On the mechanics of anime illustration - The Japan Times

On the mechanics of anime illustration - The Japan Times

Japan has to be the top comic/animation loving nation in the world.  I have no statistics to back this up.  For all I know, it may actually be China or South Korea or even France.  But I do know comics and animation are mainstreamed here in Japan in ways denied by audiences in my native US, despite the media's discovery every three or four years that "BAM!  POW!  Comics aren't just for kids anymore!" and libraries stocking graphic novels.

Publishers of super grown-up type books like Penguin Group (USA) occasionally take initiatives to broaden the appeal of comics.  And so do publishers like Scholastic for younger readers.  They offer comic books through their ingeniously titled graphic novel divisions or imprints.  And remember DC's late, lamented Minx line?  They advertised in teen fashion catalogs, which probably seemed like a great idea at the time.  Graphic novels and comics-- especially the monthly ones-- still tend to be a niche product, with a shelf or two of the most obvious titles at what few brick-and-mortar bookstores that remain in your malls and shopping centers.  People will watch uneven TV shows and go by the millions to craptacular movies based on them, but publishers have to push the idea that comics can be about anything and read by anyone.  They make huge noise whenever they do, and their best intentions still don't always pan out.

While here in Japan, almost every bookstore you go to has huge comic book sections with a wide range of genre titles available.

Anyway, this rant comes inspired by the Japan Times, which ran the story linked way up top there about a museum exhibition of the works of Kunio Okawara, who designed giant robots for Mobile Suit Gundam and created a phenomenon.  While I don't know a whole lot about his career, even a cursory glance at Japan reveals his pervasive influence.  The news article catalogs some of it briefly, and it's breath-taking.  I'd say a lot of what we Americans think about Japanese pop culture is a result of Okawara's work even if we've never actually laid eyes on a Gundam model kit.  If you've ever watched that South Park where they satirize Pokemon or that one The Simpsons where they watch Battling Seizure Robots or the other one where they go to the Totally Sick, Twisted, F***ed-Up Animation Festival, then you've been exposed to Okawara in some small way.

What does any of this have to do with graphic novel imprints?  Eh, probably nothing.  I just wanted to show you how what in the US is considered entertainment for a specific audience is mass entertainment in Japan.  Not that everyone here sits around building Gundam models-- although a character SMAP star Shingo Katori plays on a recent TV drama does in his free time, when he's not talking to his beautiful ghost roommate (and even when he is)-- or reading comics, but in Japan, you're just much more likely to see a train load of teen girls into comics US publishers find so elusive, or run into the middle aged dude who spends a lot of money on plastic toys and isn't considered a weirdo.  It's still not cool to achieve the status of otaku, but you can indulge your geek-tooth without having to explain to people this stuff is for grown-ups, too.

And that suits me just fine.

Monster in Ebisu! (Don't worry-- it's only a toy store with American comics)

Okay, for the longest time I've been claiming Blister in Nihonbashi was the only place to get American comics in Tokyo.  By comics I mean the newest monthly issues, not the trades; tons of those can be had at Tower Records (Shibuya) and Kinokuniya (various, but Shinjuku is probably the one you want).  I'm happy to say I was (more than likely) wrong about that.  I have to go to Tokyo for some official business this weekend and since Blister is closed the days I'll be there, I started doing some Internet searches for other possible sources for four-color amusements of the super-caped-heroic kind.  Or possibly the Hellboy-ish.

To get to the point, I found a nice blog by someone named Filipo who apparently lives in Japan and collects comics.  Filipo missed a chance at Blister (the dreaded orange wall of closure gives me the willies), but found a place called Monster, located in Ebisu.  Monster is mostly a toy shop but they have a small selection of American comics.  Actually, from Filipo's description, Monster seems pretty much like Blister.  Maybe not as ambitious as the original Blister, which was freakin' geek paradise and a must-stop for those tripping through Japan with comic book print running in their veins instead of blood.  But still Blister-esque as far as the current incarnation of Blister goes.

