Rolling SERIOUS GRAPHIC LITERATURE Thread for Comics in 2016

she's no longer depressed after making major bank on that first book and can't come up with new material about depression

(hah, I wish)

I believe her follow-up is entitled More Humble Than You Would Understand.

Er, the dates on that page say 2017.

No, wait - Amazon is being 'smart' and redirecting me to amazon.co.uk

Anybody been reading Mizuki's Kitaro stuff? Is it worth it?

From An interview with Kentaro Miura. He's talking about being inspired by his gang of friends and putting aspects of them into Berserk.

Miura: The yellow ranger, basically. I’m pretty sure that was the role I played. On the inside, though — and maybe manga artists tend to idealize themselves, but — I would have Guts-like thoughts, or Griffith-like thoughts. Manga is a funny thing: rather than taking base models and inserting them into your manga unchanged, you can do things like break the models up and rearrange their different parts into all sorts of strange things.

–What exactly do you mean when you say you thought like Guts or Griffith?

Miura: So, for example, in terms of manga, I was head and shoulders above everyone in terms of drawing, but at the same time, I looked up to the guy who used to act as the leader. He was very much like Griffith in terms of ability: he was the type who put his money where his mouth was, and he even had a bit of that touch-of-the-divine feel to him. In terms of violence, though, I’d say he was very much like Guts.

He would go out and get into fights every day and then come to my house afterwards and say, “Alright, let’s draw some manga,” and then he’d go to his part-time job the next day, sleep deprived. He was a wonder. So in order to keep up with him I felt like I needed some sort of trick of my own, and I decided to work hard on drawing manga. Later on, though, I would find out that he apparently used to act violently the way he did because he was amazed by my ability at manga.

So then in university he gave up becoming a manga artist, and he decides he’ll do things that the rest of us will be jealous of — sleep with a hundred girls, get hired into a first-rate company, that sort of thing. And he manages to pull it off. Then he becomes an illustrator, and starts pulling in tens of millions of yen a year while he’s still in his twenties. But it’s still manga that he wants to do, so in the end he throws it all away and starts from square one in the manga industry.

–Wow, that’s an amazing story.

Miura: See, so up until that point, he’s Griffith. But then from there he falls and re-examines what it is he really wants to do, and so in that sense, that makes him Guts, right? Maybe Griffith and Guts are symptoms that affect boys. When a boy seriously tries to do something, he could become either one.

https://mangabrog.wordpress.com/

This blog is full of good translated interviews. I think mainstream Japanese comic artists and games developers generally come across as far more philosophical than their American counterparts. Even for the crassly commercial manga there's sometimes interesting thought behind it. Which makes it all the more sad that there's so much pandering and strict formula in mainstream manga. Which are problems in Berserk but it amazes me how much he improvised the plot because you wouldn't know it and it's really brilliantly done.

There's an interview mostly concerning Otomo and different eras of manga, and there's funny talk of how jealous Tezuka was of Otomo and how being a manga powerhouse can shorten your life. Shigeru Mizuki saying he lived longer because he got proper sleep and wasn't overproducing.

Interesting comics article from one of the sites I linked earlier

http://www.ceiling-gallery.com/blog/2015/4/4/morohoshidaijiro

both bookmarked thanks

went to Lynda Barry's gallery show and was really wigged by the comics glitterati who were about: Spiegelman, Gloeckner, Chip Kidd... had a nice friendly upbeat with conversation with Chester Brown. Barry was spectacular (i gave her pottery) and made me feel special. Pretty great time.

her panels are selling for 3 grand now! I'm happy for her.

wow, sounds like a fun event

her work deserves frames, everybody was giggling in the gallery

There are probably a lot of ppl in town for Brooklyn book festival this weekend.

Tom Hart is at bbf today by the way, forx.

yeah, that's what Chester said! I am going for a walk in the cemetery tonight but would love to let Hart know how much Rosalie Lightning moved me. I do the "yes/thank you" breathing mantra daily these days.

http://blog.comichron.com/2016/09/more-than-10-million-comics-ordered-in.html

how did the adult coloring books become a thing?

Adults read Twilight, adults read Harry Potter, adults buy colouring books, adults buy superhero comics, adults are infantile

I'm not judging - I genuinely wonder how this trend came about

I thought it was a quasi-therapeutic trend, but I don't know quite what incited it.

Yeah, I hear they're recommended for therapy. Wasn't Ozzy Osbourne always using them?

there was a piece on CBS Sunday morning this week iirc
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/adults-rediscover-joy-of-coloring-books/

I didn't mean to sound as judgmental as I did--just after posting that I was getting excited ver the idea of a Tamaki She-Hulk in another thread. Though adult colouring books cluttering up bookshops is a pain in the arse.

