IdN: Who’s your favorite comic artist?
Wong: Khoo Fuk Lung is my favourite, he has a real talent. And he is always progressing, he never stands still.
Man, I would kill for an American creator named FUK LUNG! That would be a talent. I’d love seeing little kids at a comic convention screaming at their parents that they want FUK LUNG’s autograph. Marvel’s hiring the Japanese artists a lot lately, so it’s conceivable in a few years, Marvel expands its vision to Korea, and we could be looking at FUK LUNG’S GIANT-SIZED MAN-THING.
Same artist later admits to creating a 36-page comic in a WEEK. I’ve never seen the comics, so it’s hard to say what that’d be like, but 36 pages in a week? An American artist does by comparison, what, hopefully 7. If that?
So, the answer to American comics’ ills suddenly seem clear. And I don’t want this to sound as racist as it absolutely will, but … we have to feed Bryan Hitch a dog. It doesn’t have to be a big dog. Maybe just a poodle. Once a month or so, we get a poodle -- we fucking sacrifice it. Not a sicko Satanic Dee Snyder sort of sacrifice. A nice sacrifice, with Enya playing, some incense. He washes Spot down with some kimchee, some bee bim bop, a little green tea, and then he gets right back to the drawing board. For Comics.
Actually, it’s probably just a racist myth about the Koreans and the dogs. I don’t care anyway, even if it were true -- I’m in a pet-allowed building now, so any time I walk onto an elevator someone gets on with their three dogs on a leash right behind me. I’m days away from being mauled by Granny’s four German shephards. Eat away, I say.
DIAMOND COMICS SAYS
Every Monday, we provide a list of products shipping for
the current week, as well as those products expected to
ship the following week!
Shipping This Week: February 26
The following products are expected to ship to comic book
specialty stores this week. Note that this list is tentative
and subject to change. Please check with your retailer for availability.
This is a pretty sad week for one little boy out there. According to the Tentative List for this week that Diamond released, BEACHBUM BERRY’S GROG LOG was supposed to come out this week. But one week later, no GROG LOG to be found. Nor BEACHBUM BERRY’S INTOXICA even.
Some little kid, who desparately needs to get wasted on grog before even attempting to read the new issue of AVENGERS -- he’s shit out of luck this week. Grog -- can you buy grog? Well, some little medieval Viking child festooned with leeches, I suppose, or that kid who’s WAY too into D&D, the one about to snap and kill his friends to show off how he’s a Level 8 Druid Master or how pissed off he is that he can’t get a flagon of honey mead from a “tavern wench.” Diamond got his hopes up -- now look at the poor little hypothetical imaginary lil’ alcoholic tyke. Where is the Grog Log? Somebody call the Make a Wish Foundation…
These lists only hurt people, don’t they?
COMING TO A STORE THIS WEDNESDAY
PREVIEWS PUBLICATIONS
GAME TRADE MAGAZINE #37 $1.99
MEGA MANGA AND MORE CATALOG 2003 PI
PREVIEWS ADULT VOL XIII #3 PI
PREVIEWS VOL XIII #3 PI
I wish PREVIEWS PI were MAGNUM PI’s brother. They could team up to solve some mystery. Compare moustaches. Infuriate ________ [that one character].
PREVIEWS VOL XIII CONSUMER ORDER FORM #3 PI
PRIMO FLYER VOL XIII #3 PI
PREMIER PUBLISHERS
DARK HORSE
ASTRO BOY VOL 12 TP $9.95
BTVS #54 VIVA LAS BUFFY (PART 4 OF 4) $2.99
BTVS #54 VIVA LAS BUFFY (PART 4 OF 4) PHOTO CVR $2.99
This ends with Buffy letting Nic Cage drink himself to death.
That’s the great thing about success. One ADAPTATION and suddenly CON AIR is forgotten. Cage was so goddamn good in ADAPTATION; it’s like I can’t even remember what those miserable, godawful two hours in 8mm were like. “Bella bambina” is just some distant memory. Success just washes away all sins. It’s beautiful, really.
