Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 16, 2010 in Comic Books
The Marvelous Land of Oz #5 hits the street next week on Wednesday, April 21st — if you haven’t seen this series do yourself a favor and get your hands on it. I love the fact that Marvel is doing a series that doesn’t involve superheroes — and then add the fact that Skottie Young really has a unique visual style that you don’t get to see anywhere else in comics these days. I wouldn’t be too surprised that given the Disney takeover over Marvel that one day we might be lucky and get to see an animated version of this series. Read more…
The upcoming May issue of Pen magazine in Japan will be honoring legendary horror manga artist Shigeru Mizuki. Mizuki is the artist behind GeGeGe no Kitaro which features a great deal of Japanese folklore and a little boy who was born in a cemetery. Currently the issue isn’t out yet but when it’s available you can order it via amazon.co.jp. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 15, 2010 in Comic Books
It’s all too often that comic books are really about escapism, but every so often you see a book that tackles the issues of society. And one such manga is Hagane no Onna by Hukaya Kaoru which has touched a raw nerve in Japan — now up to its sixth volume (shown above) this manga focuses on a teacher who has to deal with out of control kids and their overly demanding parents. Apparently the book has been so successful that a live action television drama has been produced based on manga and will go on the air in late May in Japan. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 13, 2010 in Comic Books
I really really wanted to like Cold Space — for starters the story is by Samuel L. Jackson and his Afro Samurai collaborator Eric Calderon. Yet while Afro Samurai looked amazing the artwork in this book by Jeremy Rock is a little bit on the stiff side. The layout of each frame has little to no action which is made even more boring by a lack of interesting mecha. I’m not sure that I’d blame Jackson and Calderon for the lackluster visuals, however I would say that Boom! Studios could have done a better job given the subject matter. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 6, 2010 in Comic Books
If you love Naruto you’re going to want to run to your local Japanese bookstore and try and get your hands on Weekly Shonen Jump #18 which just came out. It’s a special edition of the comics magazine aimed at introducing new fans to Naruto. This is part of a larger promotional build up for the new film which will be released in Japan at the end of July. Read more…
Above: Events like this are proof that you don’t have to be a Superman to make the world better!
If you’re a comic book fanboy who is in New Jersey you may want to check out the Superheroes For Hospice event on Saturday, April 24 at the Livingston Mall. The event which will be packed with professional comic book artists and writers will be a benefit for the Saint Barnabas Hospice and Palliative Care Center. Visitors will have a chance to meet and greet, get autographs and purchase comic books and original artwork for a good cause. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 5, 2010 in Comic Books
Above: Gesture drawings by the illustrator Don Low.
I just took a look at a webcomic which almost had it all — slick photoshop coloring, a comic book font and an almost dead on faux anime style. Computers area great tool because with some talent you can make anything look pretty finished, but there’s always a stiff quality to aspiring comic book artists who haven’t taken a life drawing class. The reason is that in life drawing you start off with what are known as gesture drawings. The model warms up by changing poses quickly and the artists have to capture the essence of the model within seconds by drawing just a few lines. What’s brilliant about this technique is that it forces an artist to throw their style away and put all of their energy into representing a pose. Read more…
If you’re lucky enough to be in Japan on April 25th there will be an amazing handshake session with Go Nagai at the Go Nagai Wonderland Museum. The day starts off with a Talk Show which traces the career of Go Nagai and then is followed up with the pre-release of the Soul of Chogokin Mazinger Z GX-45C color comic version collectable shown above and below. The collectable robot will be released in a limited edition of 100 and will set you back 6,800 yen: Read more…
Magazine publishers in the United States could learn some real lessons from the Japanese: The May issue of Young Ace magazine features a nice illustration of Evangelion. Apparently the cover is honoring the recent release of a twelve volume manga collection. However the cool thing is that the issue is packed with other Evangelion goodies including a desk calendar. It’s those little extra things like that which make Japanese printed publications so much more lively than what you see here.
