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Just wanted to share that I recently was invited to take part in a roundtable series of essays on The Comics Journal's column, The Hooded Utilitarian, which is an outpost for comics critic Noah Berlatsky (and a slew of guest contributors) to talk seriously about comics.
The roundtable was called "Komikusu: Selling Awesome Manga" and was focused around "indie manga"-- what it is, the challenges of finding a readership, and how to get more people turned onto the quirkier and underground titles out there.
Other folks included were:My small contribution, "Indie is as indie does" meanders a lot and doesn't quite make its points very clearly, but I tried to tackle the history of manga released in the states and how it has been positioned via genre/publisher. And also the idea that a title being referred to as "indie" in the States often has little to do with how it was originally published/received in Japan. Or something? Give it a read and tell me what you think!
I encourage you guys to check out the entire roundtable when you have some free time!
A few months ago in Paris, an interesting exhibit opened featuring original comic pages and paintings from a fantastic line-up of some of my favorite artists. Running from April 15 until May 22, the exhibit, Underground & Secret Manga, featured work by Yoshikazu Ebisu, Usamaru Furuya, Kanako Inuki, Suehiro Maruo, Junko Mizuno, and Toru Terada.
More details on the exhibit are on this post on the Hattenba Production blog. Hattennba Productions appears to be taking on an interesting role of advocacy that I haven't really seen before, doing outreach from Japan to other countries in English (and Spanish, French, etc) about their stable of cartoonists. Right now, they are promoting Garo alums and influential underground manga artists Yoshikazu Ebisu, Takashi Nemoto, and Issei Sagawa.
This is a pretty exciting idea, and I wonder who in the States is already in touch with them? I can imagine with Hattenba providing the support and making deals/coordination easier, it could theoretically be possible to have a show like this in New York or at San Francisco's SUPERFROG Gallery space in the New People center. --For folks that have been to visit, SUPERFROG is a fantastic space for interesting shows but their programming and curation to date has been really weak. Loosely themed and sorta uncontemporary group shows? Yoshitaka Amano overprized day-glo paintings? They seem to not really have an idea what they want to do with the space, and it seems to be months passing before new exhibits go up. In lieu of every show they've done to date, I'd have loved to see an exhibit like this one in Paris made to happen in San Francisco-- along with about a dozen other ideas for shows I have (What I'm Saying Is: HIRE ME TO CURATE THAT THING, PLZ)???
Anyway, I'll stop with my self-absorbed mild rant and get back to the "Deichu ni Hasu" exhibit; here are some photographs from the Hattenba blog and the gallery's site:
The Manga we know today is as much a child of the Japanese artistic tradition as of the trauma of the War and the atom bomb. Its first master was Tezuka and its first hero Astroboy, a robot-child created by a scientist rendered inconsolable by the loss of his son. Astroboy’s begetter went on to construct the girl robot Uran (short for Uranium) and a second boy, Cobalt (another metal used for making atomic bombs): these were machine children endowed with superpowers, destined to save humanity and bearing the same names as the radioactive substances that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki...
Unique in our time, Manga has become a culture, a world and an industry whose stories and characters appear in the print media, films, video games and tie-ins. It also represents a resource pool many contemporary artists have no qualms about exploiting.
The feudal world, science-fiction and everyday life, cyborgs, magical creatures and perfectly ordinary characters, animal impulses, kitsch heroism and sentimentality: beyond the conventional codes of the types of Manga targeting
specific readerships – Shounen for boys, Shoujo for girls, Seinen for adults –there also exist unclassifiable experimental books hinging more on deep experience than on mere entertainment. Whether Manga’s critics like it or not, these books are «dangerous» in that they represent a host of thresholds, doorways and channels leading to visionary, nightmarish, grotesque worlds whose common characteristic seems to be the absorption of those who look into them.
