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THE BLOG AT THE CROSSROADS
Manga Mania!
Posted: February 21, 2011
If you’re in Glasgow this Thursday 24 February, be sure to come along to a panel discussion I’ll be hosting on Global Manga - The Worldwide Impact of Japanese Comics. I’ll exploring the secrets of manga’s success with Japanese illustrator Chie Kutsuwada and Scottish writer Sean Michael Wilson (joining us via Skype from Japan) whose latest manga, The Story of Lee (NBM) and Hagakure: Code of the Samurai Japanese (Kodansha), have just been published in New York and Tokyo. More…
And the following weekend there are two more Manga Events happening in London, both on Saturday March 5th. All day long, Akemi Solloway is presenting the Japanese Bunka-Sai or Cultural Festival at the Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, Holborn with the chance to learn Japanese from anime songs, see martial arts demos and kimono fashion shows, and enjoy cosplay, origami, calligraphy, tea ceremony and much more. More…
Also on Saturday March 5th, starting at 5pm, Helen McCarthy has kindly stepped in to replace me as the speaker on Music in Manga, an illustrated lecture on the portrayals of music in Japanese comics, as part of Hibiki: Resonances from Japan, MU Arts’ three-day celebration of Japanese music, traditional and contemporary, at King’s Place near King’s Cross, London. More…
I wish I could be at both of these great occasions, I highly recommend you go if you can!
This Week’s Article: William Goldsmith
Posted: February 20, 2011
Whole worlds and even entire universes can spring from the pens and minds of comic artists - after all, the imagination needs no special effects budget. Sometimes, though, a city is more than enough. This is true of William Goldsmith, an upcoming British graphic storyteller born in Athens, who is imagining his own ‘bleak but whimsical’ metropolis named Ystov. Located in an unspecified East European state, Ystov is ‘translated only very roughly’ as Y-Town, its name derived from being founded at the fork of a river. Its buildings and streets provide the linked settings for Goldsmith’s two-page tales about the city’s eccentric citizens, or Ystovians, collected as Vignettes of Ystov. Read the full article here…
The Two Pauls: Paul Cornell & Paul Rainey
Posted: February 18, 2011
You don’t have to be called Paul to come to this panel discussion between two talented British comics creatives, but it helps! Paul Cornell has been making quite a splash writing at DC Comics, amongst others helming no less than Superman as the Man of Steel returns for the umpteenth time in Action Comics No. 900 and having cheeky fun with Knight and Squire, a decidedly English spin-off of Batman and Robin. Meanwhile, Paul Rainey has completed his ambitious 13-part self-published graphic novel There’s No Time Like The Present, as featured in the That’s Novel exhibition at London Print Studio during last autumn’s Comica Festival. Their event is free and kicks off at 7pm this Saturday night February 19th at Orbital Comics, London, where both Pauls will be signing earlier in the day from 4pm. Hope to see you there, whatever your first name!
Who are the Winners of the 4th Manga Jiman Competition?
Posted: February 16, 2011
Who has won the top prize of a pair of All Nippon Airways plane tickets to Japan, or the fab runners-up prizes of a Toshiba laptop or a Ricoh digital camera? We’ll find out this Friday night, when the Embassy of Japan iin Piccadilly, London hosts a ceremony (sorry, invitation only) to announce the winners of their 4th Manga Jiman Contest.
Once again, I’ll be joining my fellow judges, including London-based mangaka (comic artists) Kiriko Kubo and Ilya, to celebrate with the winners and unveil the Embassy’s free exhibition of the stories by all of this year’s excellent finalists. The show is open to the general public from February 19th to March 31st, admission free. Go take a look - this contest gets better each year and offers more proof of the positive, stimulating effect of Japanese comics on creators of all ages across the UK.
The shortlisted entries on display at the Embassy are:
Angela Wraight/Gwen Kortsen: Yoshitoki’s Making Waves
Aya Kawamura: Rain
Carlos Felix: Sea
Clio Millett: Beyond Raging Waves
Jade Sarson: PP - Wave Space Time
John Blake/Mike Reid: A Mean Artopologist
Katja Hammond: To Sail A Moon
Karen Rubins/Andrew Smith: It Came From the Sea
Kharis Brown: The Wave of Fate
Lingxi Huang: Paintings of Life
Lorenzo Fruzza: Wave FM
Rachel Dunn: I Wish
Tania Thomas: Reach
Comics for Valentine’s Day
Posted: February 14, 2011
To get you into the mood for romance, what are your favourite comics, manga or graphic novels about love? Over on Facebook, Peter Stanbury has asked people for their suggestions and is compiling a fascinating survey entitled Tell Me Something About Love. One of the chosen titles, quite rightly, is SelfMadeHero’s graphic biography Kiki de Montparnasse and you can meet writer and artist Bocquet & Catel at a special themed Valentine’s Day Dinner and book launch at Hardy’s Restaurant from 7pm Monday night.
