Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 14, 2010 in Comic Books
There was a magic moment in my life when I first ventured into Japanese bookstores here in New York City. Mind you that this was many moons ago, but as an art school student I knew that shows like Star Blazers came from Japan. Not speaking Japanese the first books that caught my attention were the Roman Albums, which were (and still are) published by Tokuma Shoten. These books were miniature coffee table guides to a series, but they left me with a hunger to see the comic books that inspired these amazing animated shows. Nippon Books was a tiny store (which went out of business a quite a few years ago) so it was with a great delight that I discovered the Kinokuniya book store. Read more…
I’m a journalism major, not a design major, but I have to say that the logos for the upcoming film adaptations of Marvel comics’ Thor and Captain America are…less than thrilling. And I mean that in the literal sense. They’re pretty boring. Let’s have a look-see. Read more…
In Japan there’s an amazing charity exhibition of Blythe dolls which take their inspiration from well known manga characters. Included in the exhibit are Blythe dolls dressed up as Tezuka’s Black Jack (shown above), Cardcaptor Sakura, Cyborg 009, Felix the Cat and Minky Momo: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 4, 2010 in Comic Books
I can just see the meeting where the demography folks break out their PowerPoint and announce that “if we want to gain a female readership we gotta have vampires!” And to be fair women love vampires — so how can you go wrong? Well looking at the above cover of the Marvel one shot Death of Dracula you can drive a stake through its heart. Clearly what the art director didn’t get is that vampires are really all about romance, yet what you’ve got here looks like a bad parody of a 50s pulp magazine. But wait it gets worse, here are the character designs by the talented Marko Djurdjevic who seems to be channeling the worse elements of Elfquest and DEVO: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 4, 2010 in Comic Books
Advertorials are those sponsored sections in magazines which are usually trying to give you the soft sell — so I was somewhat surprised to see that not only has this approach been adopted to manga, but used to sell beer in Japan! From my crude translation this is a special publication sponsored by Suntory premium malts and is a “celebration of father’s day” which is June 20th. Read more…
Well, Tony Stark and anyone else who happens to have at least $400 to spend on designer shoes. That’s right, these incredible custom sneakers are currently being auctioned on ebay by Diversitile, a company that just so happens to specialize in, you guessed it, designer footware. The shoes apparently come with built-in arc reactor lights that mimic the designs of the Iron Man and War Machine armor featured in Iron Man 2. Don’t get me wrong, this shoes look absolutely stunning but considering the price, I think I probably buy a pair of Bapes, and have some cash left over and at least I know those would be comfortable. If you’re interested, check out the ebay listings here, or head over to their official blog for more information. Read more…
Posted by Gia Manry on May 22, 2010 in Comic Books
Recently comic creator Hope Larson, of the tween girl series Chiggers and the romantic Grey Horses, recently released the results of an informal study she conducted with 198 teenage girls and women, all comic readers. The results were interesting and, true to form, many pundits reporting on the finding missed the point entirely. Read more…
This beautifully crafted One Piece human/reindeer hybrid figurine is from a Japanese company called Plex. I’m particularly impressed with the high level of detail of the paint job shown in the photos, it shows a nice level of craftsmanship. The cast of the manga is being released one at a time and Tony Tony Chopper who is shown here is set to come out in June. Read more…
Like good little geeks, we’ve all been drooling over the Iron Man 2 trailers as they’ve been released. And we’ve seen USA’s “sneak peek” at least six thousand times between NCIS reruns (is it still a sneak peek if the movie’s out now?). And of course, we have now seen the ultimate trailer (for the Avengers movie), Iron Man 2.
Okay, this is just too amazing not to share. Otaku blogger Meimi132 recently took a trip to Cromer, England and stumbled across what appears to be a giant lobster dressed in Tony Stark’s patented Iron Man body armor. Who could have been insane enough to create this unholy medley of claw and steel? Good question, though, you have to give whoever did it credit for originality. According to Meimi132, there are 80 more lobsters spread around the sea-side town, but I doubt any of them are anywhere near as awesome. For more pictures, including a few of an Avatar-inspired counterpart, check out the full entry here. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 3, 2010 in Comic Books
Manga Mad is a documentary made a few years ago that is now available on Hulu (seen above). The video is only an hour long and a bit flashy, however it does have quite a few good mini-interviews. I was quite impressed to see clips of Leiji Matsumoto, Japanese comic book shop owners, a publisher from Kodansha and best of all Yoshihiro Yonezawa the founder of the Comiket Market who passed away not long after the documentary came out. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 1, 2010 in Comic Books
In July Image Comics will be publishing Hellcity (The Whole Damn Thing) which is a collection of the three volumes in the series. If you haven’t seen this book it’s well worth checking out: For starters what makes it stand out is the entire comic is drawn in beautiful black and white. This allows Joe Flood’s draftsmanship to really dominate the page in much the same way that you see with a good Japanese manga. What I like about his style is that it sort of has a 1940s look to it with a bit of hip hop and MTV’s Liquid Television thrown in for fun. Also like a good manga Joe really understands layout — so you feel like you’re watching an action film, each panel throws you to the next with a punch. His style is also very fluid and slightly cartoony, so you feel like you’re looking at animation in motion as opposed to overly posed characters: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 30, 2010 in Comic Books
Looking at this first issue of Officer Downe I’ve got to say that at first glance I was not blown away with the cover — however once I looked inside the book my sirens were going off. The illustrations by Chris Burnham remind me of a cross between classic EC comic books, Gary Panter’s work for RAW magazine in the 80s with just the right touch of French comic book art. The story by Joe Casey is sort of an American take on Judge Dredd, and it also reminded me a slight bit of the first Mad Max movie (which is a good thing). This comic is a one shot published by Image and is due out in July. Read more…
This prologue trailer from Sega for the Iron Man 2 videogame looks terrible. It sort of reminds me of everything I hate about bad Dreamworks computer animated films: the voice acting is terrible, the animation is stiff and the humans have this very creepy not quite human feeling to them. My gut tells me that Iron Man 2 will be a great deal of fun, but my guess is that the videogame might be a bit rusty.