Yoshikazu Ebisu, Usamaru Furuya, Kanako Inuki, Suehiro Maruo, Junko Mizuno and Toru Terada: it is to these dedicated practitioners of the draughtsman’s art that this exhibition is devoted.
- David Rosenberg, curator of show
While the exhibit features a number of cartoonists we dig, I wanted to specifically highlight the works of Yoshikazu Ebisu. I admit to not knowing a ton about the artist beyond what Fred Schodt wrote about him in Dreamland Japan, and his short bio from the back of Comics Underground Japan. He seems like a fascinating dude, who didn't start drawing manga until his 40s, publishing a number of short comics in Garo during the 80s and 90s about the hellish life of white-collar drones.
Two of those comic, "Hell's Angel" (Jigoku no Tenshi) and "It's Alright If You Don't Understand (Wakaranakutee mo Daijoubu) were published in the 90s in Comics Underground Japan. "Hell's Angel" is the first comic in that anthology, and sets a darkly satirical tone for the tome as it follows a nightmarish, neverending commute home by a generic every(salary)man.
The soulless tedium and mechanized alienation of Japan's corporate culture is a recurring theme in Ebisu's witty and scratchy depictions. He did a whole run of salaryman comics, one of which (Salaryman From Hell) was scanlated by our friend Rizzah over at Wanted: Cheap Manga.
For forks looking for more on Yoshizaku Ebisu, please check out his personal website, and the three pages from Dreamland Japan that Fred Schodt dedicated to his works.
Here are more fantastic pieces by Yoshikazu Ebisu from the exhibit:
And here is the man himself, Ebisu!
My friend Moni posted on Twitter some rad apparel news. It seems that our man Shintaro Kago has joined the ranks of other creators (most notably, Uncle Umezz) by being honored with designer T-Shirts by BEAMS.
The first Kago shirt (made in collaboration with the design studio whiteFUCTORY, which appears to also be doing a shirt with VICE. The shirt is about ¥5,600 and only available at their shop and online for folks living in Japan. You can check it out on their site. Looking forward to more designs in the future?
(For other shirts designs, check out the "BEAMS" label)
Hope everyone is enjoying the full-on appearance of Summer (in the Norther Hemisphere, at least). I just got back from a work trip to New York, followed by a short but rad weekend of hanging out. The theme of this trip ended up being "The Internet... COMES ALIVE!" as I got to meet and convert 4 different online friends into IRL friends; It's always a weird experience at first, but a total pleasure when it goes smoothly... Thanks to newly-IRL folks Moni, y16o, Matt, and gea* for the great times hanging out!
So, what else have I been up to lately? Aside from slacking on Same Hat posts, and working on some promo materials for Last Gasp's Comic-Con booth, you may have heard that I put out a new zine with a (ahem) particular focus. That's right, cartoonist Michael DeForge and I collaborated on a 64 page Lady Gaga fanzine called PRISON FOR BITCHES!
The idea for the zine came about the day after the video for Telephone debuted, and the entire book went from drunken (Was I drunk? I must have been drunk.) email thread with Michael to printed book in under 7 weeks. The zine went on sale at Toronto Comics Art Festival last month, and is AVAILABLE NOW via our site: http://prisonforbitches.com. Kudos go to contributor Tony T for having the foresight to buy that domain (and http://letsmakeasandwich.com) while we were watching Telephone that night, haha.
You may be scratching your head, and if so that's fine and understandable. The new zine is a one-time deal, a proper fanzine in the style of fanzines I used to read in the 90s. The whole thing is the size of a 7" record, and was xeroxed and hand-stapled. It features over 35 contributors(!!) and 64 pages (including a 12pg color insert) of fan art, a Hegellian deconstruction of Gaga;s lyrics, comic strips, a live report, photos of Gaga cosplay in Kobe, and other nonsense.
