The Comics Bureau

If you like Miyazaki, check out his book ‘Start­ing Point: 1979–1996′. Dash Shaw over at Com­ics Com­ics has a short review.

I had already decided to spend my future draw­ing pic­tures, so I was try­ing to draw ones filled with grudges and spite. Yet, as I didn’t have a con­crete blue­print for my future I was filled with anxiety.

As we grow from child­hood into youth, this anxi­ety grows expo­nen­tially, and we worry about how on earth we should live our lives. Our anxi­ety forces us to look for an anti­dote that will rid us of this feel­ing as quickly as pos­sible. We want to find that some­thing will help us grab our own chair in this world and sit in it.

I chose manga as a weapon to fight against anxi­ety, and, as I men­tioned, at first I drew gekiga, story-oriented manga. Just about that time I saw Hak­u­jaden (The Tale of the White Ser­pent.) For me, it was a kind of cul­ture shock. I began to have doubts about gekiga…

If the word ‘Scan­la­tion’ is a new one to you, head over to Inside Scan­la­tion to find out what it is all about.

Scan­la­tion has always found itself in a moral gray area. While pub­lish­ers and other pro­fes­sion­als tend to see scan­la­tion as copy­right infringe­ment and a threat to sales, fans and scan­lat­ors defend their actions by point­ing out that scan­la­tion helps raise aware­ness of lesser known Japan­ese titles that might oth­er­wise go unnoticed. In some cases, scan­la­tion helps build hype for a pop­u­lar series before its release. Scan­lat­ors often scan­late unli­censed manga, some­thing many fans con­sider com­pletely accept­able. There are even rumors of pub­lish­ers decid­ing which manga to license next based on the pop­ular­ity of scan­lated manga.

The pur­pose of this fea­ture is to provide a (hope­fully) com­pre­hens­ive his­tory of the world of scan­la­tion, not to argue as to the leg­al­ity of scan­la­tion. What you will find here are facts and stor­ies told by people who have been involved in the scan­la­tion scene, some act­ive and some retired. Of course, all art­icles deal­ing with scan­la­tion inev­it­ably find them­selves con­tain­ing sens­it­ive (to some degree) inform­a­tion and links. The pur­pose of this art­icle is to provide a his­tory and over­view of the scan­la­tion world, noth­ing more.

I don’t know about any­one else, but the typo­graphy in scan­la­tions nearly always makes me angry.

Paul Gravett writes a very inter­est­ing art­icle on Manga, and Manga­pho­bia sparked by a cor­res­pond­ence with a stu­dent writ­ing her dis­ser­ta­tion on the Brit­ish com­ics mar­ket­place from a female per­spect­ive. This is a topic par­tic­u­larly close to my heart, as it seems to be a recur­ring argu­ment that I reg­u­larly have. You see, in my day job, I teach a degree course in graphic nov­els at Glyndwr Uni­ver­sity and reg­u­larly come into con­tact with a large num­ber of poten­tial stu­dents who come for an inter­view whose only expos­ure to com­ics has been through what is impor­ted by Tokyo Pop.

The prob­lems with manga here in the West though are that many people start out want­ing to copy — which is actu­ally quite nat­ural, a great way to learn, and the way a lot of com­ics cre­at­ors usu­ally start. But the snag is that they can become fix­ated on one series or one artist above all oth­ers, per­haps one they’ve dis­covered via its anime ver­sions — and so they don’t con­tinue to look fur­ther afield and find out where their favour­ite artist’s influ­ences came from, like Art Nou­veau, or Japan­ese ukiyo-e prints, or explore other manga, or other types of com­ics, and learn from them as well.

I have met some art school tutors who dis­like, even des­pise manga, and some who feel threatened by manga. I can totally under­stand this, because they mostly don’t know enough about the big­ger world of com­ics and the lan­guage and tech­niques, his­tory and cut­ting edge of this amaz­ing medium. A teacher wants to teach, but if they are in the dark, exposed as not know­ing enough, or not know­ing more than their stu­dents, and unsure or lack­ing expert­ise, then they feel vul­ner­able, con­fron­ted, and there­fore res­ist­ant, if not hos­tile. On top of this, they prob­ably find that many of their manga-fanatic stu­dents are closed off from dis­cov­er­ing more, about manga, about the whole of com­ics, and about all sorts of other art and imagery which could enrich their own ideas and cre­ativ­ity and help make them more indi­vidual and self-expressive. So it becomes a stalemate.