Like, if Saddam Hussein were in RAISING ARIZONA, newscasts would have to just pause and credit the guy that much. “He gasses his own people, and he’s got weapons and mass destruction, and -- then again, he was hilarious in RAISING ARIZONA, so… that’s got to be worth some points.” Nick Nolte will be in one good movie, BLUE CHIPS 2, perhaps, toss in a good cry on a Barbara Walters interview (Nolte wouldn’t try to make Barbara cry…), and that whole crazy creepy guy thing will be washed away… if Wynona Ryder’s in a Spike Jonze movie, tomorrow she’ll be able to shoplift anywhere she wants in this city. Spike’s movies are just that fucking good. We’d have no choice but to let her shoplift. As it is, she’s trying to coast off of BEETLEJUICE when she shoplifts -- the BEETLEJUICE manna only lasts so long…
DH DLX STATIONERY EXOTIQUE SEONNA HONG KITTY ADVENTURES $4.99
DH DLX STATIONERY EXOTIQUE SHAG CALYPSO PARTY $4.99
DH DLX STATIONERY EXOTIQUE TIM BISKUP $4.99
GHOST IN THE SHELL 2 MAN MACHINE HOLO #1 (MR) $10.00
I picked up the first one to see Manumise Shirow do his thing, but I’m not sure how eager I’m going to be for a round 2. The comic has all this CGI worked in. There’ve been instances of CGI in comics that I’m approving of -- some of the work in the RED STAR books or Scott Sava’s work. But I’m still just … hesitant about the stuff.
It’s interesting that the big thing in videogames right now appears to be cel-shading -- taking a three-dimensional CGI object and making it look like a 2-D Cartoon. Whereas in animation, if not also comics, where it can look 2-D already just fine, the effort is towards a fake computerized 3-D look that games are moving away from. It’s a curious disconnect.
HELLBOY WEIRD TALES #1 $2.99
KISS KOLINS CVR #7 $2.99
KISS PHOTO CVR #7 $2.99
LONE WOLF 2100 SHADOWS ON SAPLINGS TP $12.95
NEVERMEN STREETS OF BLOOD #2 (Of 3) $2.99
STAR WARS JEDI MACE WINDU $4.99
Mace Windu was Sam Jackson. Why don’t they just call it Sam Jackson? Or STAR WARS: BAD MOTHERFUCKER. I’d buy STAR WARS: BAD MOTHERFUCKER in a second. That’s what I keep waiting for him to do in those movies -- shove a lightsaber in Yoda’s face and make him get Sam’s wallet with Bad Motherfucker written on it. It’s strange -- he’s done some good movies since, some fine work. I liked him in the NEGOTIATOR, say, but any time I see him in one of those STAR WARS movies, I keep expecting him to accidentally shoot Yoda in the face, or start yelling about a little passage from the Bible he has memorized… those warm memories of him getting eaten by a genius shark in DEEP BLUE SEA just get washed away.
STAR WARS REPUBLIC #50 (Note Price) $5.99
USAGI YOJIMBO #64 $2.99
DC COMICS
BATMAN #612 $2.25
I’ve decided I like this. Not the comic, which I don’t read -- doesn’t look like a particularly good comic to me or anything I’d enjoy anyways, not my kind of thing. But the fact that Jim Lee, out of retirement, has the #1 comic book in this country. From out of retirement, from out of the dim recesses of our memories, and WHAM, he’s Jimmy Connors. He’s totally Jimmy Connors now. Or George Foreman when Foreman had that little comeback. I’m ready to buy the Jim Lee Grilling Machine. Or Jim Lee’s walker. Old man come back to comics -- they should auction off his walker. The guy’s not even that old, but it’s been so long, that I just expect him to have some wizened white beard now. Grandpa Lee showing the kids how it’s done. I’ve decided I like that.
BATMAN GOTHAM ADVENTURES #59 $2.25
CATWOMAN #16 $2.50
DANGER GIRL 3D $4.95
3-D??? See, most comic artists just draw the tits of the girl characters really, really big, but DANGER GIRL wants you to really understand and grasp the exact specifications, the full impact of the breast implants its characters have. They’d put an electric buzzer under your chair, like in those 1950s movies, if an electric jolt to the asshole somehow reminded you of breasts. Which -- hopefully an electric jolt to the asshole doesn’t remind you of breasts. Because -- well, then those probably weren’t breasts you experienced. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but I’m afraid you probably had your eyes closed… you fucked a light socket. I know many of you will find this upsetting. I know many of you will be eyeing your light sockets, trying to figure out if it’s worth it to recreate that magic night. All I can tell you is: there’s something just very scrotal about this Alex Ross drawing. I know I keep saying that without showing it, but … all I’m saying is in this particular BATTLE OF THE PLANETS, some of the planets have DROPPED, if you get what I mean.