The artists included are an amazing batch of most all of our current favorite working cartoonists and printmakers, including Johnny Ryan, Michael Kupperman, Hellen Jo, Lisa Hanawalt, the Wowee Zonk crew, Saicoink, Makkinoso, Nick Gazin, Elio, Derek Yu, Angie Wang, HARVEYJAMES, Lala Albert, and tons more!
If you wanna see more, check out this 25 page free preview on Google Books.
And if you really wanna see our zine in its proper form, you can buy it using Paypal/Checkout through the site. It was recently written up on Robot6 and the SF Weekly, which were big surprises and quite flattering for me & Michael.
Anyway, that same weekend in Toronto, I was on a TCAF panel titled, "Indie Comics Japan: Manga Outside of the Mainstream". The other panel members included About.com's manga maven Deb Aoki, PictureBox's head honcho Dan Nadel, D&Q translator for Tatsumi Jocelyne Allen, and Udon's Erik Ko-- and was moderated by The Beguiling/Comic212.net's Chris Butcher.
I don't remember feeling like I said anything super-insightful that day, but if you want to read a great recap of the conversation please see Deb's great report on About.com.
Another "Early Manga Days" essay (and pics from Tokyo) coming in the next day or two!
(This post is part of a series I've tagged as "early manga days", chronicling rare/weird gems from the beginning of manga's now 30+ year history of publication in English)
After a few weeks off, I'm returning to "The Manga Story" essays, which were an introduction to the genre/style of "manga" published in the first few floppy issues of Viz's Mai the Psychic Girl. These were written in 1987 by the manga/Japan experts of the day-- with the first essay written by Cartoon/Fantasy Organization co-founder and author Fred Patten.
The 2nd essay in the series is by someone I admire greatly, and one of the most interesting dudes in manga, interpretor/translator/author Frederik Schodt. If you've been reading Same Hat or know anything about manga, you are aware of Fred's important role in the development of a "manga industry" for English speakers. On top of that, Fred is one of the smartest and most genuinely nice and insightful dudes in the world of comics. When I tweeted about posting this essay he joked that he couldn't even remember what he wrote at the time; I find this essay especially interesting given his long history of commentary on manga's history (and future) in America.
For more from Fred on the early days of manga, please see my extensive interview with him in late 2008 for Electric Ant Zine #1.
ENTER THE ID by Frederik Schodt
Click for large versions! Full transcript below!
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ENTER THE ID by Frederik Schodt
Many years ago in Tokyo, I talked with the local Marvel Comics representative about translating American and Japanese comics, and I still remember how pessimistic he was. American comics took much of the world by storm in the fifties, so much so that they caused protests in some countries. But in Japan, despite the fact that many Marvel and DC titles were translated into Japanese in the 1970s, the reading public never really accepted them-- they were often said to be too boring, alien or wordy. As a result, the Marvel rep had concluded that as far as Japan and America were concerned, comics and culture were inseparably linked, and "People may be able to tolerate exoticism in other media, but not in their comics.
I often think about that statement. I've probably been directly involved with, or have closely observed, most attempts since the mid-seventies to introduce Japanese comics into the United States and, needless to say, most of the attempts -- if not always artistic failures -- have had a rough time in the marketplace. Today, though, with the new Viz-Eclipse International titles, and others from competing firms, it looks as though translated Japanese comics have finally come into their own, breaking out of a ghetto of isolated fans. At this point, the words of the Marvel rep bear re-thinking.
If comics and culture are particularly inseparable in Japan it may be because they have developed in relative isolation from the rest of the world. No matter how well translated, many Japanese comics are still very "Japanese," not only in story, but in visual style and pacing as well. Sometimes pictures are intrinsically linked with verbal jokes and puns. Characters may seem to have nothing but dots in their word balloons, to be gazing incessantly at horizons, or making poignant gestures. Often the plot seems to move in a rather round-about way. Why don't they get to the point? The answer is, of course, that Japanese comics were written and drawn by artists thinking in Japanese, not English. For us to read these comics, even when translated into English, takes a little more work and understanding. A new visual as well as written vocabulary must be learned.
