throughout the art is quite nice (though again, the production and tone touch-up is lesser in spots than even Tokyopop's) and open, and I think I'd really enjoy this volume and enthusiastically recommend it, were it not for the creepiness. Of course, many people will either miss or ignore that subtext and probably like it a lot...
HAPPY HUSTLE HIGH VOLUME 1 By Rie Takada Published by Viz $9.99, Digest Format
Really, really unremarkable. That's about the nicest thing I have to say about "H3" but that's not much of a review. SO: The plot, the merger of a boys school and girls school, marks the setting for a spectacular array of stereotypes and stupid characters. Apperantly the girls school has only one stock-tomboy student who can either stand-up to or talk to a boy without turning into a quivering mess (at one point, all the girls are depicted as an actual bunch of clucking hens (though 'chicks', in this case)). The male protagonist even starts out the series as an affirmed misogynist. So of course they fall for each other (but not before the tomboy is almost killed for daring to compete on the boys' turf, of course). None of this is really out of place in many shoujo manga, it's just genre conventons rearing their head, particularly when combined with a standard art style and a story that feels written for serialization. The last page 'cliffhanger' even seems calculated to break up the friendship of our two lovebirds (You can almost hear the phone call between Takada and her edtior: "What? They're not going to cancel the series? Terrific, I'll be sure not to break them up in the last few pages so we have something to do in volume 2...!"). All very competent, but really uninspired and toothless stuff, despite the OLDER TEENS rating.
DOUBT!! VOLUME 1 By Kaneyoshi Izumi Published by Viz $9.99, Digest sized
By far my favourite of the Viz's new wave of Shoujo titles (the ones I've read anyway), DOUBT!! details the transformation of a smart, plain-jane girl into a brainless bombshelf who realizes that pretty people have problems too (mostly caused from putting 'being pretty' above everything else...). It's actually a really fun story, surprisingly, with the lead character realizing that she's having the greatest successes at her new school by letting her facade down, and offering some surprisingly insightful morality about the pitfalls of 'giving it up' to boys to be popular and about what the real 'value' of a secret is. While the story trades on some of the more familiar tropes (rivals for affection, disturbingly close relationship between boy-and-best-friend), there's an edge to the proceedings that gives them some weight, and none of the characters is as two dimensional as... well, you read the Happy Hustle High review? There's a very, very high degree of craft present in commercial Japanese comics and so even something "boringly" drawn like H3 is still strong, consistant work. It's when you get an artist with idiosyncracies to their style, who has drawn on more than manga to draw manga, that you get someone a cut above. Kaneyoshi Izumi is a cut above the average, demonstrating an ability to differentiate characters by doing more than changing their hairstyles. The girls are rather attractively drawn throughout, and every once in a while the artist will knock a particular drawing out of the ball-park, offering up a stunning illustration that is attractive, fashionable, and most importantly somewhat realistic. In the end, this is a manga about a girl who has changed her outward appearance to look like the person she wants to be, and is just starting the journey to get her head there too. It's a lot of soapy fun, a it has a good heart that, much like the heart of the lead charater, all of the superficiality can't hide.
IKEBURO WEST GATE PARK VOLUME 1 By Ira Ishida and Sena Aritou Published by Digital Manga Publishing $12.95, 6"x9", 1 of 4
Much like much of the blogosphere, I was sent copies of IWGP 1 and WORST 1 to review, a great strategy of a fledgling publisher looking for exposure. Hell, I wish more companies made a point of sending out review copies on a regular basis, it's not like the last few experiments there haven't yielded some disturbingly consistant results. Anyhow, IWGP falls into the expanding genre of "Relationship Manga For Boys", often just labeled "Dramas", which is a good category label I'd like to start using here, actually. It's funny, when Tokyopop was first releasing BOYS BE, probably the most popular manga of the genre, they were going to rename it something like "A Guy's Guide To Girls", which is sort of like "Dude, we know it's about chicks and romance and stuff, but it's just mysoginistic enough to keep your interest, I promise!". Luckily, they dropped the title (it was stupid) but the sentiment is there: How do you sell a relationship-oriented drama series intended for boys to American readers? DMP has taken the route of sending out free copies, and it worked in my case, getting me to read a series I probably would never have looked twice at with all of the product hitting shelves these days. In looking? It's a solidly-constructed story, sexing-up various aspects of Japanese youth culture to tell a story that will appeal to... members of Japanese youth culture (and non-members who wish they were cool enough). DMP does a sterling job at touch-up, the translation reads well-enough but I don't really recall anything standing out plus-or-minus, and the art is lovely and fairly unique. The stories were almost too edgy for me at points, descending at the end into a sort of pointless violence/girl-as-bait situation, as opposed to the rest of the sex and violence in the volume, which seemed a little bit more carefully woven into the narrative. All in all, it was decent and I'll check out the second volume if I get some spare time. The fact that it ends at volume 4 is also considerable incentive to see me see it through to the completion...