DEXTERS LABORATORY #34 $2.25
FLASH #195 $2.25
GLOBAL FREQUENCY #5 (Of 12) $2.95
GREEN ARROW #21 (RES) $2.50
GREEN LANTERN THE POWER OF ION TP $14.95
I love how some comic writer just has an 8th-grade science textbook lying around. “Who dare defies …. CYTOPLASM?” “Kneel before the power of … AVAGADRO’S NUMBER!!!!” The power of ion… Ooooooh…..
HELLBLAZER #181 (MR) $2.75
JLA #78 $2.25
JLA THE SPECTRE SOUL WAR #2 (Of 2) $5.95
JUSTICE LEAGUE ANIMATED AQUAMAN MAQUETTE $89.95
LEGION #17 $2.50
New artist on this is a 2000 A.D. person, right -- Kev Walker?
LITTLE ENDLESS STATUE SET $195.00
OUT THERE #16 $2.95
RESISTANCE #6 $2.95
SUPERGIRL #79 $2.50
SUPERMAN #190 $2.25
SUPERMAN #190 SPECIAL EDITION (Note Price) $3.95
TITANS #50 $2.75
I’m always deeply fascinated by anniversaries of books no one seems to very much like. I’ve never heard anyone talking about this comic book, anyway. The most vocal fans have the least representative taste, I suppose -- I guess I’m living proof of that. That or this comic is just like some trashy ugly girl everyone shacks up with but no one will admit it. Maybe all those people claiming to be reading ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY - maybe if you ask them what ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY was about, they’d all pause, and say “Well, Starfire had to battle Nightwing’s evil afterbirth, while Cyborg and …” Yeah, I don’t even know enough about it to make fun of it. Vague memories of some Wolfman-Perez issues I read once, but …
VERTIGO X PREVIEW (MR) $0.99
I think this has a Peter Milligan and Mike Allred story in it. Some of Vertigo’s upcoming plans sounded very interesting -- that book the LOSERS, in particular, as well as Jason Hall’s upcoming work. Preview always seems like a safe bet…
WILDCATS VERSION 3.0 #7 (MR) $2.95
WONDER WOMAN #189 $2.25
IMAGE
ATHENA INC CVR A #5 $2.95
ATHENA INC CVR B #5 $2.95
BATTLE OF THE PLANETS #7 $2.99
Look, I’m not saying Alex Ross ENJOYED drawing the kid’s balls. That’d be a gross accusation. The balls aren’t even that well drawn. I’m frankly confused by what I’m looking at -- there’s just some very odd shading to this drawing. And what doesn’t help is this magazine -- that’s… that’s where they put the bar code. As if you were purchasing…
I mean -- obviously, Alex Ross had no say in where the bar code goes, so… that’s just an unhappy coincidence. You’d think a graphic design magazine would design things with a little more subtlety, but … And never mind that the kid’s got a -- an arrow on his chest pointing downwards. Just don’t mind that. I really just think it’s my imagination how f-ed up this image is. I’m CERTAIN it’s not Ross…
GI JOE BATTLE FILES ULTIMATE SOURCE BOOK TP $14.95
GI JOE FRONTLINE #4 $2.95
HAMMER OF THE GODS HAMMER HITS CHINA #1 (Of 3) $2.95
Buying this. Mike Oeming (POWERS, BASTARD SAMURAI, BLUNTMAN AND CHRONIC with Kevin Smith) on a full-colored action comic is certainly worth a look. And I enjoyed the earlier HAMMER series, which I thought was fun-- Oeming’s art is a little more action-packed and lavish away from POWERS (the new arc of which is finally getting good).
This issue was grotesquely under-ordered, so I’m extra-curious to see it.
HAMMER OF THE GODS is a Viking action comic without the faux-Shakespearean bad dialogue that usually drags those comics down.