The stu­dent who wrote to Paul stated that;

I get a hor­rible feel­ing in my stom­ach when I think about manga. I love cre­at­ing com­ics, or ‘sequen­tial art’, as my tutors prefer to refer to it. If someone wants to become a comic book artist, surely they should start by teach­ing them­selves how to draw from real life rather than fol­low­ing step-by-step pages in a book. I worry that per­haps manga will suf­foc­ate ori­gin­al­ity in com­ics the same way that Mar­vel and DC have for so long.

I see the effects of many of the ‘Draw (comics/characters/cartoons) The (Marvel/DC/Manga) Way’ books in the stu­dents that I inter­view, and while this can be a real turnoff for some, it is an excel­lent way of demon­strat­ing ded­ic­a­tion to an art­form. Manga as well as main­stream super­hero imit­a­tion can be a way for aspir­ing artists to feel that they have taken own­er­ship of an art­form, an import­ant stage in a young artist’s devel­op­ment in my opinion.

My own entry into the world of com­ics was tra­cing The Beano and Dandy and imit­at­ing Asterix and TinTin (very poorly). What I think is import­ant to remem­ber is that while manga is often seen as a way of draw­ing over­sized eyes or girls with cat ears, it can be an import­ant point to cross in a tra­ject­ory that leads to greater things.

What a young artist needs in their con­tin­ued devel­op­ment is someone who can point them in the dir­ec­tion of influ­ence. Mal­colm Glad­well describes this per­son as a maven, and this is what we have in Paul Gravett — a com­ics maven. Go and devour his entire site and buy all of his books imme­di­ately and tell every­one you know. This is one of the ways in which we stop manga being per­ceived as a way of draw­ing eyes.

If you haven’t already, head over to Paul’s art­icle and famil­i­ar­ise your­self with the examples of excel­lent manga that he recom­mends. If of course, you dis­agree, leave a com­ment or send an email. Dia­logue is good.

If you are any­where near Leeds on the 6th of April between 5 –7 pm, head over to Trav­el­ling Man to see Emma Vieceli run­ning manga work­shops;

In part­ner­ship with Thought Bubble and Trav­el­ling Man, Leeds’ premier comic book shop, we bring you an amaz­ing oppor­tun­ity to learn how to draw manga char­ac­ters and cre­ate your very own comic book lay­out. Pro­fes­sional manga artist and writer Emma Vieceli will be on hand to take you through the steps of how to cre­ate char­ac­ters and fig­ures and illus­trate the tech­niques used in manga style pages in this fun and informal workshop.

With the Lottery-funded Thought Bubble Fest­ival in Leeds fast approach­ing, here is a ‘super-link’ post, start­ing off with a series of mini inter­views (min­ter­views) pos­ted up on the Thought Bubble blog;

Hugh ‘Shug’ Raine,
Marc Ellerby,
Steve Tillot­son,
Jack Fal­lows,
Lizz Lun­ney,
Adam Cad­well,
Emma Vieceli,
Charlie Adlard,
Frank Quietly,
and Ben Temple­smith so far…

Exhib­it­ors this year include (alphabetically);

2 Tone Com­ics,
Aaron Murphy,
Accent UK,
Adam Cad­well,
Al Maceach­ern,
Andi Wat­son,
Apo­ca­lypse Com­ics,
Ariel Press,
Asth­matic Com­ics,
Banal Pig,
Bang! Bang! Com­ics,
Bey­ond Mono­poly,
Black Lib­rary,
Cazbounces Books,
Chamon­kee,
Charay­dis Com­ics,
Chris Doherty,
Chris Garside,
Cine­book,
Claude Trollope,
Com­ics Cre­at­ors Guild,
Cos­mic Apple,
Cute But Sad,
David O’Connell,
David Gold­ing,
Dealer Com­ics,
Dean Orm­ston,
Des­tin­a­tion Venus,
Adam Lowe,
Don’t Panic,
Doc­tor Simpo,
Dr Sketchy,
Drastic Com­ics,
Dumpy Little Robot,
E-Merl,
Fet­ish Man,
Fiona Steph­en­son,
Fly­ing Mon­key Com­ics,
For­bid­den Planet,
Francesca Cas­savetti,
Frozen Real­ity Stu­dio,
Future Quake,
Games Work­shop,
Genki Gear,
Glyndwr Uni­ver­sity Com­ics, (dis­claimer — I teach on this course)
Gothy Beans,
Grimm Com­ics,
Gun­nerkrigg Court,
Har­oldinium Com­ics,
Hello Aunt Alicia,
Hex­gib­ber,
Her­man Peaks,
Hope For The Future,
Hyde Park Pic­ture House,
Infin­ity & Bey­ond,
Ink Soup,
Insom­nia Pub­lic­a­tions,
Jemma Web­ster,
Joe Decie,
Joe List,
Kristyna Baczyn­ski,
Large Cow,
Leeds Anime Soci­ety,
Leeds Com­ics Soci­ety,
Leeds Sci-fi & Fantasy Soci­ety,
Leonie O’Moore,
Little Ter­rors,
Liz Green­field,
Liz Lun­ney,
Lucky Tar­get Com­ics,
Magic Beans Com­ics,
Magda Borey­sza,
Marc Ellerby,
Mat­thew Craig,
Mod­ern Mon­stros­ity,
Mor­o­n­oid,
Murky Depths,
Naniiebim,
North­ern Delight,
OK Com­ics,
Omni­v­ista­scope,
Paper Jam Com­ics,
Paul Fryer,
Paul Rainey,
Pop­corn Pea­cock,
Quick­sil­ver Com­ics,
Ragada­bah,
Richard Smith,
Reet! Com­ics,
Rob Jack­son,
Sam John­son,
Self-Made Hero,
Scarygoround,
Sgt. Mike Battle,
Shef­field Space Centre,
Soar­ing Pen­guin,
Sour Meat & Moose,
Space­Babe 113,
SmallZone,
Span­dex,
Split Infin­ity,
Sum­mer Rain,
Tempo Lush,
The Juz­zard,
The Fallen Angel Media,
Time Bomb Com­ics,
Tokyo 15,
Tom Cock­er­ham,
Touche Tees,
Trav­el­ling Man,
Turn­ing Cog Cre­ations,
Twi­light Zone,
UK SF Out­reach,
Veli­cia,
Viz Media,
We Are Words & Pic­tures,
Wild­ways Com­ics,
Wynn Ryder,
and finally, Zip­Gun Com­ics.