WORST VOLUME 1 By Hiroshi Takahashi Published by Digital Manga Publishing $12.95, 6"x9"
Dude, so this one guy is kind of nice, but he likes to fight, and these other guys are all thugs and they like to fight, and then some people fight. Lots has been made of the immense likeability of the protagonist of WORST being friendly and interesting enough to rise this above a "People Fight" manga and keep folks reading the series. Place me in the minority then. Almost comically simple and boring.
QWAN VOLUME 1 By Aki Shimizu Published by Tokyopop $9.99, Digest Sized
An odd series. Steeped in Chinese mythology, a mysterious boy named QWAN arrives from heaven to destroy Demons that have begun to plague the countryside. Partnered with a bumbling thief, he moves from place to place fighting monsters, kisses a pretty girl who turns out to be an enemy, and ends up displaying all manner of magical and martial arts skills. It actually reminds me more of something like USAGI YOJIMBO than most manga, and the series is deeply, deeply uncommercial in exactly the way that something like SHONEN JUMP is deeply commercial. I can't explain it exactly, but the choice of character design, of tone and of the general unlikeability (and emotional distance) of all of the characters just makes for an odd title. The book features clear but uninspired layouts, and some nice drawing on the characters and the action scenes, with the occasional run of sparse backgrounds. It's a very curious title, and I couldn't figure out WHY it had been published until I checked the Tokyopop site to see that it's an earlier work from the author of the SUIKODEN III manga, a fairly popular fantasy manga based on a video game. Makes sense now, I guess. If you're a big fan of Chinese mythology, or are a USAGI YOJIMBO or BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL fan looking for something to get you through to your next hit, QWAN is the methodone for your heroin addicition.
LEGENDZ VOLUME 1 By Makoto Haruno and Rin Harai Published by Viz $7.99, Digest Format, Shonen Jump Line
But if you're looking something that just BLEEDS commerciality, might I direct you to LEGENDZ VOLUME 1? It's a surprisingly shameless manga that reads like an extended commercial for a toy that lets you make your Tamigochi fight against the Tamigochi's of your enemies, who you will eventually win over into friends through the sheer joy of owning this particular toy. The book almost reaches Poochie like levels of self-referential salesmanship, with characters (particularly our protagonist) bursting forth to exclaim at length how owning this toy and raising the Tamigochi-like character within the toy is the most fulfilling thing that they could hope for in life, filling the void of their dead parents and the loneliness of not having any other friends. This book is almost unreal, and it's only because of the skill of the mangka involved that I didn't throw the book across the room at any point. The lead character, like the lead character of MOST Shonen Jump titles (following in the footsteps of ultra-mensch Goku from Dragonball) is a sort of loveable-goof to the Nth degree, his infectuous enthuiasm and excellently illustrated antics providing a foil to the fact that the book lacks both orginality or any greater purpose than toy sales. If it weren't for the fact that Viz is completely insane, lately, about allowing interior artwork to appear anywhere on the internet without their express written approval, I'd love to just go through with a panel-by-panel and give a reading of the series' vapidity and the borderline-psychosis of the lead character investing all of his emotional well-being into a piece of plastic. Give it a flip if you see it though, it's funny stuff :).
--
Okay. 4am now, time to head to bed. That's most of the manga out of the way, but there's tons of reviews to go. Tommorow night after work I'll try and tackle another batch.
