KAGO HAS A MONTHLY COMICS PAGE IN VICE?

Interesting news, courtesy of Johnny:

It seems that starting in the current October issue of Vice, Shintaro Kago now has a monthly comics page in Vice. He joins Johnny, Ted May and a scant few other cartoonists who've been give this opportunity.



I'm gonna hunt around this week for a copy, but shoot me an email in the meantime if you grabs it and wants to send me scans. Vice should be posting the page on their site sometime in the next week or so.

SUEHIRO MARUO TATTOO RE-EMERGES...

Short post here, checking in on an old thing I blogged about last year. Remember that huge and lovely Midori tattoo, gracing the back of Suehiro Maruo fangirl Beth?



Back then, Evan had spotted her tattoo in a Japanese tattoo magazine at New York's Kinokuniya bookstore. Well, on a Snowblood Apple forum thread, I heard that the same tattoo now graces a tattoo portrait book! The book is called, Permanence: Tattoo Portraits by Kip Fulbeck.

Here is thumbnail of the book cover:


In it, each subject has a hand-written note about the meaning and story behind their tattoo, which is displayed next to their photograph. I tried Amazon.co.uk but wasn't able to view the page with the Maruo tattoo. If anyone has this book or could photograph that page, I'd love to see what Beth said about it...

For a few other manga tattoos, please click the label link below (or here). Do you have an interesting manga tattoo you'd want to share? Send me an email at samehatATgmailDOTcom!

TDR INTERVIEWS THE AUTHORS OF YOKAI ATTACK

I wanted to share a good read from one of the absolute best blogs about Tokyo, the infamous Tokyo Damage Report. TDR is written by a Bay Area expat named Schultz. Schultz is a renaissance man-- a singer, photographer, punk, and even nihongo rapper. The dude does it all!



TDR is my favorite in-country blog about Japan for a bunch of reasons, but the main one is that it's free from the self-obsessed, boring and often orientalist bullshit perspective of a lot of blogs about Japan by foreigners. Schultz doesn't forget that he's a white dude living abroad, but he's learned the language, lived there for years, been in Tokyo bands, and really knows his shit.

His blogging specialities include a guide to Tokyo (where I originally heard about Nakano Broadway!) metal and punk show reports, insane japanese trade show photojournalism, fetish club and disco parties, and the occasional interview. He also created an unique Kanji-learning dictionary, which I recommend if you're past the intro levels in your studies.

This week, he's published an intriguing and right-on interview with Hiroko Yoda and Matt Alt, the writer/translator couple responsible for the book, YOKAI ATTACK.





YOKAI ATTACK is a illustrated trivia and guide book, breaking down all the Japanese yokai monster myths, along with some contemporary twists on the folklore. You should know yokai by now from Miike's The Great Yokai War, Umezu's Cat Eyed Boy and Tezuka's Dororo series, for starters. Here's a quick excerpt from the interview:

TDR: Earlier, you said that part of the motivation for the book was cultural exchange . . . did researching yokai give you some insight into Japanese culture? I mean, it must have taken a certain kind of culture to create folk-tales with these unique traits ?

MA: Normally when you see yokai illustrations and wood-block prints you see them in a museum, in a textbook, in a very academic setting very divorced from how they were actually consumed back in the 1700s. One of the things that really struck me is how cosmopolitan and well-developed the Japanese sense of humor was, even hundreds of years ago. They’re filled with gags, satire… These illustrations overflow with humanity. These books, particularly Sekien, weren’t some formal thing that was presented to the Emperor on some special holy day - they were like the best-selling manga of that time. People gathered around, reading and laughing. “Hey, I know a guy like that!!” kind of thing. So to take that and live it day in and day out, and appreciate it and experience it the way that the people at the time experienced it, was one of the great things about doing this book.

For more info about the book and authors, Matt runs a solid blog about Japan, and YOKAI ATTACK is available in bookstores (or you can get it from Amazon).

CLICK TO READ THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW!

ZINE PREVIEW: DORKY ELECTRIC ANT #1 MOO CARDS

If it wasn't already painfully apparent, I'm getting increasingly anxious to get the zine back from the printer.

As I wait for next week (hurry up, hurry up), I've been busying myself with other preparations for debuting ELECTRIC ANT #1 on 11/1/08 (at our table at APE and online). Just yesterday, I got this set of MOO promo cards in the mail. I'll be giving these out at APE and to contributors that wanna to help with the outreach efforts. Each of these cards features an illustration, design or comic from the zine. Hope interested readers enjoy this micro-preview...


