This past Thursday was a real treat for me. I went with my buddies Jenn and Pegs to hear a talk and reading by the unmatchable and infatigable Lynda Barry!
(This pic by Peggy, thanks!)
The event was held at The Booksmith in San Francisco, one stop on a book tour supporting her autobiographical self-help collage tome, WHAT IT IS. I had the pleasure of meeting Lynda for the first time at MoCCA earlier this year, but hearing her talk about her work and writing in person is a whole different experience. Inspirational, in a word. Also, hilarious and delightful and goofy and refreshing.
I pored over the beautiful pages and writing guides included in What It Is, and love her strips. But the thing that put me over the top as a fan was her novel, Cruddy (which she talked a little bit about). Uplifting creator-goddess Lynda is a blast, but Cruddy blue-collar hell is other family members Lynda is the one closest to my heart.
At the reading, we huddled on the floor near the front. This was rough on the ankles but provided a great vantage point for some photos and video. Please enjoy!
VIDEO #1: A 9 minute video of Lynda reading from the autobiographical sections of WHAT IT IS (while presenting a slideshow off camera)
VIDEO #2: A shorter clip of Lynda reading from WHAT IT IS about the death of youthful ambition and a life with meaning.
VIDEO #3: A short clip from the end of her talk, discussing her decision to write the novel Cruddy by hand... with a paintbrush!
As most of you probably recall, our atrocity guru Shintaro Kago had his first European gallery show earlier this spring at the K-SPACE Gallery in Amsterdam.
I was in touch with the organizers and staff at the gallery leading up to the Kago exhibit, and I heard anecdotally that some of the visitors to the show name-checked Same Hat and the scanlations by Anonymous K as their reason for showing up to check it out(!?). As a thanks for the posts, they sent along this RADICAL shirt from the show, which I just got in the mail last week!
SHINTARO KAGO LABYRINTH
(detail) In the eye...
... and out the brain stem!
In addition to being totally fresh in and of itself, there's a K-SWISS tag on the bottom of the shirt. Only in Amsterdam, right? Major THANKS again to the K-SPACE Gallery (and VICE) for all their work promoting Mr. Kago.
On the way back from San Diego Comic-Con, Evan and I stopped at the San Diego BOOK-OFF for manga hunting. I only found two items, but both were crown manga jewels the likes of which would please a manga Indiana Jones (or to a lesser degree, a manga Nicholas Cage from National Treasure 2).
The first was a magazine collection of Yoshida Sensha comics (with stickers! More on this later); The latter was a hardcover edition of Taiyo Matsumoto's ＧＯＧＯモンスター (GOGO MONSTER). It was only 12 bucks, if you can believe that shit. It's a gem, and I know lots of folks place this title extremely high on their MOST-WANTED-IN-ENGLISH list (Chris, looking at you dude). I've read through it, and recently bequeathed it to mega-Matsumoto fangirl, Hellen Jo. Here are some pictures of the book I took before passing it on...
Hard cover edition with slipcase and bookmark tassel (so classy).
Beautiful back cover, with a Where the Wild Things Are vibe but more Japanesey.
Striking but sparse, check out that front cover action!
Whoa! It's a different setting than Tekkon Kinkreet - but Matsumoto's cityscapes are utterly thrilling. As you can also see here, the page edges are bright red and feature pen art.
Page detail, a comic within the comic.
I won't spoil any details on who this fella is...
Such a perfect little collection of details. Matsumoto kills me! (in a good way).
Geometric transitions and film-like transitions pepper the book.
Detail of previous page.
From the opening chapter of GOGO MONSTER.
The only question that remains... When is this magnificent book going to be released in English!? Hellen says that there have already been Korean and French editions published (naturally). Man, c'mon America!
Many thanks to everyone for entering the SAME HAT TOKYO ZOMBIE GIVEAWAY CONTEST THINGY. I laughed my ass off reviewing all the entries, and I'm posting the best of the bunch here for your viewing pleasure. Many thanks to everyone who submitted something for the contest-- we are all richer from your internet sleuthing and memetic contributions.
And now let me present... THE WINNERS!
1. Congrats to BRENDAN
Vomiting devil monk from Ninja Wars
2. Congrats to SAM
Blue Ranger groin grabber
2. Congrats to JACLYN
Street Fighter II drag battle from City Hunter
Okay you three... Please shoot me an email (samehatATgmailDOTcom) with your address and I'll mail you your copy of Tokyo Zombie on Monday.
