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twiststreet · 5 months

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Meanwhile in Comic Books: if I understand recent events correctly, and who knows, who gives a shit, but.... Mark Millar (the creator of Trouble, the comic where Aunt May fucks) got so angry that "people" (I only know one name and it's another comic creator) made fun of a comic retailer for putting out some dopey video or another about How Comics Are Bad Now for a (very incoherent) reason on Youtube (incoherent to me, as "reported", but I ain't watching that shit) that Millar became a Comicsgate supporter (or whatever they're calling themselves now)... except while simultaneously saying he's not a Comicsgate supporter...

Except while attacking people he described as "the cancel pigs" (?) who he claims have been terrorizing high profile DC Comics writers... by... doing posts?? (That bit's unclear, but okay; posts; oh well). (No idea who the high profile DC Comics writers are right now either. The guy who writes Captain Carrot? I don't know who).

(And also he's using quote tweets to sort of promote some kind of weird loser theory that the "Cancel Pigs" are actually "paid shills" of some kind of weird PR company's scheme to ... do Comics Evil, you know... for the money that would generate... somehow...???).

Anyways, he then said anyone who is Doing Evil Posts will never get to write Batman... the Ultimate Punishment! Let's assume there've been at least 1,028 issues of Detective Comics since 1939, so ... and assuming each issue had a different writer (which isn't true), and a global population of 8.1 billion people... a Comics Pig is being threatened with being part of ... basically 99.9999873% of Earth's population. I don't know-- it's comics so that's how they always try to police people-- "only the pure and penitent get to writeth the Batman." It works. I mean, it works, so.

(He's doing this while talking to retailers who apparently keep telling him the problem with comics right now isn't politics-- it's that the whole scene is fucking boring. But Millar has the solution-- get John Byrne to write and draw two books a month. It's time to get the 73 year old man to draw 40 pages a month-- it all hinges on that...).

Anyways, then Millar might have tweeted something (that might have gotten deleted or I'm too bored to find it) about how someone was writing a book about the "Cancel Pigs" or the comic terrorism or the badness of posts or something or another... And it turns out that there's some anonymous person is writing some kind of smear attack book that features a photo of Gail Simone and Kelly Sue Deconnick on the cover?? So people were like "oh, he meant that book, he's going after Gail Simone, the war has begun" or whatever the fuck, and Mark Millar said he meant ... he meant an entirely different (print-on-demand Lulu.com?) book that is being written (!!!!!) about comic book industry drama (??!?!?!?), so Gail Simone said everything is hunky dory now. The war has been averted; this is all very sane now hahaha.

And also Mark Waid lost his temper about all of this, or something, but on Blusky, which...??? I mean, I don't know-- all those Blusky codes are too fuck ugly and inelegant to ever be curious what happens there. "Hey, want to get into Blusky? Here's how to do it-- 13295359859.blusky.cobaltirondeathfrombelow.12392389202." You're being weird, Twiki! "You need a code"-- I have a code-- the code of the samurai!!!!!! (Samurai with asthma).

I don't know. American comics have such a massive loser energy around them (myself included)(unless my hair looks good, but today it doesn't), and they're just soaked in these aging dried-up creators with no real new ideas, like... I don't know. I just read manga now. And it's so much better; life's so much better. I cancelled myself from out of comics, and it's great. Highly recommended-- be your own cancel-pig. (I also bought a rice cooker that I'm really happy with this year, the Greenlife rice cooker, but this post isn't about rice)(But should it be?).

In summation: the comics industry's used-up elderly creators and fans are calling each other cancel pigs now, to save comics, and/or to promote books that they are writing, about how secret cabals are keeping comics from being good, for politics, or something. So you know: that's probably a healthy development, or not, whichever.

#worst hobby or worstest hobby?

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twiststreet · 8 months

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I never get the impression he's a big deal with American fans, but anytime I read Mitsuru Adachi, I walk away from whatever I'm looking at thinking he's a top 10 ranked guy to ever make comics, at least in the specific skill where I think he excels which is paneling. (By paneling, I mean to say, his specific choices of what to draw, in what arrangement of panel shapes, and where to place those shapes in relation to the other shapes on the page, all in order to create a desired emotional effect in the reader).