KARZA #1 (Of 4) $2.95
MICRONAUTS #5 $2.95
PARADIGM #6 (MR) (Note Price) $2.95
RISING STARS BRIGHT #1 (Of 3) $2.99
SAMMY TOURIST TRAP #1 (Of 4) $2.95
Oh, this is curious. I think this is some kid off the Image Comics’s message board, who managed to pitch a comic that is now an Image comic. Which is a very difficult thing to do, I think -- get a pitch picked up with no prior track record. Especially off some message board. So there might be something of value here to look at. I’m not sure. I don’t know anything about it besides that…
TECH JACKET #4 $2.95
TOMB RAIDER #27 $2.99
I don’t really care for any aspect of the TOMB RAIDER phenomena -- the godawful movie, the lousy game, the bad comics. I just find the PLATFORMING interesting. Because I could and probably have complained about adaptation comics, Dark Horse’s endless movie tie-in books, 80’s spinoff books or what have you, but it seems like the trend is to identify characters who can be successful across multiple platforms. The success of these Marvel movies -- does it have anything to do with comics per se? It must have some connection, but I couldn’t tell you what that connection is. But those characters are just capable of being bigger than any individual platform. Spider-man can be a comic, but it can also be a game and be a movie and a kid’s card game and generate income across several different media outputs.
I guess that’s what entertainment is going to be like in the future, given the increasing importance in having a brand name that penetrates through the haze. There’s so much competition for people’s attention, which is ever-shorter… I guess comics had better worm its way into the output pipeline or it’ll suffer for being out of that loop.
I mean, yes, ideally, you’d want to be the input pipeline -- you’d want to be the medium that GENERATES the thing getting platformed. And right now, they’re pretty quickly running out of Marvel characters worth making movies out of. Still, I guess it’s silly to complain about adaptations or 80’s spinoffs or what have you… or not just silly, but wrong even. Malevolent. I guess you can’t expect to be an input without being an output, too…
WITCHBLADE #62 $2.99
MARVEL
The big rumor floating around the Internet right now are those EPIC rumors. The rumor is a bunch of the writers at various comic Web sites, including our own movies-and-comics-and-everything-else site, have been approached by Marvel to be part of the new Epic line, to “pitch” comic books. Well, obviously to everyone hopefully, no one’s asked me to pitch anything (“It’s Spiderman meets Silence of the Lambs, only nakeder”). But … between you and me? The Porn Star Quote of the Week is about to get its own comic book at Marvel. Remember Bill Jemas’s Bad Girls for Fan Boys? Poop Shoot’s bringing that shit back with a VENGEANCE, yo. 2003!!!!
AGENT X #8 $2.25
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #50 $2.25
AVENGERS #64 $2.25
What’s the point if there’s no grog log? How else was anyone going to get all the way through this?
DAREDEVIL #44 $2.99
ELEKTRA #20 $2.99
All those people who saw the DAREDEVIL movie over the weekend (#1 twice in a row), based on Marvel’s long-running comic book, are going to walk directly from the movie theatre to a comic shop demanding more of those comic books about Ben Affleck. TWO-FISTED AFFLECK sales will skyrocket, no doubt. If I were Marvel, I wouldn’t put out a Daredevil movie tie-in. I’d be putting out ADVENTURES OF AFFLECK. That’s what VANITY FAIR does, basically.
Who wouldn’t want a comic book after two hours of watching Hollywood magic try to make Jennifer Garner’s tiny, real breasts look really huge and fake? What was going on with her costumes? And why was she showing so much cleavage to a blind guy, again? So he could smell them easier? “I wish you could see how beautiful I look, and also my breasts.” That was my favorite line in the movie.
I can’t do a proper review, really, because I got distracted early on by how much name dropping was going on. John Romita, Lee, Miller, Bendis and Mack even -- so after that, I just spent the whole movie waiting to see if they’d say my name. Fuck it, I thought I had a shot.
Speaking of DAREDEVIL, there was a trailer beforehand for the most awful looking piece of shit. That man-girl who won that Oscar for playing that he-she was in it. Apparently, the earth’s core had gone bust, apparently. And because the earth’s core was not up to snuff, stuff was blowing up and bad computer CGI effects were happening?
So, what does the U.S. government do to save the planet? We nuke it. Fuck the Earth’s core -- we’ll just nuke that motherfucker like a red-headed stepchild!!! Just like those other disaster movies, like the one where a comet was going to hit the Earth. What did we do? We nuked it. Or the one where a giant meteor was going to hit the Earth. What did we do? We nuked it. Earth’s core works about the same way as a meteor or a comet or your high-school girlfriend who wouldn’t put out enough or that slow guy in front of you at McDonalds -- just nuke that sum’bitch a little. We gotta show that Earth’s core who the boss is. Don’t mess with Texas, Earth’s core.