Comics and different from other media, in that they are so accessible and personal. There are well over a billion produced each year in Japan, including weeklies, bi-weeklies, monthlies, bi-monthlies, quarterlies, paperbacks, and hardbacks. Because the market is so huge and there are so many publishers, and because the comics have stressed stories and characterization rather than artistic ability, comics are one of the easiest creative mediums to break into in Japan (but success is not guaranteed). Expectations are lower to begin with, and creating a comic does not require the same level of education or writing skills as the creation of a novel. Some famous artists may have assistants or outside scripters or eve, like Takao Saito, a staff photograph (for backgrounds), but most don't. All an aspiring artist really needs are pens, paper and pencils, talent, time and a good idea. Compare to making a film, financing a comic is a joke. The result of all this is that Japanese comic books are sometimes a repository for eccentric talent, but they are also a very direct reflection of what is going on in the mind of the average person-on-the-street, relatively unfiltered by massive editing, the commercialization of other mass media and "committee"-style production.
The unique social role played by comics in today's Japan must be considered. In the last few years reader in their fifties have become fans of comics, making them a true "mass" media, in the sense that nearly everyone reads them. Comics are still different from television, records, novels or newspapers; although some are very serious and comparable to the best literature, most are light, disposable entertainment, to be read when on the train, waiting for a haircut, or over a bowl of ramen noodles. Many young "salary-men" buy two three hundred and fifty page weekly comic magazines when leaving the office at the end of the day, read the comics from cover to cover during an hour-long train ride on the way home, and then toss them in the trash can when they get off.
Of the billion or so comics produced each year, the vast majority have a dream-like quality. Sometimes I think of Japanese comics as being the place where stressed-out modern urbanites work out their neuroses. Viewed in their totality, the phenomenal number of stories produced are like the constant chatter of the collective subconscious-- an articulation of the dream world. Sort of like MTV in America, only on a much larger scale.
So why do I think Japanese comics have a hope of making it in the United States? The first reason is the sheer size of the Japanese industry and the variety of material it churns out. Probably ninety-five percent of Japanese comics are not worth translating. A lot of them are soft-core porn for men or trashy romances for women, stuff we Americans could create on our own, thanks. And who wants to read volumes about the problems of hierarchical relationships in boring office jobs or the spiritual rewards of selling discount cameras in Tokyo's Shinjuku district? But precisely because there is so much stuff produced, there is something for nearly everyone, if selected properly. You want a story on the Russian revolution, or an analysis of gourmet cooking? You wan wild, original art work? You want something that looks just like an American comic? If you can name it, Japanese comics probably have it. I recently bought a three hundred and fifty page hardback comic book on the Japanese economy that has been on the non-fiction book bestseller list, and sold over three hundred thousand copies; it is filled with information.
The second reason Japanese comics may finally make it in the United States is also related to volume. The comics industry in Japan is more than comics, and has evolved into a giant, self-perpetuating organism. Serialized stories in huge three hundred to five hundred page comic magazines are compiled into paperback books. Paperback books are compiled into hardback books. Stories are made into television animation series, then feature films, then novels, toys, merchandise and eventually sequels of the original stories are produced.
Animation has boosted the popularity of Japanese comics around the world. Since animation is less personal, and is filtered through producers, directors, and the hands of thousands of staff, it is often a little less culture-specific than comics. And besides, since it moves, it transcends language more easily. In mainland China, animation guaranteed the popularity of Osamu Tezuka's comic Mighty Atom (Astroboy). In Italy, animation paved the way for the success of the girl's comic, Candy Candy, and Go Nagai's Mazinger Z. With interest generated by animation, Europeans have gone on to publish quite a few other Japanese comics. Kazuo Koike, who wrote the script for the samurai classc Lone Wolf and Cub also authored a hard-boiled action series being published in France under the title Mutants-Android
The same thing has happened in the United States. So much Japanese animation has been shown on American TV that people are curious the comics on which the films are based and there is a large body of fans, ready to read something translated into English. This is a wonderful thing, because it means that most people who buy a Japanese comic are going to expect something a little different from an American one, and not be put off by things like big eyes and weird hair color. A little bit of exoticism here is not going to hurt.