My cat lamp watches over the MOO card set...


Zooming in, you can see the cards are resting on the printer's proofs for the zine!


Name a card or image that piques your curiosity in the comments, and I can post the details on who made it and where it fits in to the first issue!


Spread the word and tell yr friends next week!

Also, next Monday I'll post another long preview of a feature in the zine. This time: some excerpts from a 16 page interview with manga guru, Frederik Schodt!

EXCLUSIVE: TOP SHELF TO RELEASE AX ANTHOLOGY!

I am very, very excited to share some fantastic news for Same Hat readers, and for all fans of indie manga and experimental cartooning... Top Shelf will be publishing a 400 page AX ANTHOLOGY, a selection of stories from the bimonthly underground manga anthology AX... all available in English for the first time!


(Here is the front and back cover to a 16 page AX Anthology sampler to be given away at Alternative Press Expo!)

We've posted extensively about AX before, but remember that it's an anthology book published by Seirinkogeisha, that took up the reins of GARO after they closed their doors and ran with the weirdness. Tokyo Zombie originally was serialized in AX, along with works and interviews of Suehiro Maruo, Shinichi Abe, Nishioka Kyoudai, Naoto Yamakawa(Oops, he was in Comix Beam), Usamaru Furuya, Toshio Saeki, Akino Kondoh, Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Toyo Kataoka, and many many many other amazing mangaka.

I don't have anything to do with this book, but recently learned about it and got permission to break the news to ya'll (and of course, am supremely jealous I didn't get to edit or translate for the book!). The full table of contents details have not yet been made available, but I hope to hear more specifics this Fall and post them here.

This gigantic book was co-edited by author Sean Michael Wilson and AX co-founder Mitsuhiro Asakawa. Sean is a comic book writer from Scotland, now an ex-pat living and working in Japan. He's published a number of books, nine graphic novels, and his first English- Japanese-language manga was published this past summer. Asakawa-san is an author and current editor of AX, and worked in the 90s on the staff of GARO, along with writing a number of books on alternative manga and gekiga.



At Alternative Press Expo next weekend, Sean will be doing an presentation on gekiga and presenting rare images from the early, emergent days of the genre. He'll also be there with a 16pg sampler of the AX ANTHOLOGY on hand to give away. I'll be helping run the presentation (and on hand to score my own copy of the sampler, duh!). Details from the APE Site...

SUN, 5:00-5:45: AX and Gekiga: Alternative Manga in Japan—Sean Michael looks at the roots and contemporary state of indy/alternative manga in Japan, using rare and unseen visuals supplied by the original Gekiga creators of the 1950s and 1960s and info from the editors of AX, the premier alternative anthology in Japan today. Plus, a preview of the upcoming book AX Collection (Top Shelf), which presents a selection of this indy manga for the first time in English.

I'm hoping to do an interview with Sean (and Leigh at Top Shelf) and post more details later this fall. What AX creators are you guys most looking forward to reading in English?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EDOGAWA RAMPO

Getting this one out before the end of the day... I wanted to take a second to note that today marks the birthday of one of my absolute favorite authors, Edogawa Rampo. Dude is well-known and beloved in Japan as the godfather of mystery and detective fiction.



114 years ago today, he was born Hirai Taro in Mie Prefecture. As a young author, he turned his love of the macabre master (and America's favorite anti-transcendentalist) Edgar Allan Poe into his nom de plume, Edogawa Rampo. Hint: say it 5 times fast, let the syllables blur together and the verbal connection should become clear.

Rampo has long been one of my favorite authors, and even if you haven't read the translated stories collected in Japanese Tales of Mystery & Imagination or The Beast in the Shadows (And if so... what is wrong with you, lazypants?), most everyone reading this blog has surely felt the influence of his works via some of their favorite manga, film and fiction from Japan...


(Amazing flyer for a museum exhibiting celebrating Rampo's influence)

+ Do you like the kid detective manga, Conan? (His full name: Conan Edogawa!)
+ Do you like the nihilistic realism of contemporary detective fiction writers like Natsuo Kirino or Miyuki Miyabe?
+ Did you see the film Gemini by Shinya Tsukamoto? (Based on one of the short stories in JTOM&I)
+ Are you a Mishima nerd who checked out his cameo in the psychadelic, psycho-sexual film version of Rampo's Black Lizard?
+ Did you see the art horror film Rampo Noir (Adapting four of his short stories) or the fictional and fantastic biography film Rampo?

and most recently...