Apo­lo­gies in advance for broken links and incor­rect pages!

Craig Fisc­her over at Thought Bal­loon­ists writes up an inter­est­ing art­icle on Osamu Tezuka’s film influ­ences fol­low­ing what sounds like an enjoy­able read of Natsu Onoda Power’s God of Com­ics: Osamu Tezuka and the Cre­ation of Post-World War II Manga (2009)

Most inter­est­ing to me, though, was Power’s claim that “images inspired by deep-focus cine­ma­to­graphy are par­tic­u­larly char­ac­ter­istic” of Tezuka’s car­toon­ing in Met­ro­polis (God 56). I’m more than a little obsessed with deep focus, and in this post I want to explore and expand on Power’s claim. I’ll begin by defin­ing deep focus and sum­mar­iz­ing Andre Bazin’s per­cep­tual and philo­soph­ical argu­ments for its import­ance; then I’ll look closely at Power’s examples of deep focus in Met­ro­polis. Finally, I’ll ques­tion if it’s accur­ate to talk about a comic (by Tezuka or any other car­toon­ist) hav­ing depth of field in the same way that a film does.

Shaenon Gar­rity over at Graphic Novel Review writes an intro­duc­tion to Yaoi, the Japan­ese manga that fea­tures romance and/or sex between male char­ac­ters, and is appar­ently one of the most pop­u­lar manga genres in Amer­ica, espe­cially with teen­age girls. Shaenon does a great job of provid­ing con­text for this genre in one two three parts so far.

In the 1980s, shonen-ai col­lided with the grow­ing pop­ular­ity of doujin­shi, com­ics self-published by manga and anime fans, and yaoi was born. The doujin­shi scene was dom­in­ated by female artists, and same-sex romances soon became the biggest and most pop­u­lar genre.

Marc Sobel, writ­ing at Com­ic­BookGalaxy writes up ten thoughts about Dis­ap­pear­ance Diary by Hideo Azuma.

At the highest level, the book is a “some­what fic­tion­al­ized” mem­oir about Azuma’s battles with men­tal ill­ness, alco­hol­ism, depres­sion and the rig­ors of the com­ics pro­fes­sion. The book is divided into three sec­tions, each with 4–6 page chapters which feel like they were ori­gin­ally seri­al­ized. The first sec­tion, “Walk­ing at Night,” opens with a botched sui­cide attempt, before quickly re-focusing on Azuma’s first “dis­ap­pear­ance,” in which he becomes home­less, sleeps in the woods, scrounges for food in the garbage bins behind res­taur­ants, and gen­er­ally spends his days sleep­ing, drink­ing and wan­der­ing the city.

Keiji Nakazawa, author of Bare­foot Gen has announced that there is to be no sequel to the book due to his deteri­or­at­ing eye­sight. Read the full story over at Anime News Net­work.

Japan­ese pub­lisher East Press has recently cour­ted con­tro­versy by pub­lish­ing a manga ver­sion of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

Rich John­ston over at Bleed­ing Cool writes up a short review and his take on the book.