I presume colouring books are a trend (or a "trend") because they're easy to market and produce and ridicule, and they take up less shelf space than jigsaws and knitting equipment. But I presume they are pretty good therapy for some people.

My sister likes them, finds it calming.

http://www.loiclocatelli.com/pocahontas

I think it's his first work in English. I've liked him for a few years just from his blog and he did say he was getting in English soon.

The Stardust Crusaders phase of Jojo is being reprinted soon. I ended up not reading the reprints of the first two phases ( I read them a decade ago) and if by the time the fourth phase comes along (probably 2018 at the earliest) I'm doubting I'll want to read it. Which is sad because I was desperately praying for it years ago but unless the repetitive story formulas go away I doubt I'll be able to enjoy all the crazy ideas as much as I'd like to.

Looks like Jojo is finally doing quite well. An animated version is on american tv, there's a bunch of videogames, Araki's "How To" book is getting an English release soon.

This cover is quite cool
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/jjba/images/b/be/Volume_108.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130519062516

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/forbidden-books-book-bundle
$15 gets you a lot!

sold!

woah, some really good selections in there. of the top tier i own rebel visions but don't know any of the others -worth getting?

You may have read The Love Bunglers before if you've kept up with the Love & Rockets annuals, but it's one of the most moving arcs in the series.

I've been wanting the Eternaut for a while, too. Although a couple of selections (Sunstone lesbian bondage deviantart nonsense; Bode tattoo book) look like filler.

The Love Bunglers inclusion just makes me feel more guilty that I haven't read anything since the super-giant hardbacks came out several years ago... have to finish the second half of "Collected L&R" before I even hit "New Stories".

love bunglers genuinely tore me up, the apex of that decade long storyline really pays off

Maybe this has been on another thread
https://www.instagram.com/p/BKUBysLg_bK/?taken-by=fantagraphics

a couple of weeks ago my wife asked me what I would do/feel if white supremacists and racist POSs appropriated Lenny the Frog as their icon and I couldn't even simulate it in my mind. I feel bad for matt furie.

I hope that pudding image gets around. I hope someone puts it on tumblr and reblogs the shit out of it.

https://mcachicago.org/Calendar/2016/10/MCA-Store-Book-Signing-With-Emil-Ferris

This looks cool, don't know why I hadn't heard about it before.

Pissing image not pudding image.

the proof of the pissing is in the eating

love bunglers genuinely tore me up, the apex of that decade long storyline really pays off

yeah I bumped the L&R thread when I finished it recently, really incredible piece of work by a true master. I genuinely gasped out loud at one point, I can't remember the last time a comic made me do that.

is that storyline collected in one volume?

that "i love monsters" looks great!

a couple of weeks ago my wife asked me what I would do/feel if white supremacists and racist POSs appropriated Lenny the Frog as their icon and I couldn't even simulate it in my mind. I feel bad for matt furie.

― I wish you could see my home. It's... it's so... exciting (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, September 27, 2016 10:24 AM (fifty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is like one of the worst things imo. I was listening to some casual discussion on the radio about the Pepe the Frog phenomenon and I was like, "why don't you maybe interview his creator and demonstrate what a violation something like this is?" Like...there's just no way to combat it. Something he created is being used by awful people for awful purposes and it's completely out of his control.

And, yes, Love Bunglers is available as a collection.

can't they use a nice public domain character like mickey mouse?
:)

I felt bad for Matt Furie (and posted as much), but then I read an interview with him (which I can't find now), where he was like "I don't give a shit, politics is boring" etc., which actually seems pretty characteristic of him. Though it might just be a calculated position in order to not attract the ire of the alt-right

To follow up on the Araki mention last week, Takashi Miike is making a live-action adaptation of "Diamond is Unbreakable," the Twin Peaks-like fourth arc of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. It's kind of an unlikely choice of projects, but given the example of Gozu, I could see Miike handling the source material's frequent and violent shifts in tone and general batshit atmosphere with verve:

http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2016/09/27/jojos-bizarre-adventure-diamond-is-unbreakable-live-action-film-project-officially-confirmed

has anyone on here read The Private Eye? Is it any good?

I wonder how the Jojo film will look. A lot of these adaptations look quite cheap. Maybe they chosen an arc that's easier to film.

Well, the narrative mostly stays within the bounds of one small town, but that arc has a dizzying proliferation of Stands (or superpowers as presented through strange spectral avatars), so it would still pose a number of challenges to film.

Private Eye won't blow your socks off, but it's certainly enjoyable and worth reading. Go into it blind - it's very short and, plot-wise, the less you know, the better.