Other people have bigger visions or a lot of people certainly get more intense emotionally or have more depth to what they're doing. Adachi sure seems to sticks to a certain "wistful (but sometimes frighteningly horny) memories of being a high school athlete." I'm looking at Cross Game now and it's similar to the other series I read a lot from him years and years ago, H2 (except Cross Game is much sadder). (I never read Touch which I know to be his biggest hit).

He's not as "ambitious" as other people, to be sure, and I guess that limits his appeal, especially with Americans who don't know what a Koshien is or what it means to chase it. (I watched that Koshien documentary and on some fundamental level, I know I couldn't possibly get it the way someone there does...).

But he's always just making such good choices, so effortlessly. In the quoted pages: the way he doesn't just draw the fireworks but the way it lights up people's faces. The way he makes sure it's not just the fireworks in the sky, but to show the silhouettes of little kids with sparklers. The way he goes quiet of the night, the loud of the fireworks, the way it hits not just people but the environment, but then (and I think quite strikingly) back to quiet. He doesn't splash anything-- he brings the reader back to stillness.

It's not cinema but I've never seen anyone use "b-roll" like Adachi-- just all those pages of rain hitting a sidewalk, or a guy trying to choose what to get out of a fridge, but from a guy doing big-thrill sports comics pages later. We have good slice of life artists in American comics, sure, but he's got all that baseball in there-- he's got it mixed into what are otherwise formula sports genre comics...

It's just the ma he brings to it, I guess, if that's even the right word. That Miyazaki thing of just trying to bring some life to his scenes, but in that quiet, quiet way. (Maybe I just don't know all the manga guys who have that Miyazaki thing going on-- I have to imagine he's a bigger influence over there, than here, after all...).

I'm always just really struck by that guy's approach...

#worst hobby or worstest hobby?#mitsuru adachi

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twiststreet · 8 months

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#worst hobby or worstest hobby?

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twiststreet · 1 year

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#Worst Hobby or Worstest Hobby?#naoki urasawa #making comics #this is a good one...

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twiststreet · 5 months

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Russell Patterson (c/o the essential Horacio Altuna)

#russell patterson #worst hobby or worstest hobby?

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twiststreet · 11 months

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Raymond Macherot covers.

#worst hobby or worstest hobby?#Illustration #raymond macherot

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twiststreet · 7 months

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I just wanted to type about these Katsuhiro Otomo comics I've been reading lately, while I watch my Dodgers game. Dodgers are up 2-1 in the third. Sorry if this is long and a bit of a ramble-- this is all off the cuff and it's just typing not writing, so I'm not going to edit this down too much. Sorry; feel free to ignore; thanks.

It's been this collection of comics called Sayonara Nippon-- a scanlation of material that has never been brought over to the United States… and probably never will be considering, the contents.

More specifically, it was a short story from 1979 called "East of the Sun, West of the Moon", the five chapters of the Sayonara Nippon series-- Otomo's first multi-installment manga, and a 1979 manga called "Seija ga machi ni yattekuru" (which translates roughly to "When the Saints Come to Town"). And then finally, there's a comic called "The A Apartments Murder Case" which I think was a mistake to be included in the collection, but. I think a lot of this was collected in the untranslated 4th volume of the Complete Works. (I think there was talk of bringing the Complete Works over 3-4 years ago but I don't know what happened…?).

East of the Sun, West of the Moon is cute but not really a big comic for me (though I sure like a drunk panel). It's about a rock band who hang out at a bar, and their relationship with the old lady that run the bar.

It's almost Otomo in the sort of sentimental mode that Naoki Urasawa excels at-- except there's this one weird page where he's got the old lady rubbing one of her breasts when she's around by herself and then sneezing…?? Urasawa doesn't really have those scenes that I can remember.

It's not lacivious-- it kind of reminds me of the sex scene in Juzo Itami's The Funeral, though I don't know if you saw that movie (I don't dig that one, not like Tampopo). My suspicion is it's in a vein of body humor that meant more to a Japanese audience and needs a little contextualizing for me, though perhaps that's, you know, me being dumb, me being the "in Japan, it's considered dishonorable to murder" meme guy; beats me.