Canada:Kevin over at ThoughtBalloons linked a bunch of articles with comics content in the March edition of Bookslut. But he missed one. THRILL to me reading questions alloud and talking about fonts in: The Bookslut Guide to Book Lover's Trivial Pursuit! I like how author Ian Daffern didn't keep the part in where I mispronounced Chaucer as "sh-ow-say" with a French Accent. He did mention were all hammered though, that was nice of him.
Canada 2: Meanwhile, voting has begun on THE SHUSTER AWARDS, Canada's answer to... The Eisner's, sort of? Anyway, it's an award recognizing contributions to comics, and it seems to be focussed on the work itself rather than the creator (J. Torres is nominated and running against himself for best writer...). I like the idea of Canadian comic awards, though voting on the awards is only open to Canadian citizens. That is kind of wierd, actually, when you seem to want the rest of the world to care about your awards, but diff'rent strokes and all. Anyway, I voted, and as much as I love everyone nominated, my votes went: Templeton, Immonen, O'Malley, Drawn & Quarterly, Little Sisters Bookstore. I'd've liked to have dropped a vote for Darwyn (sorry man) on something, but I think Templeton turned in some very good and underrated work, and I'm contractually obligated to get Bryan's back (also: SP was my fav gn of last year, so...).
Canadia 3: Just a quick one: Have you checked out new group-blog DRAWN.CA yet? A number of (largely Canadian) artists, writers, and illustrators finding inspiration around the web. Sort of like BoingBoing for the illustration set, Canadian or otherwise. My favorite entry so far is the shit-disturbing one by Jay Stephens, but all in all there's quite a few nice pieces and artists linked. Check it out.
Thanks to the folks that e-mailed Hope about the pantone colour book btw, but we still need to know if anyone in the city has got one. Please check the previous post for more info.
Quick, Tiny Hits If you're coming here from the rest of the internet, what you're looking for is down one entry.
- My friend Hope Larson here in the City of Toronto needs a pantone colour guide, a Print edition. She needs it for one quick project and she doesn't wanna drop $80 on it. Anyone trust me, and by extension Hope, enough for a quick loan? It'd be appreciated. - We announced the final line-up for COMICS FESTIVAL! late yesterday at the website. Thanks to everyone who submitted, and I gotta say it really is gonna be awesome. - Comic Galaxy announced the winners of the STREET ANGEL contest! The grand prize winner listed THE BEGUILING as their comic shop. I don't recognize the name, but I do wanna say thanks to them for entering, and winning us some comics and stuff. That's very cool all around.
The last few days have been really fun for me, trainspotting as I do on comics news. The big bit of news is in regards to DC/CMX's woeful handling of the Tenjho Tenge property, which is hilarious. I know I wrote it _somewhere_ but I can't find it, but I fucking called this, which delights me to no end. I was talking about CMX's initial offerings somewhere, probably here at 212, and I was really unimpressed. I think I said something to the effect of "A number of series no one has heard of, one from the 70s, and violent porn." I can't remember if I wrote any more about TenTen (as the kids call it), but I did mention it to Peter at The Beguiling.
"They're already fucked," I said. "Because they've got a title that either a) they have to edit, and as we've seen with the Negima thing the kids will just FREAK OUT, and it'll be a huge public relations disaster, or b) DC will publish it's first-ever pornography, and it'll be manga, pissing off every retailer who thinks DC is just a 'safe' company!"
Cue editing, cue huge-public-relations-disaster. The thing that surprised me is that they've even got TenTen creator OH! GREAT on record as saying he okayed the changes, and it took NEGIMA creator Ken Akamatsu complaining (on his blog, of course) about the changes that were going to be made for the kids to get incensed. It's funny, because maybe if OH! GREAT had a blog, the series would never have come out at all? :)
PANTIES. FROM THE JAPANESE EDITION. THE PANTIES WERE OBSCURED IN NORTH AMERICA.
What this comes down to though is a clash of cultures, of (if I may) EAST VERSUS WEST. I don't mean on a corporate level, I mean on a fan level:
Anime fans are completely bugfuck insane.