It's a thrill for me to see comics like Mai, the Psychic Girl, The Legend of Kamui, and Area 88 finally published in English, largely unedited. I'm not sure everyone will like them equally, but that's the way it's supposed to be. I am even more excited because these comics haven't yet been on television here. Most American fans of Japanese comics tend to gravitate toward whatever they have seen on TV or in video, which cuts them off from the real richness and variety of Japanese comics.
Sometimes when you're reading Japanese comics, it may seem as though it takes a little more work to understand them than the thirty page American variety. Don't worry. The rewards at the end are enormous. Not only are you reading a comic, but you're getting a rare opportunity to see the world through the eyes of another culture. There's a lot to learn out there.
-Frederik Schodt is the author of Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics, winner of the "Special Award" in the 1983 Manga Oscars.
As I've blogged about a few times now, New York's Center for Book Arts is hosting an ongoing exhibit showing off the full collection of legendary alternative manga anthology GARO.
Same Hat reader and cartoonist Noel attended the exhibit opening a few weeks back, and sent along these rad photos from inside the gallery. As you can see, there's a mixture of mounted covers, notable spreads on display, and explanatory notes and writings. The exhibit Garo Manga: The First Decade, 1964-1973 is on display until June 26, 2010.
A gross and rad group art show is on display right now in San Francisco; The Boys are Back in Town, featuring the art of Matt Furie, La Merde, and Johnny Ryan is at Giant Robot SF until May 12, 2010. The show is made up of 150 small pieces and paintings, many of which are takes on popular culture, characters from other comics, and riffs on each other's books.
I checked out the opening, and really loved the stuff that Johnny Ryan created (Matt's stuff was awesome as usual too. I'm not a hufe fan of La Merde's simple style but the entire show is worthwhile). Johnny's a friend of Same Hat and a fan of weirdo manga, so I was geeked (and not too surprised) to see that he had done a Kazuo Umezu tribute piece as part of the show!
All of Johnny's pieces from the show are selling out fast, but the Cat-Eyed Blecky one is still available for sale via the GRSF website!
For more Johnny Ryan action, check out his website. Volume 2 of his battle manga serial gross-out fest Prison Pit is coming out later this year.
As some of you have perhaps already seen on my twitter or on the EnterBrain site, a new book was released by Suehiro Maruo this month in Japan! Unlike his last two works, this release is more of an art book than a proper manga. But like his last few published works, the theme of this collection is the world and works of the king of Japanese noir & macabre, Edogawa Rampo!
The book is titled RAMPO PANORAMA, and looks really stunning:
I've ordered a copy via my local Kinokuniya, and will be picking it up after work tomorrow. Full details on the book size/cost are all on the EnterBrain online shop. From my understanding (and hearing from Same Hat buddy Ho-Ling), the book includes the following things:
- A collection of various Rampo-inspired paintings, drawings, album art, etc. from Suehiro Maruo's long career.
- Sketches and designs from Maruo's work on The Strange Tale of Panorama Island and Caterpillar, his previous longer-form adaptations of Rampo stories.
- Maruo's third manga adaptation of an Edogawa Rampo story, a shorter manga this time of 踊る一寸法師 (Odoru Odoru Isshunboush - Dancing Dwarf).
- Nice art book paper stock and a great painted cover.
I'm not sure exactly how long it is or more specifics yet, but I'm planning to post pictures of this book over the weekend, once I've gotten my hands on my own copy! Have any of you seen the book in person? What do you think of it?.jpg)
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