I'd been planning to keep things simple-- I would have been satisfied with finding Manga no Mori in Ikebukuro-- because this is really a business trip, but now I'm going to have to stop at Ebisu and find Monster just to see if it's worth making it a regular destination.

Manga legend Matsumoto feted at French festival | The Japan Times

Manga legend Matsumoto feted at French festival | The Japan Times

I've seen plenty of artwork from Reiji Matsumoto's titles, but I've never read one of his manga.  I should probably give one a try, huh?

Ai Yazawa draws two pages...

A few years ago, a friend of mine visited Kyoto and brought me the first two volumes of Ai Yazawa's manga series Nana as a souvenir.  I read them and became instantly addicted.  I understand now the attraction of soap operas for their fans.  You obsess over the characters and all the twists and turns and tragedies.

Unfortunately, Ms. Yazawa experienced mysterious health problems severe enough to require hospitalization and the abrupt ending of Nana.  The last episode features a cliff-hanger, which makes fans even more anxious to see what happens next.  Producing a comic is taxing work, mentally, emotionally and physically, so it's easy to understand why Ms. Yazawa hasn't resumed work.  While the cliff-hanger is frustrating from a fan's perspective, my biggest concern has been for the mangaka's well-being.  Even if she never produces another installment of Nana, I wish Ms. Yazawa a return to complete health and happiness.

She's been out of the game for more than three years now, but she's never been forgotten.  And this past week the manga/anime world was abuzz with the sudden appearance of two pages written and drawn by Ai Yazawa!  What a nice surprise!  They're not Nana story pages; they're simply a short visit to "Junko's Room," the charming "bonus" feature found by American readers at the back of each Nana volume.

I can't read Japanese, and only a smattering of French, but the translation into the latter language seems to show Ms. Yazawa at her self-deprecating best, that fun, self-snarking voice very much intact after all this time.

As excited as I should be for even the merest prospect of new Nana, what this represents is a hopeful baby step towards Ms. Yazawa's re-emergence from a long period of medical uncertainty.  I take it as-- and hope  it truly is-- a sign she's very much improved.  It's probably dumb to offer advice to a stranger who no doubt has doctors giving her much better prescriptions (and who will never read this), but I want her to be careful and not over-tax herself.  She's given fans a fantastic story to love and treasure even if it's incomplete and she certainly doesn't owe us anything.  But she owes herself a long and happy life.

So thank you for these two pages, Ms. Yazawa!  All the best to you!

Ann Nocenti talks about her new book, "Katana"

I'm going to buy the first few issues of DC's new title Katana (on Comixology, of course) because I've always liked this character.  Also, I live in Japan, so there's that connection.  I like to read American comics to see how they treat Japanese culture and what elements they're keying on.  Sometimes the results are pretty amusing!

People are already ragging on Ann Nocenti's writing, which isn't really fair.  But this is comics fandom, where fair, open-minded and easy-going have no place.  Alex Sanchez's art looks enticing.  I'm anxious to see if it holds up over the course of an issue with actual story sequences and panel-to-panel transitions and all that good stuff is involved.

If nothing else, I'll get some good essay fodder for this blog!

Desperate for American comics, I plunge into the digital world and read "Batgirl" on my iPhone!

Yep.  It was bound to happen once I located my credit card.  Making trips to Tokyo to visit Blister is fun but way too expensive.  What's a comic book junkie to do to get his or her fix here in Japan, if said comic book fan loves not only manga but things like Walking Dead, Nexus, Batgirl and Love and Rockets?  That's where  digital comics come in handy.  Very handy.

One of the fun aspects of going digital with Comixology (and possibly Dark Horse as well, although I have yet to experiment) is having the ability to download your comics to your iPhone and read them through Comixology's app.  Yes, this traditionalist finds reading comics on an iPhone fun.  I downloaded all my Cass Cain Batgirl issues to my phone (plus my Nexus, New Mutants and old school Valiant titles) over the weekend and they really came in handy yesterday as I ran errands and spent a lot of down time just waiting for others to handle their end of my very important business.

