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I am thinking to start doing a weekly "LINKS" post, just to capture all the notable stuff that I plan to post about and then run out of time and forget to post about... Would folks dig that? Maybe I'll start doing that tomorrow!
In other site news, I'm looking for a few folks to deputize to help run the (currently) wimpy Same Hat TUMBLR. I started it a while ago, as a place specifically to share random photos and YouTube clips, and while it's a great platform for that-- I keep getting distracted by other pressing projects, print runs of Prison for Bitches, and Twitter. So... yeah! I'm looking for 3-4 people (to start) to take over and help contribute to that Tumblr! (Azraelito? Jaclyn?)
Ideally, people who have weird and varied (but not too gnarly) tastes, who are into a wide range of topics (visual art, books, music, games, etc) and wanna share interesting finds with the rest of the crew... this doesn't have to be actual things you own/IRL stuff, but anything rare/interesting/timely from the web. It's a thankless job, but I'd send you rare goodies for taking part! Send me an email if you're interested! --deference goes to longtime posters/readers and folks that currently doing cool blogging or sharing online.
[[UPDATE! I'm all set on contributors for now, thanks to everyone that emailed in!!]]
So as practice for a weekly Links Roundup post, I wanted to remind folks to check out the group Electric Ant Zine Blog too. Lots of goodies lately, including:
- A Tale of Revenge on Ice: Getting ICE'd on my birthday, and then getting sweet revenge (Shawshank Redemption style!) [LINK]
- Janelle Monae fan art: Featuring fan art from Angie Wang, Lamar Abrams, and 20 other artists! [LINK]
- HARVEYJAMES super-cheap art commissions: He is going to draw me either Kei from Akira or the spiral-faced girl from Uzumaki [LINK]
- Porno shoes by Lisa Hanawalt She won the internet, why do the rest of us even try? Oh yeah, NSFW. [LINK]
- Jason Shiga rap tribue to 2Pac Long live the Shigacorn and his blasphemous rhymes! [LINK]
- The terrifying prints of y16o Same Hat body horror fans will not want to miss this stuff [LINK]
Over the past week, I was reminded about two upcoming books by a friend at D&Q and Same Hat reader Adam that I wanted to share here. Below are the details gathered from Amazon, and I'll continue to add links/images as I come across them.
(BTW, if you haven't seen Adam's manga review blog Complelely Futile, I strongly encourage you to check it. It's a bit light on visual stimulus but full of insightful reviews and essays on various untranslated manga).
Anyway, time to get stoked about the Fall!
1. GENKAKU PICASSO by Usumaru Furuya
Details here from the listing on Amazon
# Paperback: 256 pages
# Release: VIZ, November 2, 2010
Product Description
Hikari Hamura, nicknamed Picasso because of his natural artistic abilities, survived a horrible accident, but his friend Chiaki wasn't so lucky. Suddenly, Chiaki appears in front of him and tells him in order to keep living he must help the people around him. Can Hikari save people with his sketchbook and a 2B pencil?
About the Author
Furuya debuted as a manga artist in an avant-garde comics magazine called Garo in 1994. Since then, his manga have appeared in Young Sunday and other major weekly magazines. His work has also been published in English in VIZ's PULP magazine and Secret Comics Japan. VIZ published his book Short Cuts in 2003.
2. A SINGLE MATCH (Red Kimono) by Oji Suzuki
Details here from the listing on Amazon
# Paperback: 240 pages
# Release: Drawn & Quarterly, October 12, 2010
[This book was originally scheduled for a March 2010 release, under the title Red Kimono. My original post]
Product Description
In this collection of hauntingly elliptical short stories, Oji Suzuki explores memory, relationships, and loss with a loose narrative style, filling each tale with a sense of unfulfilled longing. He plumbs the dissolute depths of human psychology, literally bathing his characters in expansive shadows that paradoxically reveal as much as they obscure. A young man catches a cold after being soaked in the rain and is tended to by his grandmother. He drifts, dreaming of a train trip with an older brother he doesn’t have. A traveling salesman comes across a boy lying in the middle of the road and stops to have a cigarette and tell a story that sifts through memories of faces and places before settling back on the boy and pretending to not look at the stars. A young woman walks along the river with her bicycle and a friend who is nothing more than a disembodied head—discussing past times together, memories they have of each other.
About the Author
Although he touches on many of the same themes as his contemporaries in the field of postwar alternative manga—Yoshihiro Tsuge (L’Homme Sans Talent) and Seiichi Hayashi (Red Coloured Elegy)—Suzuki uses an ever shifting narrative approach and dashes of surrealist humor to distinguish his work from that of his peers.
Oji Suzuki was born in 1949 in Nagoya, Japan. He moved to Tokyo in 1967 and within two years his first short stories were published in the avant-garde Japanese comics magazine Garo. Throughout the 1970s and ’80s at least ten collections of his short stories were published. Suzuki has produced short films and has written and drawn children’s books.
From the French edition:
I'm finally getting back to my photos and goodies from my trip to Japan earlier this year; I planned to post these things earlier, but then got sidetracked by the Early Manga Days posts and the Prison For Bitches zine.
I've got a few huge photodump posts coming, but in looking through the stacks of manga and magazines a sick and hilarious short by Usamaru Furuya stood out and I wanted to share it now.
Nate and I spent the first Friday I was there digging around for rad and weird used manga at a book shop in Koenji. I had heard about the anthology Comic Cue, which was released for a while in the mid-1990s and focused heavily on gag manga, but also science fiction, humor and erotic comics. For under 5 bucks each I was able to grab the first and third issues:
The anthologies contain a lot of my favorite cartoonists-- some of which have been published in English, but most of which are sadly unfamiliar to Western audiences. The first issue includes cartoonists like Koji Aihara (who Evan and I did fan translations of at the launch of Same Hat 5 years ago!), Tori Miki, King Terry, Radio Wada, Yoshida Sensha, Yamada Naito, Taiyo Matsuomoto, Minetaro Mochizuki, Kiriko Nananan, Imashiro Takashi, Yoshimoto Yoshitomo, Katsuhiro Otomo, and others.
The third issue is the "PORNO SPECIAL" which means lots of totally dirty and sexy comics by the folks above, and also including Suehiro Maruo, Qta Minami, and an article comparing sex manga anthologies for men and women. As mentioned at the top of this post, there is a comic by Usamaru Furuya that is just out of control and I wanted to share a few panels. ENJOY:
Title Page: 天使のフェラチオ (Fellatio of the Angels)
It's a short comic, about an insanely dorky/gawky dude who is seduced by a beautiful "angel" that comes to his bedroom to seduce him. [Check the comments for a full synopsis from reader Adam!] Oh yeah, and leave it to Furuya to reference Dali's El Cristo de San Juan de la Cruz.
The dude can't believe his luck; she remains illustrated amazingly clearly while he devolves into a pile of limp squiggly, sweaty lines.
Receiving the full-body treatment from the angel
EXCEPT, OH SHIT DUDE! Left unawares, 3 STRAIGHT-UP CHERUBS come down and take over the errr sexual duties.
And yes, HE GOES THERE
CLICK FOR THE FUNNIEST/SICKEST PANEL
And just like that the cherubs return to Heaven, the dude is blissful and the Angel is embarrassed at being usurped.
Hope you enjoyed the hilarious depravity. More soon!