Category: General

The Summit of the Gods vol. 1 (of 5)
by Yumemakura Baku and Jiro Taniguchi
328 pages, $25.00
Coming this fall from Fanfare UK

85 years ago today, on JUNE 8, 1924 at 12.50pm, was the last time that George Herbert Leigh Mallory and his companion Andrew Irvine were seen alive. They were observed by the expedition geologist, Noel Odell, when the clouds parted briefly and allowed him a vision of the summit ridge and final peak of Mount Everest with the two tiny black specks moving towards the summit. Then the scene vanished and became enveloped in clouds once more. They never returned. There has been much speculation as to whether they ever reached the summit and were on their way down when disaster struck.

Almost seventy years later in 1993, with Mallory’s body still undiscovered on the mountain, a Japanese expedition photographer, Makoto Fukamachi, stumbles across a 1920’s Kodak camera in a Kathmandu bazaar which sparks a whole series of questions with few answers.

The Summit of the Gods is an epic story of man and his personal conquests against his own limitations. No mountain is too high, no peak too distant in his pursuit of this passion for achievement.

But Taniguchi’s realistic art and Baku’s tireless script will take you to such heights that mountaineers only dream about!

– Winner “Best Art” Award at Angouleme Festival, France (2005)
– Winner “Excellence Prize Manga Division” at Japanese Ministry of Culture’s Media Arts Festival (2001)
– George Mallory’s body is discovered on Everest’s North Face minus his Kodak (1999)
– Original novel, Kamigami no Itadaki, winner of the prestigious 11th Shibata Renzaburo Award (1998)

—

It’s funny this was in my inbox this morning, as it was just this past weekend that I finished a previous release by Fanfare of Jiro Taniguchi’s work, The Ice Wanderer. A collection of nature-themed stories, including a few adaptations of the work of Jack London (Call of the Wild), The Ice Wanderer didn’t grab me on release the same way that other Taniguchi works have. I’m not much for the sort of man vs. nature, explorers and burly man stories, and so the prospect of reading manga versions of the same–even by one of my favourite mangaka!–was less than thrilling. Still, I was pleasantly surprised by the volume, enjoying the material I thought wasn’t to my taste, and loving the non-nature stories of first love and a lonely mangaka that were also included. It’s a great release, and if you can find it I recommend it.

Before this weekend my excitement over Summit of the Gods was at a low ebb, after having read The Ice Wanderer I’m definitely on board now… Though I have to admit my real enthusiasm is for another Taniguchi work that’s on the way, A Distant Neighborhood. I’ve been waiting for this one in English since we first received the (beautiful) French edition years ago, just after I started working at The Beguiling actually.

What I guess I’m saying is that we have an embarassment of riches for the next 6 months when it comes to great manga, go out and buy it so we get even more.

– Christopher

There is a lot of bad writing about comics.

Here are a few things recently that I read, that I enjoyed.

1. http://www.comixology.com/articles/228/I-Dont-Like-Me-Either-So-Were-Even

2. http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/brubaker_cooke_rough/

3. http://www.walrusmagazine.com/blogs/2008/11/17/a-conversation-with-lynda-barry/

So, yeah. Tucker’s article does one of my favourite things when talking about comics–it takes an entirely intangible idea, makes it solid, and then explains why you should give a shit. That’s the sort of thing I like writing about, that’s the sort of thing I like reading. On and off I’ll disagree with a point or a conclusion he makes, but the meat of the piece, don’t get complacent about the stature of comics, is a great idea, well expressed.

Meanwhile, Tom Spurgeon’s joint interview with Darwyn Cooke, Ed Brubaker, and Scott Dunbier, on Cooke’s upcoming PARKER: THE HUNTER graphic novel from IDW? That’s great reading. A good interview is obviously helped along by good interview subjects, and Cooke and Brubaker can talk and talk even on their worst days they’re entertaining. But I’ve read shitty interviews with both creators, where the interviewers just totally let them down. Spurgeon’s a professional and a talented one, he keeps them engaged, focussed, and the annecdotes and jocular back-and-forth are nicely balanced with nuts-and-bolts answers that cover the 5 W’s, the H, and a few more besides.

Finally, D&Q just linked to this interview with Lynda Barry at The Walrus. It was conducted last year in the midst of Lynda! Barry! Fever! which included tons of interviews and coverage of Barry and her graphic novel/creative writing course, WHAT IT IS! I don’t think I mentioned it at the time, but I quite enjoyed it (it and Spurgeon’s stood out to me, actually), so I figured I’d bring it up now. It’s a solid, wide-ranging interview with Barry about her work and life. Good stuff.