This latest Iron Man 2 trailer looks like a great deal of fun, I really like the campy feel to the entire clip. The film is going to be out in early May and my gut tells me that it’s going to do very well in terms of box office.
On one hand I’m very impressed that Marvel is going ahead and doing an IPad app — but the pricing of $2 per issue seems a bit high to me. My gut tells me that the way Marvel makes their money is by merchandising and films, so the more kids that can grow up with the Marvel universe characters the more money you’ll make over the long term. I get it that you can’t go from charging something to nothing (currently most books are $4 in print), but honestly most comic books are too short to make the two bucks worth while. Imagine if you will if the cost per eComic was $1 per issue like iTunes songs, or if you had an all you can eat subscription model for $20 a month. But in any case my bet is that we’ll see other comic book publishers follow Marvel shortly (that or new publishers will enter the field).
So many times fans only think of manga as being focused on either romance or supernatural martial arts, but that’s not always the case: For example the manga series Worst (ワースト) by Hiroshi Takahashi shows the world of Japanese biker gangs — a genre which is quite under appreciated abroad. This limited edition figurine does a amazing job of capturing all of nice little details of Japanese biker culture which is portrayed in the manga series. Worst is very popular in Japan, in fact you can a wide range of merchandise based on the manga from gang rings to sun glasses. Read more…
A museum in honor of Fujiko F. Fujio (pen name for Hiroshi Fujimoto) is set to open in Japan on September 3, 2011. Hiroshi Fujimoto was half of the duo known as Fujiko Fujio who created the Doraemon manga which is one of the most popular franchises in Japan — although sadly the robotic blue cat has never quite caught on in America. Fujimoto passed away in 1996, and as a tribute to his fans his widow helped bring the museum to life as a “way of giving back”. In addition to the many interactive exhibits the museum will include Fujimoto’s drawing table, his personal beret and his pipe. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Mar 26, 2010 in Comic Books
I have to admit that I’m enjoying the kids titles that DC and Marvel have been putting out over their grownup titles for two reasons: First the kids titles aren’t afraid to play with the typical superhero styles that we’ve all have seen too often — the illustrations are always fun and never take themselves too seriously. Secondly these books always contain a certain amount of fanservice to make us kids who never grew up want to buy them. The cover of Tiny Titans #29 which is illustrated by Art Baltazar is a good example of what I like to see in this genre.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Mar 22, 2010 in Comic Books
So many of the post-apocalyptic films from Mad Max to Escape from New York all owe a little something to Mighty Samson which was a comic book series published by Gold Key Comics back in 1964. The team of Otto Binder (writing) and Frank Thorne (illustration) created their vision of N’Yark which was one corner of planet Earth devastated by a nuclear war. The series lasted until 1982 and the faded into obscurity so I’m glad to see that starting in June Dark Horse will be releasing Mighty Samson Archives Volume 1. The first volume features the first seven comics from the series — here are some covers and interior pages from that era to give you a taste the mutants that roam the former streets of the big apple: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Mar 21, 2010 in Comic Books
A panel from this unreleased comic book series proclaims that CBGB “isn’t some stupid slogan on a t-shirt” however sadly the now owners of the brand have turned it into that. Once upon a time in the 70s CBGB was the club on the lower east side of New York City where punk rock really started (ha ha not England). Yet sadly a few years ago their rents went up, and by 2006 they closed their doors and then about a year later the owner Hilly Kristal died. Since then the brand has been turned into a cartoon and put onto anything, which now includes a comic book. This isn’t a shock as we live in a world of capitalism but punk rock should stand for the sprit of do it yourself, and this soon to be schlocked out comic misses the point entirely: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Mar 17, 2010 in Comic Books
Unless you’re willing to travel to Japan the odds are highly against you coming across vintage manga from the 60s — so coming across a collection is always a cause for celebration: Eico Hanamura dominated shōjo manga in the 60s, and on March 16th a new book titled Happigaruzukorekushon of Hanamura Eiko will show off some of her best work from that primordial era of girls comic books in Japan. This book includes reprints of Some Girl in the Fog, her 1965 series Madeleine Shouwanoto as well as various fashion illustrations. Here’s a gallery to give you a sense of Eico’s style — you can really so how much she inspired how shōjo manga looks today: Read more…