They're colourfully insane, and the manga community that sprung out of anime fandom is like a smarter, crazier offshoot. I see fanpages for various manga and anime that put any North American PUBLISHER's site to shame. These are people who are heavily invested in their fandom, and here's the best part: They're considerably more functional than comics fans. It's true. I personally think it's because manga and anime came up from nothing here, the people enjoying the material now are barely a generation removed from the people who were importing big clunky expensive video-tapes from Japan, taped right off the TV without subtitles. The fans actively defined what the medium would be in North America, and the key-word was 'authenticity'. Don't believe me? Ask an anime fan about "dubtitles" one day, it's funny! On the other hand, comics fandom is the result of a group of marginalized people semi-enjoying a progressively more marginalized hobby, being shat on from a not-that-great-height by the publishers they would give their lives for. Take, say, DC for example. Making Hal Jordan crazy and killing him. How many H.E.A.T. members were there? What did they end up doing, except claiming a moral victory howmanyyears later?
The Tenjho Tenge kids have got coverage in Publisher's Weekly:
Notice Reid's subtle slam about how another publisher already did it the right way, almost a year-ago this week!
Fans Ticked Over Manga Censorship
DC Comics is coming under heated criticism and calls for a selective boycott from manga fans complaining that the first volume of the much-anticipated Tenjho Tenge, released through DC's CMX manga line, has been heavily edited to remove explicitly sexual content.
The dispute has generated page after page of dismayed comment about DC Comics on messages boards devoted to manga; protestors have also launched their own Web page.
Many complaining fans are annoyed because of CMX promotional material, which claims that it offers "pure manga -- 100% the way the original Japanese creators want you to see it." But Japanese publishers are far more casual about depicting nudity, partial nudity and sexual content than U.S. publishers.
Random House found that out last year when they tried to remove nudity from the Negima series published by Del Rey Manga and set off protest. Del Rey backed down and now offers a shrink-wrapped and uncensored Negima that seems to please everyone.
A spokesperson for DC declined to comment.--Calvin Reid
Actually, and that's the funniest part, as your average manga fan (let's call them wanfu2k1) commenting on the AnimeOnDVD message forum got it right away. "What suprises me," said wanfu2k1, "Is that this issue could catch DC so flat footed. If they even payed attention to the other publishers over the past year they should have knows editing the artwork would stir up the hardcore fans. The Negima mess should have been a flashing neon STOP sign for a publisher."
That's because doing whatever they want is what DC Comics does. They aren't beholden to anyone but themselves (and same thing goes over at Marvel with Avi Arad btw, I'm not just picking on DC here, this is the whole North American comics publishing industry.) At least, they weren't beholden in any way, shape, or form to the people buying their books until they started publishing manga. Then: See previous comment about anime and manga fans.
Apparently you can't just slap any old editor from a failed publishing line in charge of your spiffy manga production and shovel product out the door, huh?
If I might direct your attention to an article I wrote from February 26th, 2004, entitled "America to try and embrace foreign comics on own terms; Foreign Comics to Not Give a Shit." This one is about DC wanting to make drastic alterations to an existing foreign comic they were trying to license. And about manga fans freaking out about censorship. And some really terrible edits made to a DC manga release. In terms of biased editorializing, I was really on a roll. In the follow-up article on March 1st, after Del Rey had done the right thing, I wrote something which is still quite accurate today I think:
"Sorry to beat the horse here, but I want this to be the signal flag that goes up for every other publisher who looks at the booming manga market as a cash-cow with no need to pay attention to things like the integrity of the work. Your immense hubris is not welcome here."
Say, why DOESN'T DC submit their manga to the Comics Code? Wouldn't that have solved this whole mess, since they never would've approved it in the first place? What with the rape and all, I mean.
Calvin Reid at Publisher's Weekly can get very used to waiting for somone at DC to comment, at least until they issue a great big piece of spin-control/press release. Although to be honest, they probably have absolutely no clue what to do at the moment. Particularly as the under-reported facet of the story is that, even edited, the book is FAR, FAR too harsh to warrant the measly 13/Teen rating on the back. I wonder if they're thinking that far ahead? If they're considering that as soon as they say "we're going to release an adults-only version too!" (DC would then be publishing pornography, so it won't be allowed into Canada, which is interesting) that the next wave, particularly from retailers, is "We can't even sell the edited ones to 13 year olds, what were you thinking?" DC can not be trusted to rate their own material. (For the record: Neither can ADVision, and Tokyopop is borderline at best). It's actually curious that they don't submit any of their manga to the COMICS CODE AUTHORITY when they submit all their superhero comics and other licensed properties...
