Late night incoherent ramblings on Manga.

I’d like to start by saying this post is based on a very limited knowledge of manga and anime, and I’m just basing this on my own observations. I’ve been reading Miyazaki’s book - ‘Starting Point’ recently which is a collection of his articles and talks on anime and animation throughout his career. I think it displays intelligent and interesting views on anime that I also think transfer very easily into just about any medium. For the sake of this blog post - I’m talking about manga. He says that the industry today (anime shows, specifically) is like one big steam and that there is so much work out there, if you’re really not making something for a good reason and with the intention of making a progressive piece then it’s just going to become another drop in the steam and it’s going to become immediately lost in the flow. I think this is true of manga and I think this is part of the problem with how manga is viewed. So much of it is catered towards pleasing a fan base that often I don’t think it IS very progressive, or if it is suffocated by the need to show big breasted women with their clothes half off. And I don’t think there is anything wrong with that, generally - but I also think that there is a time and a place where it can invalidate some other greater point you are trying to make. As such, lots of people just see anime and manga as an attempt to show cute girls getting into situations where their already skimpy top (or bikini) comes off, some guy oogles and then gets a nose bleed and called a perv. (I’m thinking of Gurren Lagann when I say this, because I just watched it.) I think the genre struggles in that, just as people like to sum up Game of Thrones as ‘blood, sex and incest’ it is easy to sum Manga up in a similar way (without the incest)... Really though, I’m sure there are some fantastic manga’s out there - I’m just talking about how it is often perceived by a western audience, especially those not actually reading it. So these pieces become part of the larger stream, and are lost - only remembered as that piece with the lady with big boobs who did something, somewhere that was pretty cool.

(Kind of irrelevant but here is my short and brief history with manga... ) I used to read some manga and watched a certain amount of anime. I definitely enjoyed it and I even remember I started drawing anime at some point in my early days but I don’t think it was ever REALLY me, I grew up around the classical masters and none of my friends were really very into it. Saying that, I do know I enjoyed it - and watched a reasonable amount of anime. However, maybe I’m just comparing myself to some of my friends who watch it now and I can’t even pretend to say I know the first thing in comparison. I’d like to read some more if I ever find the time.

Web Comics I Sometimes Read.

oglaf - http://oglaf.com/ (NSFW)
I’ve been following this comic for a while and is one I actually like coming back to. It often contains some really intelligent jokes despite the fact those jokes so often revolve around sex. Not to say that is surprising, I’m only saying that it seems like a cheap and easy trick to put lots of sex in a comic and let that mask bad quality gags and strips. But honestly so many of the comics are so wonderfully weird and clever (even the ones without any sex in…) that it’s just a fun, enjoyable comic.

Penny Arcade - http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic
Penny Arcade is another one I’ve been following for a long time. I’m not particularly clued in with everything these days and don’t get any time to play games so a lot of the jokes go over my head. None the less, the ones I do get I always really enjoy. I definitely found myself drawn to it more when I was more invested in popular culture but none the less, fun. The drawing style is iconic and I see it popping up here and there and can always recognize it.

Necropolis - http://necropoliscomic.tumblr.com/post/118905492171/prologue
This is a new webcomic that is currently being written that I’ve been following for a month or two. It’s never far in but I think it promises to be a really interesting and exciting comic about a young girl who sells herself for powers. I can’t wait to see where this one goes. I love the art style and the different styles between the chapter prologue and the main strip. I’d recommend this one, David!

Cyanide and Happiness - http://explosm.net/
I haven’t read this one in a long time but used to love these. Often dark humor they are so consistently short funny gags that I really enjoy dropping in and reading a few every now and then, The simplistic style works for it and is iconic for this particular comic.

Poorly Drawn Lines - http://pdlcomics.tumblr.com/ (For some reason the actual site is blocked at school…)
This is another one I love reading, and I have so many of the panels saved to my desktop. Another comic that embraces its simple style with wonderful and charming efficiency. I really don’t have much to say about this one, it’s great. The jokes often make me laugh out loud (which is rare…) and even the simplest gestures and expressions in this comic are used so well. Infact, I think it is the simple expressions that I often find so funny. I’ve attached one of the ones on my desktop.

