Tag Archives: comics

What went wrong with Attack on Titan?

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Attack on Titan Vol. 1 Cover[Spoiler Alert – it’s pretty much everything.]

After 12 years of serialized manga, Hajime Isayama’s Attack on Titan is done. It didn’t take long for the online critics to start dissecting the controversial conclusion: Is it unsatisfying? Is it maybe a little cringeworthy?

I’d argue it’s both. But more than that, now that we can analyze the work as a whole, I’d say Attack on Titan was probably never very good to begin with. The signs were there almost from the very beginning.

It’s hard to overstate how massive a phenomenon Attack on Titan was in its early years. In Tokyo, you could hardly buy snacks at a convenience store without seeing the image of the Colossus Titan peering over Wall Maria. In hindsight, though, maybe a few such iconic images were all the manga really had going for it. » More... » →

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

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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... » →

Frederik L. Schodt wants to introduce you to manga

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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)

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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... » →

Comic Book Color Swatches for Photoshop

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Classic Comics Color GuideA recent blog post by Ed Piskor generated some interest in the old craft of coloring comic books in the days before comics were printed using full-process color. Ed created a chart showing all 64 colors available in most comics of the bygone era. I also enjoyed an article at the CO2 Comics Blog that went into depth on the classic comics coloring process and how it evolved over the years. What I thought was missing, however, was an easy way for folks to use the same colors to get a “Silver Age” effect in their own comics. To that end, I wrote a script to generate a swatch palette for use in Photoshop, Illustrator, or other graphics software. But I didn’t stop there! I also created palettes that recreated the even-more-limited Golden Age palette, as well as the expanded palettes that began to appear in the 1980s. You can download my palettes here. » More... » →

Review: “Kirby: King of Comics”

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I’m thrilled with this book. Mark Evanier, onetime assistant to comics legend Jack Kirby, has written the definitive biography of the creator of such iconic characters as the Fantastic Four, Captain America, Thor, the Hulk, and the New Gods.

More than the text, however, the real treat of Kirby: King of Comics is the lavish presentation of Kirby’s art. Never before have I seen comic book art reproduced so faithfully (and if anyone deserves such treatment it surely is Kirby). In fact, when I first peeked inside the book’s covers, I literally gasped. » More... » →