On the one hand, I'm actually kind of annoyed because I've got 10 copies of Tenjho Tenge on the shelf at the store that we can't do anything with. I don't doubt SOMETHING will happen, wearing my retailer's cap I can honestly say that DC has never failed to go above-and-beyond for me, and I respect them on that front (on the editorial? Not so much.) On the other hand, these past few days have been absolutely hilarious. I honestly can't wait to see what will happen next. Will DC just behave as always: ignore the problem until it goes away because comics fans really don't have much in the way of a spine when it comes to putting their money where their mouth is? Or will they buckle when the anime fans (and remember, these are largely under-18-year olds who'll have nothing to do for the next 2 weeks as they go on March break) double, and re-double, and re-double their efforts?
Music industry warns CD best form of music in uncertain digital player world Sat Mar 5, 5:36 PM ET ANGELA PACIENZA
TORONTO (CP) - Don't be tempted to get rid of your CD library just yet.
Despite the soaring popularity of digital music players such as IPod, Rio and Nomad, the shiny discs remain the only way to keep an audio library safe in the years ahead, executives in town for Canadian Music Week said this week. That's because the online phenomenon of the 99-cent song is still facing a major hurdle - standardized digital formats.
...
Aside from offering the best sound quality, the "old-fashioned" CD ensures the owner will be able to use the content in various formats, whether on a computer, digital music device or cellphone.
Online music stores sell songs in their own built-in format, what insiders call Digital Rights Management or DRM.
The popular IPod player, for example, does not support Windows Media Audio (WMA) files - the format sold on places at online stores like puretracks.com.
Likewise, a Rio, Creative or Nomad player won't play Advanced Audio Coding (AAC files), which is what the ITunes music store sells.
That could pose a problem if a music fan wants to buy an exclusive track from an online music store but doesn't own a player that is compatible.
In that instance, they'd be lured to an unsanctioned site like Kazaa, notes Green. In addition, those who replace their players down the road with the latest music gadget may not be able to access their existing digitized collection.
They would have to re-rip their entire CD collection or worse, buy it again if it was all bought online.
Although there are some technical tricks to manoeuvre around the problem, Greens says average Joe and Jane consumer could be left with a messy, time-consuming problem.
This is called a 'file converter' by the way, and every version of iTunes I've used has it native, actually, but... Yeah. This is a messy, time-consuming problem indeed!
It's a problem not exclusive to the music industry.
Digital cameras, for example, don't all use the same memory cards. An Xbox (news - web sites) game won't work in a Playstation 2.
Yes, and look how poorly that worked for all involved.
Actually, I'm half convinced the writer snuck that last paragraph in their to make fun of this "Greens" fellow.
It is absolutely amazing to me how powerful a certain mindset can be, to have you just consistantly deny the truth or paint it in the worst light possible. "Sure, we told you that you wouldn't like this and it turns out you do, but now we're telling you it's bad for you, and you should listen to us!"
- Christopher PS: This may secretly be about comics.
Hey there everybody, this week's free preview page from FREE COMIC BOOK DAY title COMICS FESTIVAL! is STREET ANGEL IN: SHOP-FU!. This page comes courtesy of Street Angel creator Jim Rugg, and will be of special interest to you pre-packaged-cupcake-fans... While the monitor is only a loose approximation of what Jim's art is going to look like on the printed page, I figured that it would still be of immediate interest to you, the people of the blogosphere.
Call it a hunch.
And in Other STREET ANGEL news, I have it on good authority that this Wednesday will see the much-longed-for STREET ANGEL #5 dropping on unsuspecting retailers everywhere, full of balls-to-the-wall Street Angel & Afrodisiac action (check out the preview here)! But who is this "Afrodisiac" you ask? Why you'll have to check out PROJECT: SUPERIOR with a great big story by Jim Rugg, ALSO dropping this Wednesday! You can check out a preview of the secret history of Afrodisiac over at ComicBookResources.com.
Good week to be a Street Angel fan...
- Christopher PS: "Shop-Fu" is only one of the two SA strips showing up in COMICS FESTIVAL! Make sure you're bugging your retailer to get copies in for FCBD...