Thanks for all the great entries so far! Less than four hours left to post your submission-- I'll be deciding the two (three?) winners tonight and posting in the morning.
Meanwhile, here are three new exciting pieces of Tokyo Zombie news to report:
+ Tokyo Zombie feature column on io9! Over at Gawker's Science Fiction blog, io9, columnist Lisa Katayama (of TOKYOMANGO fame) has written a great introduction to both our book and the Sakichi Sato film. For the article, Lisa interviewed me earlier this week about the manga.
Take a look at the article here, and feel free to comment about how badass the manga is :)
+ Tokyo Zombie review in the new issue of Giant Robot! In the latest issue (#55), Eric Nakamura wrote a great little summary and plug for the book :)
+ Fujio fan art by Mickey! Fan art superstar Mickey Zacchilli enjoyed Tokyo Zombie and decided to treat us with an original illustration. I, for one, am totally flattered and impressed. Hope you enjoy it too:
UPDATE: THANKS FOR THE GREAT ENTRIES SO FAR! THE DEADLINE IS TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT TO TAKE PART IN THE CONTEST!
I've been on the mend this weekend after a bout of some weird wrist pain (RSI... damn you, day job!). This week I'm being interviewed about Tokyo Zombie for two different online outlets by nifty folks. I'll post the details when they go online!
So okay-- after hooking up friends and family, I realize that I have a few extra comp copies of TOKYO ZOMBIE. I assume most of you that wanted to have already read the book (RIGHT?) but if not... here is your chance! FOR FREE!
SAME HAT'S TOKYO ZOMBIE GIVEAWAY CONTEST THINGY WHERE I SEND YOU A FREE COPY! (or the SHTZGCTWISYAFC, for short)
I was trying to think of a way to make it fair, non-idiotic and flexible. My favorite contests are the ones where seeing the entries alone is fun for everyone. With that in mind, here goes:
1) Starting NOW until FRIDAY at MIDNIGHT, PST-- you can post here to win one of two copies of TOKYO ZOMBIE.
2) The theme of the contest is BEST HOMO GRAPPLING. Here is the panel from Tokyo Zombie inspiring this contest (I swear it makes slightly more sense in context:
3) Submit the best/awesomest/funniest martial arts-related MANGA PANEL, COMICS PANEL, DRAWING, IMAGE or YOUTUBE CLIP. Submit your entry via the comments on this post (and also include your name/country)!
I'll choose the winners after the deadline, and post them Saturday morning asking for addresses over email. I'm asking for country because I'd like to ideally send at least one copy of Tokyo Zombie to someone outside the U.S.
Here's a new addition to the UMEZZCOM YouTube channel this week-- Footage of Uncle Kaz playing the Umezu Mind and Body Memory Challenge on his Vaio laptop. I blogged a while back about this game, which is like an sugar-rush, trippy version of Simon. (Only for PCs, unfortunately!)
Art Storm, the premier weirdo toy maker that was behind previous Junko Mizuno and Suehiro Maruo toys, has recently released a number of Kazuo Umezu toys on their site. In this post I've tried to collect all the details for the vinyl freaks out there!
Perhaps, the strangest "figurine" of the bunch, a Makoto-chan tape measure and stapler!
Another from the Kazuo Umezu character series, The Goddess of Romance figurines designed by the Umezz:
In a different vein, they will be releasing in October a new Orochi figurine (in time for the movie's roadshow on September 20, 2008):
Finally, the biggest and wildest collection of Umezu-designed toys is a massive collection of Ultraman figures. After a cursory read, it's not clear how this project originated, but it's up to a few dozen different figures. The canon of monsterly baddies in the Ultraman universe lends itself to Umezu's talents, to say the least. Some of my favorites here, with more at the link above: Ultraman!
Updated: SAME HAT stopped updating in 2013! For all new projects, please see Youth in Decline's sit and Instagram.
All fan translations of manga that you'll see in the archives are previously untranslated into English and range from comedy to horror to avant-absurd weirdness.
Same Hat is written & edited by Ryan. If you would like to contact me, please email: samehat @ gmail.com. Also, you can Ask me anything on the Same Hat Tumblr!