Remember the newest Suehiro Maruo manga, a sprawling and faithful adaptation of Rampo's The Strange Tale of Panorama Island?


(Homey's grave, with his given name Hirai Taro on the headstone.)

Rampo passed away on July 28, 1965, but his works are continually reprinted and collected in Japan. On a personal note, my first translation of a Japanese work was during my senior year of college, and the story I translated was his short mystery, "The Death of a Sleepwalker". My translation was not very deft or well-done, but I spend many weeks reading and living with Rampo's original texts and came to really love the dude and appreciate his gentle wit and writing craft.

Ending this on a high note... For English readers, the rad indie press Kurodahan is putting a brand new collection of translated short stories and critical essays, The Edogawa Rampo Reader, in 2009!

ZINE FEATURE: THE ILLUSTRATED HALL OF DARK LORDS

After a few rounds of proofs and edits and tweaks, the printer officially has begun printing up ELECTRIC ANT #1 as of this afternoon.



Hopefully without annoying everyone with countless posts, I thought I would highlight a feature a week from the first issue, leading up until Alternative Press Expo (11/1 & 11/2). I'll be debuting the zine at The Bang Gang's table and launching an easy way to buy it direct via http://electricantzine.com that weekend. The first feature I want to talk about (and the first one that came together) is...

THE ILLUSTRATED HALL OF DARK LORDS
My favorite cartoonists take us on a tour of the darkest lords that ever lived!


[Page 25: IHODL Title Page, illustration by Evan]

IHODL is an illustration feature, with 17 pages of raw, wicked, and retarded villains of yore. I think once you witness the list of Dark Lords you can grasp the theme; once you witness the list of contributors you will grasp the awesomeness. The Hall features...

KRULOS (dino-riders) by Anthony Wu
MUMM-RA (thundercats) by Derek Yu
FAT CAT (chip & dale rescue rangers) by Alice Kim
MOJO JOJO (powerpuff girls) by Michael DeForge
GARGAMEL & AZRAEL (the smurfs) by Calving Wong
M. BISON (street fighter: animated series) by Mimo
SHREDDER (teenage mutant ninja turtles) by Jenn Yin
KRANG (teenage mutant ninja turtles) by Hellen Jo
ROCKSTEADY & BEBOP (teenage mutant ninja turtles) by MC Lars
DOC TERROR (the centurions) by Root Studio
LORD ZEDD (mighty morphin power rangers) by Matt Lock
RITA REPULSA (mighty morphin power rangers) by Gea
COBRA (g.i. joe) by Evan Hayden
BLOTH (pirates of dark water) by Ryan Sands
SKELETOR (masters of the universe) by Derek Kirk Kim
HORDAK (masters of the universe) by David Murray
PHYLLIS ‘PIZZAZZ’ GABOR (jem) by Michaela Colette

A few quick previews to whet your appetite(s):

KRANG by HELLEN JO

GARGAMEL & AZRAEL by CALVIN WONG

See any cartoonists or DARK LORDS that you're particularly into? Or have a favorite DARK LORD that I should have included in the feature? Let me know in the comments!!

DANCE! KREMLIN PALACE! by SHINTARO KAGO (CHAPTER 6)

Fear not, Kago fanatics! After a long and deserved break, our buddy Rizzah over at Wanted: Cheap Manga has blessed us by posting the latest chapter of his scanlation collaboration with Anonymous K -- Dance! Kremlin Palace! by Shintaro Kago.



This chapter just may rank as my least favorite to date, but still... it's hard to complain. New Shintaro Kago in English is always a very, very good thing. This chapter takes a very specific premise as its jumping off point-- Namely, that all the stress of 1960s Cold War tension was a ploy to turn on and get off Khrushchev's masochistic, alopecia-loving mistress...

As Rizzah describes chapter six,

I’m happy to release the next chapter of our ongoing Russian soap opera, Dance Kremlin Palace. This chapter focuses on the harmful (or pleasant) side effects of stress brought on by the cold war. Poor Khrushchev… The things one man does for love.

Click to download Chapter 6 from Wanted: Cheap Manga!


ENJOY!