THE BEGUILING IS PROUD TO ANNOUNCE THE 2005 TORONTO COMIC ARTS FESTIVAL http://www.torontocomics.com/ Presented by The Beguiling, North America's finest comic and book store, and in association with Scholastic Books Canada. MAY 28th-29th, 2005 http://www.torontocomics.com/tcaf
TORONTO, Ontario - Premiere Canadian comic book retailer The Beguiling is proud to present the 2005 Toronto Comic Arts Festival, occurring on Saturday May 28th and Sunday May 29th 2005 in Toronto, Canada. This will be the second gathering of International independent cartoonists, comic artists and graphic novelists under the TCAF banner, and it's bigger and better than before!
Featuring a diverse array of Canadian cartoonists and graphic novelists from around the world, The Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) will showcase these talents through gallery presentations, lectures and discussions, readings, and direct interaction with the artists themselves through the sale of their comics and original artwork. With a 'boom' for graphic novels that has seen coverage and acclaim for many participating graphic novelists from the likes of The New Yorker, The Globe and Mail, The New York Times, Time Magazine, and many many more, TCAF has expanded it's festival to include over 6,000 feet of floor space, more than 100 cartoonists, and 2 full days of programming and events right in the heart of Toronto's "Mirvish Village" shopping district!
Plans for the Festival were begun after seeing the remarkable interaction between the creative community and the public through comics festivals such as the MoCCA (Museum of Cartoon and Comic Art) Festival in New York (http://www.moccany.org/), and the more artist oriented European festivals Barcelona International Comic Festival (FICOMIC) or the Stripdagen festival in Haarlem, NL (http://www.stripdagenhaarlem.nl). There are many Canadian cartoonists recognized as among the best in the world, particularly in the field of alternative comics. TCAF is Canada's chance not only to promote its homegrown talent to visiting guests but bring many talents from the US and abroad to Toronto for the first time.
GUESTS
The Toronto Comic Arts Festival is proud to welcome the following guests of honour:
Jeff Smith: Smith is the star creator of the immensely popular comic book series BONE, originally published by his creator-owned imprint Cartoon Books. 2005 saw the publishing rights to BONE acquired by Scholastic Books, who have made BONE the flagship of their new young-readers graphic novel line GRAPHIX. Jeff Smith appears at The Toronto Comic Arts Festival courtesy of Scholastic Books, who are proud sponsors of the "Scholastic Children's Reading Tent" at the Festival.
Chester Brown: Chester Brown's graphic retelling of the life of historical Canadian anti-hero Louis Riel in the series LOUIS RIEL has drawn critical acclaim from the international comics press, matched only by the controversy surrounding the pending re-release of his surreal graphic novel ED THE HAPPY CLOWN [currently in development for the screen by Bruce MacDonald].
Darwyn Cooke: Internationally acclaimed storyboard artist for numerous Warner Brothers animation projects (including BATMAN ADVENTURES and BATMAN: BEYOND), Cooke broke new ground with his illustration-influenced graphic novels CATWOMAN: SELINA'S BIG SCORE and DC: THE NEW FRONTIER. Darwyn will be presenting his new Children's graphic novel, as yet untitled, at TCAF.
James Jean: Although still in his mid 20's, this School of Visual Arts, New York graduate has received comics' most prestigious award, an Eisner as well as the Gold Metal from the Society of Illustrators LA. His groundbreaking illustration and design work for numerous comics projects for DC Comics and Marvel Enterprises belie his start as an alternative comics creator with New York's prestigious Meathaus collective. Jean will be debuting his first-ever illustration collection, Process Recess at TCAF.
Gary Panter: Oklahoma-born illustrator, painter, designer and part-time musician, Gary Panter's fame began as the Emmy Award-wining head set designer for the successful kid/adult TV show Pee Wee's Playhouse, but his career as an underground cartoonist began much earlier. Gary Panter will be on hand at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival to officially launch his newest book, SATIROPLASTIC (Drawn & Quarterly), the first in a three-volume series of Gary Panter's sketchbooks (previewed in 2004's KRAMER'S ERGOT 5).
Seth: With his recent graphic novel CLYDE FANS being considered one of the ten best comics of 2004 by Time Magazine, Seth will be promoting the release of his new graphic novel WIMBLEDON GREEN at TCAF. In addition to his graphic novel work, Seth is an in-demand illustrator whose work regularly appears in The New Yorker and The Wall Street Journal.