My initial objection to doing this involved not being able to scan the entire page.

I believe page layout to be a dying art in this age of "widescreen" storytelling, where artists generally just stack a lot of horizontal panels on top of each other, then break it up with a vertical close-up inset shot of someone screaming.  There aren't that many Will Eisners or Bernie Krigsteins or even Jim Sterankos walking around anymore.  It's gotten to where I prefer someone just doing the ancient "three tier" format because you don't have to figure out panel order and sometimes the panels come closer to that pleasant "golden ratio" centuries of Western art has taught us to recognize and love.  For example, Jamie Hernandez with his beautiful drawings and simple, clean, fun page layouts.

Page layout is just as important as the panel-to-panel stuff in leading your eyes around and through the action.  A good storyteller remembers all that plane of action stuff and where the characters are relative to each other within each panel, but also helps the reader understand what's happening by doing the visual equivalent of expert tour guiding.  Plus all those tricks Will Eisner talks about in his books, varying panel sizes and shapes to create the illusion of time passing at various speeds.  It all goes back to layout.  As a reader, you approach the page as a whole, then delve into the little squares and rectangles within which your favorite characters strut their stuff.  I didn't want to lose that.

Anyway, to my surprise, I discovered Damion Scott's Batgirl actually reads better on the iPhone, which takes you through with the rest of the page cropped out, than it does when you have the actual comic in front of you.  While he's an excellent action-based storyteller in panel-to-panel terms, sometimes his pages are a bit busy.  On the iPhone, some of Scott's panel-to-panel transitions almost animate themselves as you click through.  It's a neat effect.

Some of the other books I looked at didn't fare as well.  Panels had to be awkwardly snipped to fit on the screen and then "slide" so you could get the entire scene.  Sometimes it would give a nice cinematic pan instead, which was often a revelation.  Usually, though, this would have a "pan-and-scan" effect like watching a movie cropped to fit one of those TVs like the ones I grew up with, the heavy, wood-framed beauties that were as much furniture as they were entertainment centers.  It creates reading pauses that run counter to the artists' intentions.

The small size of the iPhone reduces the figures, which simplifies them slightly so you're losing a bit of the rendering the artists worked so hard on.  That's a bit of a disappointment.  Again, it serves Scott well because he specializes in broad acting, big, bold expressions and stylized faces that show up quite clearly on the iPhone screen.  Some of the artists who use a lot of subtle, fine-lined work tend to soften.  I wouldn't suggest any artist change his or her drawing style to fit this medium, but I think artists with simpler looks with fewer lines and lots of black spotting like Mike Mignola and Bruce Timm won't lose a whole lot on iPhone.

On the other hand, the text remains surprisingly clear and readable.  So there are trade-offs to the convenience of being able to carry with you at all times as many comics as your iPhone's storage capacity allows.  I see it this device more as an adjunct to your reading experience than a replacement for larger formats. It's a matter of convenience reading.

Now my main qualm about Comixology and Dark Horse digital comics is you're paying the same amount as you would for the print issue, but you don't actually own the comic itself, just a license to read it on your computer or phone.  At home, I can't download the comics I've paid for and read them offline.  I have to visit the websites.  I can understand this from a standpoint of preventing piracy, but to be frank, that Black Pearl has already sailed.  For now, this kind of like buying comics but keeping them at your friend's house and reading them through a window while she holds them up and turns the pages when you ask.

Even so, here in Japan where American funny books are difficult to come by, digital comics are your best bet for immediate gratification.  Walking Dead has been making me kind of sick lately, but at the same time, I can't look away. When #107 comes out, I'm going to be there on the first day rather than having to wait for a collected edition or make a trip to Tokyo in hopes it hasn't sold out at Blister.  And it's nice to know I have access to every issue of the Cass Cain Batgirl no matter where I am or what time it is.

Christmas comic book junket underway...

A trip to Tokyo.  That's right.  Christmas in the big city.  We will be making a stop at Blister at some point in the coming week (if it's open) so I'll let you know what's on sale here in Japan.