Daytripper

Comic: Daytripper
Writer: Fábio Moon & Gabriel Bá
Artist: Fábio Moon & Gabriel Bá

Daytripper is a comic written and illustrated by two brothers about a man, Brás and the different pivotal moments in his life. It jumps from these different moment and at the end of each chapter he dies. It follows his friendships, his relationships, his childhood and eventually parenthood. It does a fantastic job at showing the truly important moments, and manages to do so in a non consecutive manner which actually aids the story. I don’t think us seeing him as a kid in the first sequence would have worked anywhere near as well. I am sitting here thinking about the individual chapters and it does sadden me, especially those with his family - like when his son is born, or when he is away because of the success of his book. Those really struck me hard and are some of the saddest chapters.

However, saying all that - I found that despite all the death and sadness, the comic was ultimately a celebration of life. Life and death often go hand in hand but with such a strong focus on death for so much of it, the ending was ultimately all the more rewarding. To see the version in which Brás made it through everything all the ups and downs and lived a full life was incredibly rewarding. I thought visually it is very appealing, their style appropriate to the themes and feel of the comic. It lacked the hyper realism of the superheroes but still was realistic enough that it never felt like too much of an ‘internal’ piece.

Daytripper really is of my favourite comics and I struggle to find anything that I don’t like about it. Maybe I need to spend more time examining it, but there is something about the theme that I just love. I love the feeling I get from reading it, like I need to go out and live life, that life is precious and life is fragile but whatever choices you make you just have to live your life and make the choices and mistakes you’re going to make because you never know unless you live them. I don’t know if this is the optimist in me, because it truly is a sad comic in its individual pieces. I just loved the feeling I got upon completing it for the first time.

Transmetropolitan - Totally forgot to post this one!

Are there any prominent symbols in the story?
If so what are they and how are they used?

Both parts of his name seem like they are representative and are used symbolically. Spiders are creatures that have very obvious symbolism. The idea of a ‘spider’s web’ is particularly pertinent to a journalist. Who has to connect the dots to from some larger picture to write about while crawling through the underside of the city. He is only a small player in a much larger game, but much like spiders, their reputation is far more powerful than their actual physical size. He represents something that is greater than himself, his words inflicting more damage than any physical threat he could really impose. Jerusalem is an interesting choice for a name too, the City a religious center and in biblical terms, a perfect city of God. It is of great contrast to Spider’s character and almost funny consider how dramatically the city has fallen but seems appropriate consider his ultimate intentions. He seems to be, as far as I can tell from this first book, a sort of Messiah figure.

What connections did you make the story?
Discuss the elements of the work with which you were able to connect.

I think I connected most with the bustle of the city. Not in a way that was necessarily similar in its extremes but in the constant claustrophobic bustle of people that flood cities and the ways in which everyone goes about the daily life, spending hours sitting in a car to get somewhere they don’t really want to be. I also find with all the crap going on at the moment with the US political system and Trump’s reaction to ‘Aliens’ it is a scary mirror to what I hope never comes to pass in humanity's future.

What changes would you make to adapt this story into another medium? What medium would you use? What changes would you make?

I feel like this would fit well in a live action world with a good amount of well integrated CG. I can see similarities in what they did with Watchmen, a world that still feels very “comic book” but creates a world around it that feels natural. You need to be able to feel the claustrophobia of the city and the dirt that inhabits its world, you need to feel the shittyness of it all and how he fits into that world and how in some weird way he thrives (as much as he would hate to admit it) on the crappiness of it all. would suit it well but I think I see a closer resemblance to what is currently being done with ‘Deadpool’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr_Ta6NS3-g

Big Hero Six - The Film that came from Marvel's comics.

I just wanted to write a small piece on Big Hero Six because it is one of my favourite movies and i think did a wonderful job at taking a relatively obscure comic and making an excellent film about it. I also learned a little about the film during my time at Disney. They first decided to make a Marvel feature when one of the Directors (I can’t remember if it was Don Hall or Chris Williams) went to John Lasseter after the acquisition of Marvel and asked if they’d let him pick through the Marvel archives and make a film. He eventually settled on Big Hero Six for its potential but also its lack of notoriety. The fact no-one really knew about this obscure comic of a couple of episodes meant that they had the luxury of being able to adapt it in their own style and could take the characters much further from the comic book counterparts.