So I found myself at my local Asian grocery store and looking in the corner of the ice cream section I spotted a pile of GeGeGe no Kitaro ices. I went ahead and tried the iced bar and after doing a bit of research it seems that it was actually “milk flavored” — although it wasn’t ice cream, but more like an Italian ice. It also turns out that in Japan there is a soda flavored version as well. Here is the entire package design: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 27, 2010 in Comic Books
As a creative professional one of my favorite forms of inspiration is to visit Japanese bookstores and look through the most recent manga and magazine covers. Unlike the United States there is still a strong market for illustration — and even better yet the variety of styles that you see is just amazing. So I’ve put together a gallery of covers that have caught my eye over the last few months to share these gems. Shown above is the cover for Gee Not which started life as a web comic. I love how the main character and her cats are surrounded by a colorful variety of colorful pachinko machines — another nice touch is how the typography is boxing her in as well. Below is the cover for Ctrl + T which is a book cover for a collection of manga by several artists: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 26, 2010 in Comic Books
I’ll never forgot those magic moments as a child when The Six Million Dollar Man featured an episode with Bigfoot. Up until that point you might get to see a blurry photo of the guy in an In Search Of… episode, but that show managed to weave Bigfoot into the plot without feeling silly. Eons later kids just don’t care about Bigfoot: Add a zombie, a werewolf or a vampire to any media property and you’ve got a hit — but sadly our Sasquatch friend tends to be overlooked. But now that’s changed with the publication of Proof #1 which comes this Wednesday. Now only does this book start Bigfoot, but instead of him being some inarticulate creature in this book he’s got a great deal of personality: Read more…
Posted by Tim Sheehy on Apr 23, 2010 in Comic Books
I absolutely loved this. In a recent episode of the YouTube video series Crazy Sexy Geeks, fashionconsultantTim Gunn joined comic book historian, Alan Kistler, as they took a look at some of the questionable fashion worn by our favorite superheroes and heroines over the years. While I know that Tim Gunn probably doesn’t frequent his local comic shop, the man has always struck me as having impeccable taste, so I was really interested to hear what he had to say. It may seem a bit short, but this is only part one of what looks to be a three part series so keep an eye out for those in the coming weeks. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 22, 2010 in Comic Books
These five beautifully illustrated covers are from DC Comics, and the one thing that they all have in common is that they’re aimed at mature audiences. In the past mature signified sex and violence, but I feel that with these covers that it also implies grown up art tastes. I bring this up because so many of the superhero covers I see from DC look like clichéd coloring book covers — it’s almost as if DC was looking down at their younger readers who I think are much more hip than they give them credit for. Shown above is the cover for The Unwritten Vol. 2: Inside Man by Yuko Shimizu and below is Unknown Soldier #22 illustrated by Dave Johnson: Read more…
The Blammoids! seem to be catching on quickly — the first set is due out this month and features Batman, the Joker and some other well known DC characters. Shown here is a preview of the fourth series which is due out in December and will feature Flash, Etrigan the Demon, Brainiac, Martian Manhunter, Hawkman and Reverse-Flash: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 20, 2010 in Comic Books
So I find myself looking through the dozens of previews that DC Comics has lined up — and I see cover after cover of the same old mediocre prancing over posed lackluster superheroes. But alas one jumped out at me, it’s the cover for Batman: The Widening Gyre which goes on sale in September. The first thing that hit me is that the draftsmanship of the drawing itself is just stunning. There’s a great deal of action going on, yet the drawing style is very loose but not cartoony. And then there’s the color and specifically the texture of the drawing which is so much more sophisticated than the typical coloring book job you see on almost every other DC Comics cover. So of course I go to check out the illustrator and the artist is the master himself: Bill Sienkiewicz.
Sideshow Collectibles has always been a hallmark of quality in terms of toys and collectibles, though I’ve never really been able to afford to collect them myself. Never the less, the quality of their products never cease to amaze me. For example, take a look at this fantastic replica of the Bat-Cowl from Batman Returns. I could only dream of having this displayed in a dark room of my make-shift manor. They took the original mold that used in the film and painstaking crafted the fine details in fiberglass, limiting it to a run of 500. At $499, it’s just a little too rich for my blood — after all, I’m no Bruce Wayne. If you’re interested however, check their website for updates. It’s supposed to be available sometime this quarter. Read more…