Maybe Iraq’s just trying to “jump start” the Earth’s core. Did you ever think of that, Mr. War? Or maybe North Korea wanted to incinerate all of humanity and elect that one she-not-a-he that won that Oscar for playing the he’s-a-she their new empress. Who are we to judge? They gave us Fuk Lung; can’t we be more understanding?
FANTASTIC FOUR #66 $2.25
HULK WOLVERINE 6 HOURS #3 (Of 4) $2.99
PARADISE X RAGNAROK #2 (Of 2) $2.99
I’m going to miss these books, not so much because they were good because they very much weren’t (some John Paul Leon art that the fans hated despite Leon being awesome, aside). But more because I just enjoyed how they’d take random words and shove X next to them. Just the cynicism of it. TOASTER X -- fuck it, it’ll sell!!!!
SPIDER-MAN PETER PARKER #53 $2.25
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN VOL 2 HC $29.99
ULTIMATE X-MEN #29 $2.25
How do you put out a comic called ULTIMATE WAR when it’s not in fact about any sort of war? Takes balls, I suppose.
WEAPON X #6 $2.25
X STATIX VOL 1 TP $11.99
X-MEN UNLIMITED #42 $3.50
X-STATIX #8 $2.25
What was wrong with alphabetical order? I’d ask Joe Quesada what was wrong with alphabetical order, but I think he’d try to make me cry, and I don’t need that sort of emotional experience right now…
WIZARD
WIZARD COMICS MAGAZINE FAN CONTEST WINNER CVR #139 $4.99
WIZARD COMICS MAGAZINE MICHAEL TURNER CVR #139 $4.99
WIZARD COMICS MAGAZINE X-MEN 2 CVR #139 $4.99
COMICS
AMON THE DARKSIDE OF THE DEVILMAN #4 (MR) $10.99
ARCHIE #533 $2.19
ASAGIRI NO MIKO MANGA #1 $10.99
BARON THE CAT BARON CAT RETURNS MANGA $13.99
BASTARD #15 UNDEAD PART 1 (OF 5) (MR) $3.95
BATTLE ANGEL ALITA LAST ORDER PART 1 #6 $2.95
BATTLE ROYALE MANGA #7 $10.99
BETTY & VERONICA SPECTACULAR #59 $2.19
BIG O #5 $10.99
BIG O #6 $10.99
BRATH #1 $2.95
BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATH.
Did anyone see a blue person at their store? Did the blue person have a nosebleed? Was the blue person’s dad in a corner quietly crying? I need details…
CARDCAPTOR SAKURA #33 $2.99
CARNAL COMICS MULTI PACK #2 (A) $9.95
CEREBUS #287 $2.25
CHARM SCHOOL #7 (MR) $2.95
CHEWING ON TINFOIL GN $15.95
CHOBITS ANIME COMIC #2 $13.99
CODENAME BABETOOL TP $12.99
That’s funny -- the name we call you behind your back also includes the word TOOL.
CSI CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION #2 (Of 5) (MR) $3.99
DARK ANGEL PHOENIX RESURRECTION JAPANESE VER #2 $19.99
DF SPIDER-MAN PETER PARKER SGN #44 $19.99
DF SUPERMAN 10 CENT ADVENTURE REMARKED $69.99
DF SUPERMAN 10 CENT ADVENTURE SGN $10.00
DICK TRACY PURPLE CROSS GANG PART 1 $9.50
DICK TRACY PURPLE CROSS GANG PART 2 $9.50
DORK TOWER #22 $2.99
DRAGONBALL PART 6 #2 (Of 8) (Note Price) $3.50
I’m struggling to understand this series in SHONEN JUMP. It’s fascinating because it’s the biggest cartoon on the CARTOON NETWORK (I’ve seen Spanish versions on SPANISH TV) even though, as far as I can tell, it’s completely indecipherable to a casual viewer. That whole “jump-on” point thing you hear American comic fans harping on incessantly just skipped past this comic completely, and no one seems to mind much at all. Fuck jump-on points -- just have really crazy fights and people yelling about SUPER-SAIYANS, I guess…
Anyway, this is about, if I understand it right, these are the characters of DRAGONBALL Z before they were old enough to have the Z attached to the name of the comic. So, what, it’s like MUPPET BABIES if the MUPPET BABIES were psychopathic kung-fu masters? If the Muppets got into kung-fu battles when they were babies, it’d be like this comic?
