Nice art: Rokuro Taniuchi
Rokuro Taniushi is a Japanese illustrator of the '50s on who has been called "the kawaii Norman Rockwell of Japan" for painting some 1300 covers for the influential weekly magazine Shukan Shincho. Kawaii is the "cute" style of Japanese art, seen and deconstructed in everything from Hello Kitty to Murakami.
Continue ReadingBlacksad is back in BLACKSAD: A SILENT HELL
BLACKSAD by Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido is a famous comic in Europe, but the recent Dark Horse collection has created an American audience, as well: there are more than 20,000 copies of the book in print and a fourth printing is planned. Blacksad's success isn't horribly puzzling: a stylish noir storyline by Canales, and some of the most gorgeous anthropomorphic art ever by Guarnido make the tale universal. And the US setting doesn't hurt.
Continue ReadingMust reads: two views of Angoulême
The recently concluded Angoulême comics festival is the most respected comics event in the world, but also one a bit remote from the daily comics grind of the average American reader. Two con reports will bring you up to speed in a hurry. Before we link, one note: I wrote earlier that crowds were reported as smaller this year, but the overwhelming evidence is that the festival was packed, as usual, with official attendance given as 215,000.
Continue ReadingAngoulême wrap-up: Jean-Claude Denis wins Grand Prix; Jim Woodring wins Special Jury Prize
Last week's Angoulême festival extravaganza wrapped up with the presentation of the Grand Prix to Jean-Claude Denis, whose career goes back to the '70s but is perhaps best known in France for Luc Leroi. The Grand Prix is presented for a lifetime body of work—Denis is perhaps less well-known than some other winners, at least in the US. He was presented with the award by last year's winner, Art Spiegelman, as shown in the above video.
Continue ReadingTCAF unveils guests: Bechdel, Smith, Ba, Delisle, Moon and more
The 2012 Toronto Comic Arts Festival has just unveiled it's first guests and it's as eclectic lineup of stellar creators from around the world, including Alison Bechdel, Jeff Smith Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon, Guy Delisle, Kate Beaton, Bryan Lee O'Malley, Jason, and others from around the world. The festival also unveiled its to die for poster, by Bá and Moon. Held May 5-6 in Toronto, this free comics festival is shaping up to be one of the shows of the year. Although considered part of the"indie" circuit, TCAF's guest line-up, as in past years, spotlights creators from all levels of the medium. Webcomics, kids comics and cartoonists from 15 nations will be mingling in what many creators consider the best show of the year.
Continue ReadingPreview: CURSE OF THE WENDIGO by Mathieu Missoffe and Charlie Adlard
Although you'd think he was busy enough drawing THE WALKING DEAD every month, artist Charlie Adlard occasionally has time to toss off something like CURSE OF THE WENDIGO (reviewed here) a horror comic written by French screenwriter Mathieu Missoffe and released in France in 2009. The story is set in World War I and finds French and GErman soldier teaming up to fight a greater horror. An American edition is out today from Dynamite, and here's a preview:
Continue ReadingThe Freelance Life: Making it in webcomics in Romania
The Romanian webcomic Fredo and Pid'jin, has been a big success for its creators Eugen Erhan and Tudor Muscalu, this piece at Next Web tells us, if by success you mean lots of links on Reddit and Digg. What emerges is the story of two guy with a dream and a webcomic about two evil pigeons out to conquer the world. Things looked low, but then a guy who works on the Simpsons came and told them they were on the right track, energizing them to carry on. But...questions remain:
Continue ReadingMust Read: PEN profiles Zapiro
South African cartoonist Zapiro is famous for his sharply observant cartooning and also for standing up to constant and onerous political pressures because of his observations. Most famously he was sued by the Prime Minister of South Africa for defamation—but as this profile at PEN.org shows, he's always been at the center of controversy reserved for those who tell the truth.
Continue ReadingJosh Neufeld’s “Bahrain: Lines in Ink, Lines in the Sand”
New at Cartoon Movement today, Josh Neufeld's Bahrain: Lines in Ink, Lines in the Sand Josh Neufeld, a true story set during Bahrain's short lived Pearl Revolution about two two young Bahraini editorial cartoonists named Mohammed and Sara who see the events from opposite sides. This is an excellent, accessible piece that really helps make a smaller eddy of the complex, swirling events of the Arab Spring clear.
Continue ReadingBeat Holiday Giveaway: I KILLED ADOLF HITLER
When you think of Scandinavia you think of cliches like austere and laconic and fatalism -- all words which apply to the work of Norwegian cartoonist Jason. The cliches happen to be true but in the happiest, freshest way. As you can tell by reading his blog, Jason is a big fan of classic films and their pacing, and his work mashes up funny animals, ligne claire, noir thrillers, introspective indie movies where people talk in diners for hours and horror icons into his own marvelous style -- tightly plotted stories where tall rangy birds and dogs talk without smiling of life, love and death, the very essentials of human existence. Jason characters are unsmiling because they know how deadly serious are the machinations of human heart; love is a matter of life and death (sometimes undeath) in every Jason story.
Continue ReadingThe beginning of a new comic era…with track suits
An article in The Gauntlet, the University of Calgary's student magazine, boldly proclaimsThe beginning of a new comic era -- and Calgary's Maad Sheep Productions are just the guys to do it. What the article does not mention is that in order to flourish, comics creators must dress like a NASCAR pit crew.
Continue ReadingActual Asian person Ken Watanabe potentially offered role in AKIRA remake
The long on-again, off-again life action Akira movie is decidedly on again at Warners, with Jaume Collet-Serra to direct the Steve Kloves script. Given that AKIRA is a worldwide classic of anime and Japanese film in general that hugely influenced both animation and the cyberpunk movement, it seems ripe for reinvention in that Hollywood way. And of course, also in that Hollywood way, despite the story being set in and infused with Japanese culture, because American moviegoers are all white and cannot be persuaded to pay money to watch Asian people on the screen, the film is being moved from New Tokyo to "New Manhattan " (essentially New New York) and replacing all the Asian characters with white people if casting rumors are true.
Continue ReadingPersepolis showing creates uproar in Tunisia
Comics and related cartoons continue to cause problems in the Middle East. Tunisia, the country widely credited with setting off the "Arab Spring" in a relatively peaceful fashion earlier this year, is in an uproar after Marjane Satrapi's animated film was shown last month and immediately set off a huge controversy for a scene which shows God -- which, as you may have realized by now, is forbidden by some branches of Islam. Nessma, the station which ran the film, is being sued for showing it -- and the trial erupted in angry confrontations yesterday:
Continue ReadingTo Do (Saturday/at any Hampton hotel/your living room)
This weekend is Portfolio Day at The Center for Cartoon Studies. Prospective students cram into the Colodny for a day of tours, faculty talks and portfolio reviews. Their age range is all over the place, fourteen years of age to fifty. Some don't want to come to the school but know that they are on the right track with comics.
Continue ReadingIsabel Greenberg wins the 2011 Graphic Short Story Prize
Isabel Greenberg's "Love in a Very Cold Climate" -- the story of lovers repelled by polar magnetism -- has won the 2011 Graphic Short Story prize given out by the Observer/Comica/Vintage Books. London-Based Greenberg has contributed previously to Nobrow and Solipsistic Pop. The story is part of a larger work called The Encyclopaedia of Early Earth.
Continue ReadingOur Sponsors
CLASSIFIEDS
RECENT COMMENTS