Some of the other cartoonists of note at the festival include:
- Several other young graphic novelists picked as producing the best comics of 2004 by Time Magazine, including Jeffrey Brown (BIGHEAD), Sammy Harkham (KRAMER'S ERGOT), and Paul Hornschemeier (MOTHER, COME HOME). - Noted cartoonist Paige Braddock, creator of the syndicated comic strip Jane's World. - Ho Che Anderson, author of the comics biography of Martin Luther King Jr. King. - Contributors to McSweeney's #13: The Graphic Novel Issue including David Heatley (DEADPAN) and Julie Doucet (DIRTY PLOTTE). - Numerous contributors to Image's Flight anthology, including co-editors Kazu Kibuishi (Daisy Kutter) and Kean Soo (Secret Friends Society), and contributors Vera Brosgol, Hope Larson, Amy Kim Ganter, and Johanne Matte.
Complete guest list, as of writing:
Adjournay, Atilla - Altergott, Rick - Anderson, Ho Che - Arora, Neelam - Aylard, Adam - Bell, Gabrielle - Bell, Marc - Blackett, Matthew - Bone, J - Bordeaux, Ariel - Braddock, Paige - Brosgol, Vera - Brown, Chester - Brown, Jeffrey - Castree, Genevieve - Chantler, Scott - Cloonan, Becky - Clugston, Chynna - Comeau, Michael - Cooke, Darwyn - Dawson, Willow - Dela Cruz, Arthur - Devlin, Tom - Doucet, Julie - Douglas, Max / Salgood Sam - Fawkes, Ray - Fish, Tim - Ganter, Amy Kim - Guldemonde, Marcel - Harkham, Sammy - Heatley, David - Hiti, Sam - Hornschemeier, Paul - Hutsul, Chris - Jean, James - Kibuishi, Kazu - Kim, Eric - Larson, Hope - Lewis, Corey - Lex, Jason - Lutes, Jason - Mahfood, Jim - Manale, Steve - Matte, Johane - McKenney, Craig - McLeod, Kagan - McNeil, Carla Speed - McPherson, Tara - McTigue, Maureen - Mejias, John - Ngui, Marc - Nilsen, Anders - Noonan, Michael - Oliveros, Chris - O'Malley, Bryan - Panter, Gary - PARTYKA-USA - Perez, Ramon - Perro, Florentine - Pitzer, Chris - Pohl-Weary, Emily - Pultz, Jason - Reynolds, Eric - Roman, Dave - Rugg, Jim - Runton, Andy - Seth - Shannon, Ben - Shaw, Dash - Smith, Jeff - Soo, Kean - Soto, Zack - Stall, Vincent - Stein, Leslie - Stewart, Cameron - Tamblyn, Diana - Telgemeier, Raina - Torres, J - Vellekoop, Maurice - Yount, Ryan - Zdarsky, Chip
Dave Coverly signing Speed Bump at The Beguiling, March 3rd
The Beguiling will be hosting a signing for the new collection of SPEED BUMP comic strips, featuring series creator Dave Coverly, next Thursday (March 3rd) between 6 and 7pm at The Beguiling, 601 Markham Street, Toronto (416-533-9168).
"Dave Coverly is young, really really funny, AND he can draw. I hate him." -Dave Barry
Dave Coverly, 40, admits there is no overriding theme, no tidy little philosophy that precisely describes what Speed Bump is about. "Basically," he says, "if life were a movie, these would be the outtakes." These "outtakes" now appear in over 200 newspapers internationally, including the Toronto's own The Globe & Mail. In 1995 and 2003, Speed Bump was given a prestigious Best Newspaper Panel award by the National Cartoonists Society, an award for which it was nominated again in 1997, 2001, and 2002.
