Horror from the East: The H.P. Lovecraft manga of Gou Tanabe

H.P. Lovecraft manga of Gou TanabeHorror author H.P. Lovecraft never wrote with an Asian audience in mind. He identified as an Easterner, having spent most of his life in New England, but of the Far East he knew nothing. He never traveled abroad. In fact, the farthest he ever ventured from his beloved Providence was to New York, an experience that later led him to describe Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood as “a maze of hybrid squalor.”

About that word, “hybrid.” Lovecraft wasn’t one for mixing with foreigners. While the degree to which he was an overt racist is sometimes overstated, his xenophobia and his mistrust of unfamiliar cultures were real. In fact, they underlie many of his most memorable stories.

Given all of this, it may be surprising to learn that, in my opinion, some of the best recent comics adaptations of Lovecraft’s weird fiction have come from the pen of Japanese manga artist Gou Tanabe. » More... »

The only time I was ever published in The Industry Standard

The Industry Standard cover, March 6, 2000If you weren’t around 20 years ago to experience the original dot-com boom, you probably don’t remember a print magazine called The Industry Standard. To understand the full, bizarre history of this awful rag will require someone with more inside knowledge than myself to explain. Believe it or not, though, it was considered “the paper of record” for the Silicon Valley tech industry, back in the days when people weren’t laughed out of conference rooms for having the job title “Webmaster” listed on their business cards.

I was strongly encouraged to write for this magazine several times while it was still around. It and its counterpart, the equally odious Red Herring, were covering the investment angle of the industry, which meant there was certainly more than enough money to throw around. And yet I never bit, with but one exception — coincidentally, exactly 20 years ago this year. » More... »

It ain’t easy being a successful manga creator

I was fascinated by the sections of Frederik L. Schodt’s Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics describing the breakneck, seemingly even harrowing nature of the Japanese manga business, and I wanted to learn more. I found what I was looking for in another book: Manga in Theory and Practice, by Hirohiko Araki.

This slim volume from Shonen Jump was first published in English by Viz Media in 2017 – meaning some 20 years had passed since the revised edition of Schodt’s book. Still, not much seems to have changed in terms of how manga are produced. » More... »

Frederik L. Schodt wants to introduce you to manga

I almost didn’t read Frederik L. Schodt’s Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics. I’ve been reading a lot of manga lately, so a history of the subject sounded appealing. Had it not been for the Covid-19 pandemic, however, it might have been a near miss.

You see, I’d checked the book out of the public library, but the dense text and its textbook-like format, with its multiple sidebars and explanatory notes, put me off. As its due date approached, I still hadn’t read more than a few pages and I was about to return it. That’s when San Francisco issued its “stay at home” order for the pandemic and the entire library system shut down, book deposit boxes and all. As a result, Schodt’s book was mine for the duration, so I decided to put on my thinking cap and give it a whirl.

I’m glad I did. Manga! Manga! has maintained its reputation as the definitive English-language work on the subject, and despite being somewhat dated – it was the first such work ever written – it deserves its accolades. » More... »

Frank Miller, you’re no Will Eisner (and other thoughts on the comics biz)

I’ve had a little-worn copy of Eisner/Miller on my shelf for years. Published in 2005 by Dark Horse Comics, and to my knowledge never reprinted, it offers a dialogue between two respected cartoonists in the mold of François Truffaut’s celebrated conversations with Alfred Hitchcock. In this case, the pairing is of Will Eisner (best known for The Spirit) and Frank Miller (of Dark Knight Returns and Sin City fame).

I’d only read the book once since I bought it, 15 years ago. Considering later developments in both men’s lives, and in the American comic book business in general, I thought it deserved a second look. » More... »

‘Suspiria’ remake deserves its own place on the screen

Suspiria (2018)I’ve long been a fan of Dario Argento’s 1977 horror flick Suspiria, and I’m certainly not alone. Among horror film aficionados, Suspiria is revered as much for its memorable cinematography and score as its ability to remain compelling despite having an almost nonsensical plot. So when the news came that a remake of this seminal Italian film was in the works, the natural question was, “Why?” » More... »

Thoughts on public relations (Part 2)

This post is the second in a series of thoughts on my recent experiences as a journalist “embedded” within a tech-centric public relations agency. You can find Part One here.

In that first installment, I talked a lot about how reporters and PR pros often find themselves at odds because they don’t really understand each other. This time around, I’d like to turn to how companies interact with external PR agencies and the media, and why they don’t always get the results they want.

Now … I don’t really expect companies to take my advice. There’s very little a PR agency can do to change corporate culture. A reporter might have a better chance, provided the barrage of negative press is big enough. But companies, especially large ones, tend to be set in their ways. Still, it’s worth pondering some of the things that, in theory, should be easy to change, but that I’ve encountered again and again. » More... »

Thoughts on public relations (Part 1)

So here we are again. Last time I tried to knock the dust off this blog, it was to announce that I’d parted ways with The Register and would be moving on to my next chapter, whatever that would be. And then … silence.

Mea culpa. What happened was things got busy again fairly quickly. I decided to accept a new position, one that was different from anything I’d done before. I took a job at a public relations firm.

It certainly was a change. I’ve never had a company issue a press release about hiring me before, and nobody has ever interviewed me about my new job – although I suppose neither should have surprised me, given the industry in question.

I ended up staying in the role for 12 months, almost to the day. Now I’m on my own again, and itching to get back into editorial writing. I do expect to continue to do some communications work, albeit in a consulting capacity. The most interesting part of the experience for me, though, was the inside look it gave me at the other side of the tech media circus, a side I’d never investigated before. » More... »

A writer’s bookshelf

TypewriterFor as long as I’ve been a professional writer (almost 20 years now), and with all the writers I’ve known and spoken with, one thing that surprises me is that I don’t recall ever having a conversation with another writer about writing. I mean the writing itself.

Any time you do something creative, be it writing or painting or poetry or comedy or whatever you do, you always get someone who will say, “I wish I could do XYZ like you do.” Well guess what? Nobody was born with it. Nobody.

Me? I believe I am quite good at what I do, but nothing comes for free. I think I am different from many of the writers that I’ve met, in that I consciously work at self-development all the time. Writing can be an art, but it is also a craft, like carpentry or ship building. When you’re doing business writing, it’s almost all craft. This means you can consciously choose to get better at it, through practice and study. » More... »

America’s next top programming languages?

Source code iconWelcome to 2012! Once again, I’ve been remiss in keeping this blog updated, but I’ll try to do better this year. Remember you can always follow the latest from my Fatal Exception blog for InfoWorld in the box to the right!

My first feature article of the year is another piece for InfoWorld. This time, I’m looking at up-and-coming programming languages. You’ve heard of C, Java, Python, Ruby, and maybe even Haskell, OCaml, and Scala … but have you ever heard of Zimbu, Fantom, Chapel, or haXe? Probably not — but you may, soon. Some people say we already have more than enough programming languages. Others say the computing field is changing so rapidly that the same old languages can’t move fast enough, and the only way for developers to gain the agility they need is to start over from scratch. In this feature, I look at ten experimental programming languages, why they were invented, where you can get them, and why they matter.