I think Otomo's in his 20's for all of these comics, which is really what makes them interesting to me, that … if you know him as this Master comics guy from Akira, it's seeing that same guy except when he was a little bit of a punk. (In the "get the fuck outta my store, you fuckin' punk" sense of the word, not anything fancier or more meaningful than that.) But also an Otomo whose aim is radically different because he's not doing science fiction, and he just seems more purely focused on getting some kind of… you know, the breath of life in his comics.

(Like, Otomo obviously dug drawing tech shit later on for years and years in Akira but like, how did he see that evolution to science fiction? I don't know-- i've never read an interview with him that talks about that.)

I'd seen Otomo's short comics before and really, really liked them. But East of the Sun is not one of the ones that I found compelling-- it just feels a little safe…? Which isn't problem for the rest.

Because then you get to the Sayonara Nippon serial.

The 5-part serial is Otomo doing a comedy series, and supposedly after going to America to spend some time over here, according to the little bio blurb I read. It's him doing a comedy about what he saw in America. That was how the bio blurb I googled the other day described it...

But uhhhhh … man, what the fuck did Otomo see in America???

Okay, so like Sayonara Nippon-- it's a 1977 series about a Japanese guy (who I think is the lead singer of the rock band from the other story) going to live in 1970's Harlem, and opening a judo dojo there.

The Japanese guy's doing bumps of cocaine by chapter 3.

Otomo is in his 20's, and it's like… seeing Otomo as an edgelord…?

Have you ever wanted to see Katsuhiro Otomo be an edgelord??

Otomo's drawing a lot of black people in the comic, but he's really in a snotty place with race in these comics. There's a funny-enough recurring bit in Sayonara Nippon and especially When the Saints where every Japanese character is terrified of black people past the point of absurdity. Which would be fun, except the black characters are all pretty vulgar, without any exception-- like, the Japanese characters aren't really presented as entirely wrong!

There's some black rapists and hookers and stuff in the second chapter of Sayonara Nippon, in particular, that I think might not be well received by modern audiences. But even When the Saints-- which I'm the most fond of-- there's an old black jazz band that are just old-men-in-manga levels of hony, which feels a way when the characters aren't Japanese, at least for me.

It's not great, in that respect, even if it's interesting seeing him draw African American characters or him trying to draw a culture clash comedy. I think Otomo's approach or thinking of what will mitigate the crassness is that if his main character is a Big Piece of Shit Too, Worse than Anybody Else, it gives him a lot of room to maneuver. So the main character is awful and almost every Japanese character who sees him is completely disgusted by him. And I guess I found that interesting because I think that was a popular way of thinking about comedy or how to approach "difficult topics" like race, etc. in a funny way back when these comics were made.

Fuck, I want to tell you about the final three panels of Sayonara Nippon so much but I probably shouldn't spoil that. It's this joke that DOES NOT LAND at all, but in such a … such a particular way, in terms of how this material has AGED BADLY… but that kind of underlined how there had been that shift in what people find funny. (I mean, it made me laugh but in a very particular "OH NO, OTOMO NO" kind of way. But a laugh is a laugh!)

But like, the moment with these comics where I went "OHHHHHHHH I GET IT, I GET WHAT'S HAPPENING HERE" is so blatant and so unsubtle and such an easy, easy "AHA moment"-- though he saves it for the very final chapter-- because it's…

It's fucking Otomo shouting out your boy R. Crumb!!!

I don't know what the Japanese understood of Crumb-- but like, Otomo + Crumb isn't really something I've ever mixed together in my head before reading these comics and it's…

I mean, there's thornier avenues of that, about how the US obliviously exports its racism or other dumbfuckery overseas through cultural product, etc., that are way beyond the scope of me decompressing tonight but…

Yeah, it's very much a Rosetta stone image for me with these comics, and might be enough for you to guess-timate your own interest in this material.

There's a joke that I think is too far even for the scanlators where you can tell Otomo was doing a joke where his character says some racial slurs as part of the gag, and like…

Man, I don't think that their choice of the word "Negro" is a 100% true to what was intended in the panel.

People say "oh you can't make Blazing Saddles anymore" and they're all fucking morons, almost without fail. But at the same time, man, I don't think they can bring this comic over to the United States. I don't think that will happen…? Even though, you know… do I like it?