See, I don’t even think I’m genetically capable of understanding this…
EDGE #11 $7.95
ELNA SAGA MANGA #1 $12.99
ELVIRA #118 $2.50
FUSE #5 $2.99
GHOST MANGA #2 (MR) $12.99
GOLD DIGGER PKT MANGA #1 $12.95
GUNDAM WING LAST OUTPOST #4 (Of 12) $2.99
HIGHWAY 13 #9 $2.95
JOJOS BIZARRE ADVENTURE #8 $7.99
JOJOS BIZARRE ADVENTURE #9 $7.99
KAMEN RIDER SPIRITS MANGA #1 $10.99
KAMEN RIDER SPIRITS MANGA #2 $10.99
KATMANDU #28 (MR) $4.99
KODT BLACK HANDS GAMING SOCIETY SPECIAL $2.99
KODT MINISERIES PX SPECIAL ALT CVR VOL 1 #1 (Of 3) $2.99
KODT MINISERIES PX SPECIAL REG CVR VOL 1 #1 (Of 3) $2.99
LA BLUE GIRL MANGA ED BOOK 2 EVIL NINJA MASTERS (A) $16.95
LAUGH DIGEST #182 $2.39
LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE THE DREAMER $9.50
LITTLE WHITE MOUSE PERFECT COLL VOL 1 HC $24.95
LOVE HINA MANGA #11 $7.50
LOVE HINA MANGA #12 $7.50
LOVE HINA MANGA #13 $7.50
Oh, this is getting a big following in America. It’s about a young kid who ends up the superintendent of an all-girl’s dorm. Only it’s not porno, apparently. Sounds like porno? Not porno. The kids love it. The trades sell like hotcakes. I’ve seen a little of it, and it’s good, but ... when does the porno start? That’s such a gross teenage boy premise -- it’s sort of hard to accept as just light entertainment.
LOVE STORY SPECIAL MANGA (A) $10.99
LUFTWAFFE 1946 #6 $5.95
MERIDIAN #33 $2.95
MONSTER CLUB #2 $3.50
I picked up the first issue of this on a whim. It had sort of a sub-sub-sub-Jamie Hewlett energy to the art. The series is about a monster-hunting girl, so… yeah, not startlingly inventive. Still, it had a nice sense of humor, and even sub-sub-sub-Jamie Hewlett, the art had some moments. This isn’t bad if you like that sort of small press book. It’s not spectacular, but it’s got a good sense of fun at least… Creators seem capable of more, at least.
MONTHLY COMIC DRAGON JAN 2003 $12.50
MONTHLY MAGAZINE Z FEB 2003 $9.99
MOONSTONE NOIR MYSTERIOUS TRAVELER (MR) $5.50
NHS PERFECT MEMORY #4 $7.95
ODDBALLZ #6 $2.95
PANTHEON #12 (Of 12) (RES) $2.95
PATH #12 $2.95
RAIJIN COMICS #12 (MR) $4.95
RGA MAGAZINE #12 (MR) $9.90
RUSE #17 $2.95
SAIYUKI MANGA #1 $14.99
SAIYUKI MANGA #2 $14.99
SAIYUKI MANGA #3 $14.99
SAIYUKI MANGA #4 $14.99
SANDSCAPE #2 $2.95
SANTA INOUE SANTA LAND MANGA (A) $18.99
You may not believe this, but this week was supposed to start off a new irregular sub-feature to TITLE BOUT called SOMEBODY TRANSLATE THIS COMIC about untranslated foreign comics I’ve noticed at the local comic shops, or heard about on the Internet, or found out about however that I’d just like to know more about.
So many comics are created outside this country that we have no sense of whatsoever. IdN talks about the German horror comic scene -- know anything about it? I have no idea. Manga, for as much as we hear about it -- we only see a tiny fraction of the books - more and more everyday, but still, an incomplete picture. In Manga’s case, thanks to dedicated fans, we can check out scanlations occasionally -- fan translations scanned onto the Internet. But with European comics, no such fans exist.