Stirring The Pot
I tripped over a great article today. Toronto illustrator Julia Breckenreid is 
I generally tend not to link to or really discuss any negative articles about comics or manga. For one, it tends to set people off, and for the other, I'm generally not interested in propegating negativity about the medium. Sure, I'm negative enough on my own when the situation warrants, but the times are few and far between where I trust anyone else's take on the medium enough to point to their big criticisms. As such, I've been on the fence about linking to an article called She Was Asking For It, by two pseudonymous writers "Lianne" and "NotHayama". It's about the rolls that many women play in manga, particularly in manga for women. You can find the article here:
New comics were neat this week. There was too much to pick up though, between 100%, Buddha, and the Art of Porco Rosso... I just decided to buy the new issue of Giant Robot instead, as goddamn that magazine is fantastic. It's something you don't see in comics, even online really. It's a magazine with a purpose, that relies on advertising revenue and is unquestionably a lifestyle/entertainment book, but still has bite and sells it straight to its readership. Over the years, the idea of an "Asian" lifestyle magazine broadened considerably to really try and take in all of Asia (rather than, you know, the 'cool' bits from Japan) and the broadened vision has been for the better I think. It's also to the credit of the writers involved that they're able to make some pretty 'mundane' stuff like a trip to the auto-show a decent read. I ended up burning through most of the magazine already (I'm saving the McGinness interview for later), and I realised that they only published 4 issues last year (they mentioned it in the book somewhere), which made me think maybe I should have savoured it a little more. Ah well, I've still got 2 issues of The Comics Journal for the car trip this weekend... I'm going to Ottawa to see a play...
I beat Katamari Damacy and that makes me incredibly happy. If you've got a Playstation 2, you need to own this game. Essentially, there has never been a game made like this before, it is something entirely new and yet very 'familiar' and easy to get into. It's between 20 and 25 bucks depending on where you shop, pick yourself up a copy. If you already know the joy of Katamari Damacy, you'll probably be happy to hear that the game's creator won a very prestigious industry award this week, the "2005 Game Developer's Conference Choice Award in Game Design". The creator, Keita Takahashi gave a really interesting presentation where he talked about the need to innovate and create things with meaning, and I honestly thing it's a sentiment a lot of comics commentators and pundits will appreciate. Check out this coverage of the presentation at Gamespot: 
TIMES TWO
SOS
HAPPY HUSTLE HIGH VOLUME 1
DOUBT!! VOLUME 1
IKEBURO WEST GATE PARK VOLUME 1
WORST VOLUME 1
QWAN VOLUME 1
LEGENDZ VOLUME 1
Canada 2: Meanwhile, voting has begun on THE SHUSTER AWARDS, Canada's answer to... The Eisner's, sort of? Anyway, it's an award recognizing contributions to comics, and it seems to be focussed on the work itself rather than the creator (J. Torres is nominated and running against himself for best writer...). I like the idea of Canadian comic awards, though voting on the awards is only open to Canadian citizens. That is kind of wierd, actually, when you seem to want the rest of the world to care about your awards, but diff'rent strokes and all. Anyway, I voted, and as much as I love everyone nominated, my votes went: Templeton, Immonen, O'Malley, Drawn & Quarterly, Little Sisters Bookstore. I'd've liked to have dropped a vote for Darwyn (sorry man) on something, but I think Templeton turned in some very good and underrated work, and I'm contractually obligated to get Bryan's back (also: SP was my fav gn of last year, so...). 
The last few days have been really fun for me, trainspotting as I do on comics news. The big bit of news is in regards to DC/CMX's woeful handling of the Tenjho Tenge property, which is hilarious. I know I wrote it _somewhere_ but I can't find it, but I fucking called this, which delights me to no end. I was talking about CMX's initial offerings somewhere, probably here at 212, and I was really unimpressed. I think I said something to the effect of "A number of series no one has heard of, one from the 70s, and violent porn." I can't remember if I wrote any more about TenTen (as the kids call it), but I did mention it to Peter at The Beguiling.
Hey there everybody, this week's free preview page from FREE COMIC BOOK DAY title COMICS FESTIVAL! is 
TORONTO, Ontario - Premiere Canadian comic book retailer The Beguiling is proud to present the 2005 Toronto Comic Arts Festival, occurring on Saturday May 28th and Sunday May 29th 2005 in Toronto, Canada. This will be the second gathering of International independent cartoonists, comic artists and graphic novelists under the TCAF banner, and it's bigger and better than before! 
The Beguiling will be hosting a signing for the new collection of SPEED BUMP comic strips, featuring series creator Dave Coverly, next Thursday (March 3rd) between 6 and 7pm at The Beguiling, 601 Markham Street, Toronto (416-533-9168).