I mean, yeah! I'm not some YA person-- I just don't get too upset if something's a hot mess. The drawings are fucking crazy good, as you'd expect, and Otomo's pacing is just … he's doing 25 page episodic short stories mostly, and there's something really invigorating about seeing him work in that format. And he's… he's at a place in his artistic development where he's really aiming for a sort of … a very different target than his later comics. And there's just something about how he uses pages to get his characters to be alive-- this isn't hiim doing big, big imagery, and it's just that without the adornment of Toyko getting exploded. Like, it reorients you to what he's doing as a reader, to his strengths. (And you know, getting to think about "the evolution of what hip people thought was funny, 1977 to present" is kind of a good time to me, becase I'm fun that way).

I don't know if these are "good comics" exactly (the episode with the rapists is just generally a bad story, even after you set aside the "come on with this dumb shit, bro" factor-- it doesn't build to anything worth the trip). And they're perhaps "problematic" comics (I mean, not for life generally because you know, movies exist, but). But like… I think they are interesting comics. Or I'm just getting something out of them. You know: it's the greatest action comics guy doing these slice-of-life-ish 70's comedies?!? Like… that to me is very interesting.

Anyways: I'm running out of steam but the one that I'd actually say is worth checking out even if it's not ALL CLEAR on the racial side of things is When the Saints, a 76 page novella that they put next.

That one's got the rock band from the first story back in Japan and back in action together in the background, as sort of a comedic distraction from the main story, which is about an older record producer. The producer is visited in Japan by old friends-- three elderly members of a black Jazz band from New Orleans who have come to Japan to drink, scream for "geishas!!!" to be brougt to them, try to sex up ladies slightly off-panel, and otherwise have a good time. And it's about the producer assigning the job of looking after these guys to a younger guy. There's also a whole plot involving another artist the music company is cultivating, a young idol.

There's not a lot of POINT to the story that I could tell, but that one just kind of juggles so much at one time that it lets the story that is there kind of sneak up on the reader, I think. There's an emotion to it and while it's a sentimental one, I didn't think it felt as cloying about it as East of the Sun. And I think what was interesting is how…

Otomo just has it stop where it stops. There's a big happy ending that you think he's going to build to, but he doesn't bother-- he just finds a moment where he wants to bow out, and I think his choice of what that moment is really elevates what he's done more than anything. Instead of ending on some big Hollywood "They All Win … Because They Learned" ending, he ends it more on a character moment and it…

It really sells the comic, more than anything about it.

And on just a technical level, the way there are all of these minor characters throughout the comic, and every one has something to them-- like, that's definitely something he brings into Akira, right? If you think about all the characters in Akira. I don't know, that's the thing with all these comics, the phrase I keep thinking--

"Breath of Life."

Certainly part of it is how he draws because there's that sort of "realism" to his line-- not realism-realism, like some shitty American photo comic, but… you know… I mean, you know who Katsuhiro Otomo is, you already know what I'm talking about-- what, do you need me to describe the fucking taste of ice cream to you, too? You already know what I'm talking about! Fuck you!

But it's also just how they move through the comics, what he has them doing, their attitudes-- it's more than just his line.

I think there's something to that Saints comic worth seeking out. Do you think someone ever gets it here legitimately though? I mean, they've had 40+ years so they're not in any kind of fucking hurry! But. I liked all these comics, to varying degrees, but that's the one where I think maybe a person could benefit from taking a look at, if they're of the "let's study some comics" mindset.

(Oh and then there's the last story-- the band characters turn up for that one but that one's not interesting to me. Otomo's playing around visually on that one a lot-- distorting the figure, playing around with horror manga visual tropes-- but I just didn't respond to it. It's too much of a goof off for me. I ain't writing about that shit. Hire a priest.)

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You can see a bunch of photos of the collection over HERE. There's pages in there that I don't recognize so probably the collection included comics that weren't translated. But. Besides that, I don't know what you can do if you want to read these comics legitimately, unless you know how to read Japanese. So. But I'm out of stuff to say about them-- I just wanted to type. Okay. That's enough.

Anyways, Dodgers won. This is one of my favorite kinds of baseball games to see the Dodgers win-- a "We don't even have to win this game for purposes of the standings, etc., but on the other hand, fuck them" game.

#worst hobby or worstest hobby?#katsuhiro otomo

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