American comic artists tend to love deviantART for showing off their work, however in Japan one of the more favored websites is Pixiv (which is well worth checking out). However the Japanese interface can be a bit much to navigate if you’re not native speaker, so two Pixiv fans mefloraine (who prefers to stay anonymous) and Eugen Rochko have put together a beautifully curated website called PaperDream.net which features an amazing illustration per day from Pixiv.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Mar 16, 2010 in Comic Books
Thanks to the goodness of Goon there is no wrong that Eric Powell can do in my mind — which is why I’m looking ahead to Buzzard which is a comic book miniseries that goes on sale on June 9th. Shown above is a cover by Powell and below is an alternative cover by Richard Corben: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Mar 14, 2010 in Comic Books
I came across Groo: Hogs of Horder #4 and it then hit me: I’m guilty of having spent my entire life looking at the amazing artwork of Sergio Aragonés and I’ve selfishly have always assumed that I’d be seeing more. It’s high time for us fans to stop taking Sergio for granted (he’s 72 years old!) and starting to treat him like the comic book god that he is. I grew up with Aragonés in the pages of mad magazine, but sadly those issues were so packed with high quality work that Sergio got lost in the crowd. However as of 2002 he’s drawn more than 12,000 gag cartoons for Mad and that deserves some real respect. And then we have his creation Groo the Wanderer which has been running since the 80s — to me this running series ranks up there with Asterix and Tin Tin, and what’s wonderful about is that it has both an American and Spanish point of view. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Mar 12, 2010 in Comic Books
I first discovered the joy of Japanese anime and manga themed art books while I was in art school — and I have to admit that even though these books are always expensive I have yet to regret ever buying one. The reason is that as an artist I always find myself learning from these books and looking at them years later. IllustStudio Perfect Master is a good example of this genre — it’s a collection of a wide range of illustrators who are each given a page in this volume. From what I can gather each artist in the book is using the software package IllustStudio — and the nice thing about this book is that it also includes a bonus CD-ROM which includes a movie of each artist using the software in action. So it’s almost as good as being an apprentice for a Japanese manga illustrator. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Mar 12, 2010 in Comic Books
To be upfront I’ve always have been more of an indie comic book fanboy having grown up on manga and publications like RAW magazine in the 80s — so on the face of it yet another X-Men spinoff comic book doesn’t get me excited. However for X-23 I’ll have to make an exception to that rule. Firstly what I like about this book is that it isn’t trapped too tightly in the typical Marvel style, and then the draftsmanship of the drawing and the cinematic panel layouts are well done. Alina Urusov illustrated this book and her artwork does a great job of telling a story, and I also liked the fact that Marc Hempel who did the colors didn’t overpower the drawings. The only thing that upsets me is that this issue is a one shot: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Mar 10, 2010 in Comic Books
I’ve been following Kill Audio for a few issues now and I’ve got to say that I’ve been really won over by the look of this book which is illustrated by Sheldon Villa and Chuck B. Except for some manga back in the day I haven’t seen many comic books that are colored with a two color combo — in this case blood red and black. It makes the comic stand out the minute you see it from the piles of bad full color but poorly photoshoped work you see every where these days. Add to that the fact the artwork has a unique style to it, and the result is that with Kill Audio you get to see something unique, which makes this reviewer happy. Here’s a preview of issue six which will be out today: Read more…
If you’re a fan of horror manga you’re going to like this: Shown above is a GeGeGe no Kitaro collectable which is from a larger line of monster balls. The first set of these goodies will go on sale in Japan on May 6th and there are plans to create 120 for the full series. Below are the first eight which will be released: Kitaro, Nezumi Otoko, Neko Musume, Nurikabe, Medama-oyaji, Ittan Momen, Konaki Jijii, and Sunakake Babaa: Read more…