And this February 14th is also the 25th Birthday of the classiest comics store in London, opposite The British Museum, Gosh! I still fondly remember their opening night celebrations back in 1986, the start of a new era in London comics. All this week Josh and his team are running a special sale and discounts to mark their first quarter century. Drop by and wish them many, many happy - and romantic - returns!
This Week’s Article: International ‘Best Of 2010’ Part 3
Posted: February 13, 2011
In parts 1 and 2 of our tour of world to find the very best comics of 2010, we travelled to Australia, Austria, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Russia, Serbia, Spain, South Korea and Sweden. In the concluding installment, we visit Argentina, Belgium, Finland and Portugal. My sincere thanks to all my friend across the world who took part in this survey. Read the full article here…
Glasgow Film Festival
Posted: February 12, 2011
I’ll be attending the Glasgow Film Festival near the end of February and taking part in two comics related events:
Panel: Global Manga - The Worldwide Impact of Japanese Comics
I’ll be hosting a panel exploring the secrets of manga’s success with Japanese illustrator Chie Kutsuwada and Scottish writer Sean Michael Wilson (joining us via Skype from Japan) whose latest manga, The Story of Lee (NBM) and Hagakure: Code of the Samurai Japanese (Kodansha), have just been published in New York and Tokyo. More…
Where: CCA4, Glasgow Film Festival
When: Thursday, 24 February - from 1pm
Comic Camp 11
In the afternoon session of this all day event aimed at freelancers and creatives, I’ll be hosting a round table discussion featuring big hitters from comics, gaming and film speaking about crossovers between the three mediums and tackling the questions: What works and what doesn’t? Is this a golden age for film adaptations of comics and games? Can increased collaboration create new opportunities and ideas? More…
Where: CCA, Glasgow Film Festival
When: Friday, 25 February - between 2pm and 3.30pm
Free Talk: 21st Century Comics
Posted: February 9, 2011
What do you read after Akira, Maus, Watchmen or Persepolis? I’ll be trying to answer that question at a free talk tomorrow night and explaining how comics worldwide are broadening their content, techniques and ambition and developing into 21st century graphic literature, both on the printed page and in digital media. I hope to see you there! More details…
Tickets: Free!
Where: Islington Central Library, Fieldway Crescent, London N5
When: Thursday, 10 February - from 6pm to 8pm
The Dreaded ‘C-Word’ Looms Again!
Posted: February 6, 2011
My second complaint to Time Out has surfaced again in their Inbox letters page last week, I’m glad to say, naming and shaming in print their reviewer’s lazy slurring of comics. But no sooner have I taken this journo to task, than novelist Tim Lott betrays his prejudices and ignorance on new BBC2 series Faulks on Fiction, shown last night on BBC2 and re-watchable now on BBC iPlayer. At 52.52 minutes in, Lott spouts on as a supposed expert about the shallow, self-indulgent “hero” of Martin Amis’s novel Money, John Self:
“But he’s a cypher, in that sense. That’s why he IS comic book - and that’s why his journey is so entertaining, in a comic-book sort of way.”
Pray tell me, what does the razor-sharp insight “in a comic-book sort of way” actually mean? In the case of self, it seems to me that, once again, the ‘C-Word’, this time ‘comic book’ (a nod perhaps to the American setting of the book) is being used here as slovenly shorthand to describe a character who is undeveloped, unnuanced, one-dimensional, merely “a cypher”, and the comics medium is reduced to standing for nothing better than the slightest of pulpy entertainment. I’m not going to let this sort of left-handed compliment, really more of a glib dismissal, of comics in all their variety and wonder go unnoticed. Every time this slur gets trotted out, it relies on the public knowing what is meant, relying on a preconceived notion of comics and reinforces the general misconception of them, whether comic book or graphic novel.
Elsewhere in this first episode, by the way, Sebastian Faulks equates Batman’s Gotham City to Sherlock Holmes’ London, hailing Doyle’s creation as ‘the first superhero’. Appealing to populism, but far from accurate. Hercules anyone, for starters?
This Week’s Article: More International ‘Best Of 2010’
Posted: February 6, 2011
More of my friends have sent through their favourite comics of last year, and in part 2 of this ‘International Best Of 2010’ feature we travel to Australia, Croatia, Norway, Japan, Serbia and South Korea. My thanks to all the contributors who took part. Read the full article here…
