Comicsgirl

Paste magazine has has a little feature on the many versions of Coraline. It’s just an overview that discusses the movie, P. Craig Russell’s graphic novel version and the upcoming musical.

(I am planning my own Coraline piece but the rate I’m going, it will be done by the time no one really cares about any of it anymore.)

Scott McCloud has relaunched his website. There are some comics here I remember reading after paying through the short-lived micropayment system BitPass. (For all I know, they may have been free for a while.) Everyone adores McCloud and this does remind me I never wrote about Zot!

There is also a lot of Watchmen news out there and talk of the Spider-Man musical. But I figure if you care, you can find those things yourselves. I just can’t muster much enthusiasm for either one.

I’ve been dealing with life-related issues and reading actual non-comic book books (gasp!). I have a few things in the works, but no promises.

The Comics Reporter reports that Viz is restructuring. This makes me sad. I realize they’re not immune to the recession and the downturn in publishing because no one is, but I like Viz. I need my Nana!

Mania.com has a nice profile of Mark Crilley. I didn’t realize Miki Falls had been optioned by Paramount. Where have I been?

NANA Buy at Amazon

I, much like everyone else, totally love the manga series NANA. Honestly: How could you not love it? It’s beautiful girls, pretty boys, life, love and rock ‘n’ roll. I bought the first volume, read it, promptly bought the next two, and continued along that path until I caught up. Now, I am doomed to the fate of waiting for each new volume out every two months from Viz.

Movie adaptations of comics are usually uneven, no matter what the comic is. While they may have things in common, they are still two different mediums of storytelling. Still, I wanted to see the adaptation of NANA.

It did not disappoint.

I don’t know how they did it, but the casting is nearly perfect. Mika Nakashima brings a sweet toughness to Nana O. and Aoi Miyazaki is perpetually cheerful as Nana K. They are the characters from the comic. Hiroki Narimiya is a little bit more of a goof than the Nobu in the manga, but Tomoki Maruyama inhabits the ultra-cool Yasu in an almost impossible way.

The details that went into this adaptation are also amazing — the 707 apartment and stairwell are pulled straight from the manga and the awesomely cool wardrobe is dead-on to the the often preposteous clothes the characters wear in the comic.

So the movie gets all of those things right. But how it is?

I liked it quite a bit.

Both the lead actresses capture this vulnerability of being a young twentysomething. They are women who are just figuring out who they are. While boys come and go in their lives, it’s most definitely about our two Nanas finding themselves and growing in their friendship with each other. Nana O. is aloof and Nana K. is constantly sunny. They find what the other lacks in each other.

The music is also delightful. Nana O.’s band, the Black Stones, plays a poppy form of rock. It’s catchy and definitely something I can understand people falling in love with. Rival band Trapnest is halfway between speed metal and J-pop, which is pretty much how I imagined they sounded from reading the manga. I’m glad the music works well since this is a story about music. It may not be something I want to listen to all the time, but in the context of the movie, it works well.

The movie seems to go through about midway of volume 5 (at least in the Viz releases) but it’s a good place to end this story. I know there’s a second movie, but I liked where it left these characters, even though I know there’s heartbreak to come.

This is probably one of the better movie adaptations of a comic I’ve ever seen. It managed to touch the same emotions the manga does. I think it would work on its own, without knowledge of the comic itself.

(I know that Viz is planning on releasing the anime of NANA this year, and I can’t wait. I really can’t get enough of it.)

Exit Wounds HC But at tfaw.com

It took me much too long to get to Rutu Modan’s Exit Wounds. I meant no disrespect to her or her book, though.

At SPX 2007, this book had recently came out and everyone was raving about it and how she was doing watercolor paintings in people’s copies of it and just generally being awesome. Being overwhelmed and out of money, I didn’t buy it.

And while I never forgot about it, in the year or so since, I also never quite getting around to buying it. But that’s where the library comes in.

Exit Wounds is the sort of comic (or “graphic novel” if you prefer to call it that) that you give to people who aren’t sold on the medium. This is a story for grown-ups. It’s not humorless or overtly dark, but it reminds me of what my mom would say when I’d ask her what certain movies were about when I was a kid.

This is a book about people.

Koby, a Tel Aviv taxi driver, gets mixed up in a woman named Numi’s obsession with finding his father — her lover — who may have been killed in a terrorist attack. As the story unfolds, both Koby and Numi begin to realize how little they knew of Koby’s father, Gabriel. Gabriel’s presence looms over the entire book, even though he never once appears.

Koby harbors a lot of anger toward his father; Numi, for her part, seems to have idealized the man. As they search for the man that they both actually knew little about, they do connect with each other. It’s a painful and beautiful journey. Modan never heightens the drama for effect — she’s just telling a story. The raw moments are always quietly told and Modan doesn’t shy away from the preposterous humor of these character’s lives.

Modan’s style of art here is clean and simple but still emotional, reminiscent the European ligne claire style. Her muted color palette gives the book a certain amount of warmth. She has a lovely eye for people and facial expressions, making this book engrossing. I loved getting to know both Koby and Numi and I want the best for the both of them, whatever their futures may hold.

I’d actually love to see this made into a movie (provided, of course, it was done right). It’s a beautiful story and I think one that would do well on screen.

Buy this for yourself. Buy it for your friends, comic-book doubters or otherwise. I really can’t wait to see what Rutu Modan does next.

Amid Amidi of Cartoon Brew links to a commentary by Danny Hayes saying that the people who worked on Coraline were mostly men.

Amidi doesn’t necessarily disagree with that, but does point out that women are making a lot of cool animation (and commenters there do point out the contributions of women in the production of Coraline).

Animation is maybe a little bit more difficult than comics, but with programs like Flash and such out there now, animation isn’t off-limits to anyone who wants to try it. If the Coraline production was a boy’s club and unwelcoming to women, that’s disappointing to me, but I do have hope that it was these particular circumstances and not a conspiracy.

While the contributions of women in mainstream animation may be currently lacking, Amidi concludes with this:

“In other words, the animation world is currently experiencing an unprecedented diversification of its gender make-up, and as a result, the art form is becoming much richer and more interesting to watch.”

And I can only hope these voices begin to get wider recognition.