I think they manage to an excellent job with this film. The film shifts between highly cinematic emotional moments to contrast with much more ‘comic book’ like action sequences. The action scenes were intended to have a lot of color and the epic comic book feel. As someone who wants to go into Lighting and Compositing, The color choices in this movie were great. From the unique colors and designs of all the Characters to the different kind of city lights that stemmed from the merging of San Fransisco and Tokyo. They used to present different moods and for different sequences in the movie. If you look at the picture I attached you can see how the yellow lights of San Francisco roll of to the sides in a golden yellow light whereas the high rises of Tokyo produce an intense white light in the center of the city. You’ll also find that during the car chase sequence the lights are a haunting green color as they look straight at the villian.

 

Another fun little tid bit is that the after credits scene in Big Hero Six was very last minute. When the directors went to see another Marvel movie about a month before the release of Big Hero Six and saw the after credits scene they realized they had to do one. As such, they got a few particular artists in the studio and secretly made the end credits scene where Stan Lee shows up as Fred’s father. Most of the studio didn’t know it existed until they watched the movie in theaters.

Short post on... World of Warcraft: Ashbringer

World of Warcraft: Ashbringer

A standalone arc from the original series it focuses on the Mograine family and the history of the legendary sword, Ashbringer. It has the same artists as the original comics and overall it just really feels pretty… Epic (for lack of a better word). As I mentioned in my last post, I don’t know how much of it is my relationship with the series but this one did a really good job at using its lore and just making an exciting and involving story around it. It really was never anything too deep (and this applies to my last post too) but was much like something like pacific rim. You don’t go in expecting to have your mind state altered, you go in expecting to see giant robots fight giant monsters and that is exactly what you get. It is the same with this comic, you go in expecting to see heroes fighting the demons, the undead or some other baddie and that is exactly what you get. It does deal with religious fanaticism which I suppose does approach an interesting topic but it is two separate things entirely to use it as a device and then to address a topic in a way that gives some important commentary on the subject.

This is a large tangent to world of warcraft, but I had an interesting talk with Shiyoon Kim (Lead character Designer on Big Hero Six) over the summer about the future of the industry and how it’s going to change. He was talking about how he thinks our generation will be one to change the game, but was also talking about how although (certain) films can make a statement, or make some social commentary they can lack the method of change, they don’t necessarily broach the subject in a way which can help identify the core of the problem or how it comes about.

ANYWAY, the comic was ace.

World of Warcraft Comics

Comic: World of Warcraft
Writer: Walt and Lousie Simonson
Artist: Mike Bowden and Pop Mhan

What was the comic about?

I decided to write a little bit about this comic series because it was one I read a long time ago and revisited more recently. It was a monthly comic for a while, and I followed it for a year or two. It is hard for me to disassociate myself from the lore of the world because I’ve been a big of Warcraft for a long time, so I don’t know how much of my enjoyment stemmed from my love of the the games and how much of it was purely just because the comic was good. I played the old Warcraft Games and then World of Warcraft on and off since I was 13 till about 18, so I know the whole IP incredibly well, the world is so immersive and has such amazing and thorough lore that it really was an amazing thing to be a part of in its heyday. I think the new trailer for the Warcraft movie helps me identify why I liked this comic so much and why I’m not really very excited about the movie. In the game, each location has a feel - it has a certain color pallette, shape language, art direction and I think I could probably identify any of them with a screenshot even so many years after I stopped playing. The comic definitely stuck to this and some of that nostalgic feeling would come back when I read it, I think this was a great success on the part of the writers. (On the flip side, I couldn’t tell any of the locations in the trailer by these same criteria, which to me is a massive failing considering its really meant to be pandering to its fan base.)

What did you like about it?

I actually really enjoyed the main first arc of the story, but it definitely lost a lot of its appeal after that. The original arc had a nice amount of characters and told a story that revolved around the human character Varian Wrynn. He soul split in two, he wakes up to with amnesia and is immediately captured and taken a slave, forced to fight in the arena. He and his team becomes renowned for their skills before they manage to flee. His memory begins to return and he must return home to save his city and his people from the clutches of the Dragon Onyxia. This was an awesome ark and a great story, however - after this they started introducing a number of other characters and flooded the story with new people and introduced a number of elements that were foreign to the original. Steve Hickner was at our school the other day and did a talk about story and how if we present something to our audience that they think they know and are excited to see then you break that without giving them a satisfying alternative then they are going to dislike it. So when they introduced all these new elements it really began to feel further and further detached from the original games. I also think it suffered from what I am calling ‘Heroes’ syndrome. Where they began to introduce so many characters that all the storylines began to get weaker and weaker and there were too many threads to keep hold of at once.