I’m hardly an expert on the global comics scene. I’ve no idea whatsoever. I haven’t even HEARD of that many books. I just know three or four books that pop out at me artwise when I’m browsing through my local shop, and I figure there must be more where they came from. So if you know of any books worth talking about … I’m not going to spend a lot of time talking about any book because this isn’t that sort of column, but I can’t really find anyone talking about the global comics scene except the Comics Journal, whose coverage seemed to have a very specific scope of interests or assumptions that I’m not sure I share (i.e., I love crap).
Anyway, why I’m saying all this here, instead of below, is that the VERY FIRST person I wanted to talk about was Santa Inoue. And I’ve never read a single Santa Inoue comic. They’re all in Japanese, all of them that I’ve seen. So I have no idea what’s going on in them. Are they good? Might be total fucking shit. No idea. But I’ve been trying for a month or so to get an interview with the guy… (Can’t figure out how to contact him; his Web site’s in Japanese so I can’t figure out who I’m e-mailing and I’m e-mailing in English and…)
Well, it looks like someone went and translated Santa Inoue’s SANTA LAND. So… buying this. Anyway: who is Santa Inoue?
Others might find his work vulgar and racist. Because Inoue works with a specific set of imagery drawn from black or hip-hop culture and yet combines that with the crazy energy manga possesses; personally I think he can draw like a motherfucker, but considering the recent “controversy” comparatively tame work like CAGE or Bendis’s Luke Cage work has received, I’m not sure what many people would make of his comics.
What results with Inoue is jarring. Because: Japanese people didn’t invent hip-hop. Americans did. Is that reflected ANYWHERE in our comics? Hell, even movies, there’s a few movies, this week’s CRADLE 2 GRAVE, say, Cube’s oeuvre certainly, but it hasn’t had a strong influence despite the undeniable hold it has on the record charts and on youth culture… All the manifestos -- POP comics are cute, but when do we get to Jay-Z, you know?? Imagine the decades it’ll take for youth culture to filter into anyone besides Jim Mahfood’s comics. And Inoue is Mahfood if Mahfood drew like a crazed Jim Lee, didn’t care so much about Nike or whatever politics, and just felt compelled to draw a 200-page fight scene every so often…
The best black character in American comics is, what, STATIC? Basically some lame kid in a baseball cap? While Milestone attempted to play with the more gangsta imagery, Milestone (a) usually did so under a very moral viewpoint, and (b) Milestone’s long gone -- folks took it to be the “Black” company, and ignored how good the comics were (well, that and the coloring was incredibly dreary for some reason I never understood -- great comics, unbearable color). Any Milestone book that did play with the imagery -- none had the joy of Inoue’s work for me. Inoue’s books aren’t uplifting or moralistic superhero comics for a black audience -- they’re manga with all that means. Fights that last hundreds of pages? Absolutely. Visually driven narratives with crazy exaggerations? Yeah. Only instead of giant robots or ancient samurai, gangstas unapologetically inspired by a WU TANG album (that was itself probably inspired by some old kung-fu movie, in part), kids on Tokyo streets running from street gangs, teenage riots -- occasionally one of them has a samurai sword, but this isn’t exactly LONE WOLF AND CUB I’m talking about. Is it wrong to glorify that sort of imagery? Is it weird seeing that filtered through a Japanese mindset? I don’t mind; you might.
Santa Inoue fun-fact: Santa Inoue claims to have released the first full-length comic ever to be published on the web, Rinjin 13 Gou. It was being serialized in a magazine that went out of business, so he threw it on the Internet. Ever hear of it? Read about it on one of the billion comic news sites out there? In all those pro columns, with the pro selling his work but pretending he was doing something else, anyone bring it up??? This is RECENT history that’s gotten by everybody, it seems. (I don’t know if it’s even true, though -- maybe ARGON ZARK or whatever that’s called could dispute the claim…)
Are his comics good? I have no idea. Can’t read them. But it’s just deeply intriguing to see a strong Wu Tang influence or to see a Jamil GS influence in action comics. And action comics as exciting as any other action comics I’m currently seeing, if not far, far moreso…
The same IdN magazine has an interview with the guy -- it’s why I bought the magazine to begin with. There’s almost nothing on the Internet about the guy- he has his own Web site, but most of it is unsurprisingly in Japanese. There’s a short excerpt of his work in English, but to be honest, it’s fucking awful. Visually, it’s nowhere nears his later work, not even close, so I’m not sure why he’d have it up there. Maybe this SANTA LAND will be in the same style as that. I hope not.