So there’s three things to read. 

– Chris

Just in case you were curious, here’s the programming schedule for Saturday/Sunday at TCAF. I’m quite happy about all of this actually. 🙂

Behind the cut:

Continue reading “TCAF Programming Schedule”

…but there is a FUCKLOAD of TCAF coverage coming in the next 5 days. Like, obscene. If you’re not going, you’re going to be sick of hearing about it, but if you are going OH MY GOD I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS I DON’T KNOW IF I CAN STAND IT. AWESOME. AWESOME.

– It is now Ontario Graphic Novel Month, courtesy of Open Book: Toronto’s WHAZAMO!
– We’re getting daily coverage in Toronto’s National Post daily newspaper, with profiles on about half of the total guests of the festival. I don’t know if people know this, but many of these are appearing in the newspaper as well as online.
– I gave a run-down/preview of TCAF last Saturday.
– Oh, it looks like my interview with Comic News Insider’s Jimmy Aquino just went live. Fun-fact: I hadn’t slept for 24 hours before I did this interview! Let’s go and listen and see if I’m coherent.

More TCAFy goodness soon. Tom and Dirk are doing a great job of linking everything, check’em out in case I don’t get back here to after it’s all over.

Oh, and I just got back from a sorta-private reception for Mr. Tatsumi at The Japan Foundation, where he did an illustration in every book that people brought him, which was kind of amazing. By the by, Mr. Tatsumi is warm, funny, and likes to laugh. Neat guy.

So, yeah, that’s about where I’m at right now. Excited, a little nervous, busting my ass every day, good stuff.

– Christopher

Hey readers,

I’m totally totally swamped so I can’t really be blogging. But I found this incredibly cool. From Mark Ellersby’s livejournal:

“Hey everyone, I hope you’re all enjoying May bank holiday. I spent yesterday plowing through cheap stapled goodness at the London Zine Symposium and watched The Wedding Singer. Oh, and I booked a last minute flight to Toronto for this week. No, really.

“I’ll be appearing at the TCAF festival, though I won’t have a table and I’ll just be doing the odd hour signing at the Oni booth, details of which to come. Basically, I was listening to the TCAF preview edition of InkStuds and it sounded so bloody amazing that 2 days later I booked a flight and a hotel room for me and Anna. Wooo!”

So, yeah. That’s kind of insanely heartening to hear.

I actually heard that John Pham would be coming up to Toronto as well! Cool beans.

Back to work,

– Christopher

Hey folks! Due to e-mail problems, when we were putting together COMICS FESTIVAL 2009 (available at FREE COMIC BOOK DAY events EVERYWHERE! TODAY!) we missed out on a great strip. Andy Belanger (Andy B. to his friends) has created a great new character/story, ANNIE ARCADE, and her first published adventure was scheduled to be in Comics Festival! 2009!

Unfortunately Annie and her crew didn’t quite make it into the book this year, but that just means we can make this strip EXTRA FREE! So check out the first ever adventure of Andy B.’s ANNIE ARCADE below. And if you’re at The Beguiling today, stop by the store to meet Andy and get a special “tip-in” version of the comic strip to insert into your copy of Comics Festival!  

For more of Andy B.’s work, and more adventures of Annie Arcade, check out http://andybelanger.com/?p=203. 

Happy Free Comic Book Day!

– Christopher

I have a thousand things to do right now but I’m honestly a little burnt out at the moment. It’s gorgeous outside, I’m going to be done everything this weekend anyway (more or less), so I’ve decided to take today off except for emergencies and just catch up on my reading. So I thought I’d blog while I read.

IDEA: I think the news of Alvin Buenaventura deciding to “pick up the perodicals flag” and do floppy comics this year is kind of amazing and fun, I’m on board with that. I was actually just thinking that they should go ahead and print a regular comic-sized version of Kramers Ergot 7, now that it’s sold through its first (and maybe second?) printing in giant, beautiful, oversized hardcover. I think it would be amazing to print that and “make the material available” for all those people who pissed and moaned about there being a comic they could not afford, as if all comics should be made to their budget. I think a similar 3-pack of comic books that reprint Kramers 7 for $11.95, with no adjustments made for legibility at that size, would be amazing.

Actually, fuck that, they should print the whole thing at the D&Q “Petit Livres” size, a little smaller than a postcard. I think if you could turn spite into a commercial product, that would be its ideal form.

I wonder if that’s profitable?

– Chris