Inoue Fun-Fact: Kids in Shibuya, a sort of young, alternative-ish area of Tokyo, wear T-shirts like the gangsters in Inoue’s comics wear. Not t-shirts with the gangster characters on them. They both have the same insignia -- Saru or something. Inoue: “Ikki Kajiwara once produced a comic called Tiger Mask and a real-life pro wrestler came along with the same name. I wanted to do something interesting like that.”
The book I want to see translated is TOKYO TRIBE 2. I was wandering around one of Japan’s Little Tokyo’s -- I work near one, so after lunch, I’m walking back to work, and I wandered into a used Japanese bookstore, picked up a book at random, and it’s Inoue’s TOKYO TRIBE 2. Knocked my eyes out. It appears to be about young kids battling on the streets of Tokyo until storm-trooper cops come to break up the monotony. Currently, at this very moment, he’s slowly serializing a book in YOUNG JUMP called TOKYO GRAFFITTI -- it looks like a romance comic. You know… This is just a guy who we should be able to talk about, when we talk about a Paul Pope or Ed Brubaker, even if his writing is NOT very good.
So, this was going to end with “Somebody translate this comic,” but… look at that. I guess somebody out there agrees. I’m excited to finally read the work, though there’s no way of knowing if this is pre-TOKYO TRIBE 2 work, or how that might look. I’m very specifically responding to the work I saw in TOKYO TRIBE 2… I hope this is as good. I’m happy to see it available. Though it makes that whole SOMEBODY TRANSLATE idea go to waste, which is sort of a pisser…
SHANDA THE PANDA #36 (MR) $4.99
SHERLOCK HOLMES MYSTERIES VOL 1 TP $18.95
SHI PANDORAS BOX ADRIAN CVR #1/2 $3.95
SHI PANDORAS BOX HALEY CVR #1/2 $3.95
SHI PANDORAS BOX RYP CVR #1/2 $3.95
SHI PANDORAS BOX TUCCI CVR #1/2 $3.95
SHONEN ACE MAGAZINE FEB 2003 $8.99
SIMPSONS COMICS #79 $2.50
SKY BETWEEN BRANCHES #0 (O/A) (PU#539) $2.99
STRANGE HEROES #7 (RES) $2.95
STRANGERS IN PARADISE VOL III #56 $2.95
TIGRESS HIDDEN LANDS RED FOIL CVR #1 PI
TONY DIGEROLAMOS TRAVELERS #20 $2.99
TRANSFORMERS ARMADA #8 $2.95
VERONICA #137 $2.19
What little kid wants to read about Veronica? She’s the evil, spoiled rich brat, right? Who’s into that? Like, do you think sales would go up if she were really racist and shit too? Archie comics for kids who hate other kids? Some little girl saying “Man, I wish I could buy the affection of the boy I like, too.” Little girls who love gigolos?
WARREN ELLIS SCARS #3 (Of 6) (MR) $3.50
WARREN ELLIS SCARS WRAPAROUND #3 (Of 6) (MR) $3.95
WEASEL #6 (MR) $14.95
Movie Poop Shoot’s Chris Allen ran a terrific series on the creator of this comic, Dave Cooper. I know I’m more interested in the guy’s work than before. $15 more interested? No. But more interested anyway.
WEEKLY JUMP 12-02 WK 3 $4.99
WEEKLY JUMP 12-02 WK 4 $4.99
WEEKLY SHONEN MAG 12-02 WK 3 $4.99
WEEKLY SHONEN MAG 12-02 WK 4 $4.99
WILL EISNERS PRINCESS AND THE FROG SC $7.95
ZERO SUM ANTHOLOGY MANGA JAN 2003 $11.99
Most Likely Buys of the Week (Never Know for Sure): Santa Inoue’s Santa Land, Mike Oeming’s Hammer of the Gods, Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev’s Daredevil, the Vertigo Preview, & Peter Milligan and Mike Allred’s X-Statix.
CONCLUSION
I’m going to close out on some images of Santa Inoue’s work -- not the best of it there is, but just some stuff I have handy. It’s difficult to give you a sense of the guy’s work:
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