Comicsgirl

Archive for February, 2009

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.

YA author Barry Lyga, most known for his novel The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl, is going to be penning an illustrated short novel for Marvel called Wolverine: Worst Day Ever. The description makes it sound like fun.

I liked Fanboy and Goth Girl quite a bit because I think it’s one of the few books I’ve read that captured my high school experience so accurately. But I do kind of go back and forth about his character of Kyra — he certainly gets some things right, but she did sort of strike me as Lyga’s vision of how he would’ve liked teenage girls to be (I was actually thinking about this today, randomly). I’ll still probably read Goth Girl Rising — after all, I can’t complain too much about teenage girl who’s a Neil Gaiman fan.

Lyga knows comics and knows the soul of suburban teenagers. Worst Day Ever sounds delightful. I’ll be picking this up.

Media Bistro poses the question and gives a few answers, most of which fall into the “maybe” category.

I do know that a few of my friends, with no disrespect to their local comic book stores, have turned to mail-order subscription services for their floppies to save money. With the prices of floppies ever increasing (some of which are $3.99 per issue now), I do wonder how long the floppy issues have left. I know, I know, plenty of people have sounded the death knell of single-issue comics before, but the price may push plenty of people to stop buying. (I don’t buy single issues too often, mostly out of laziness so I’m probably not a good one to ask.)

I wonder if a sort of Japanese manga-phonebook style model may work for some comics — say for $16, you get 5 comics (like, for example, all of the X-Men titles) all bound together every month. Sure, it may not have the super-pretty Photoshop colors, but you’d still have a cost-effective way to read comics. And maybe, eventually, individual titles/storylines could be collected in pretty color for a premium price. I’d go for that, personally.

But obviously, for a lot of people who are trying to pay bills and keep their jobs, luxury entertainment items like comics will probably fall away. I think comics (and publishing) in general can weather this, but I think we all know there are rough times ahead.

We’ve all had about 24 hours to sleep and recover and go back to our normal lives and possibly read things about New York Comic Con on the Internet.

Edward Champion writes that he felt the fans came last at NYCC — that it was too commercial and didn’t provide enough social opportunities for geeks to get together. He says that’s because geeks are just a demographic now, a group to be marketed to. And I can honestly see his point, because it was loud and obnoxious (in a not terrible way) and I did feel like I was being sold to at every moment.

But I think it was plenty social. When I first got there, I remarked to my friend that this was like “prom for geeks.” And I meant that out of love, honestly. There were all these kids (and by that, I mean anyone between the ages of 14 and 23) in lovingly-made costumes or just in fun anime-inspired hats. It was definitely a place to show off, to see and be seen, in a supportive place. These kids, I imagine, aren’t the “cool” ones in their everyday lives, no matter how “cool” being a geek is now. This was a place for them to fit in with everyone. And that was awesome.

There were great costumes — certainly, we had plenty of people dressed as Batman and Superman. And there were packs of Jokers (old style and The Dark Knight style) and several Harley Quinns. There were anime characters I didn’t recognize. I saw a great She-Ra and two dressed as Aang and Katara from their days inside the Fire Nation from Avatar: The Last Airbender. I also saw another great Katara in her more classic blue outfit. Everyone I saw looked like they were having fun (or were resting from the aftermath of having fun). It may have been too loud and crowded to make new friends or connections, but I still got a sense of community from being there.

And while I can’t ignore the commercial aspects of it, I didn’t really expect anything else — this isn’t a small con held in a hotel. This is, more or less, a retail show. But I do think it’s the sort of event that it is what you make of it.

I’m still not convinced I’ll go back, but honestly, after recharging, I do realize what a thrill it was being there. It’s not something I need to do all the time, but well … maybe.

(But it’s basically convinced me I probably don’t need to go to San Diego Comic-Con ever.)

• 14:01 Had brunch and stopped at The Superhero Supply Store for superhero supplies. Just now headed to the con. #
• 14:02 Probably no actual blogging until I am home, though. #
• 15:54 The Graphic Novels: A New Literacy panel was cool, even for someone who is not a teacher, librarian or parent. #
• 16:06 Last hour. Still crowded, but less so. I managed to lose my friends, though. #
• 16:34 And I’m done. That’s enough for me. #
• 19:18 On the train. Sore from heavy bags and exhausted but happy. #

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(This was written on the train coming back from New York. I am home now. I am too tired to find a photo for this entry — may stick one in tomorrow.)

We kind of dawdled getting going today, but not in a bad way. I wasn’t particularly eager to get back to NYCC – I mean, it was fun, but in some ways, one day was enough. As I reported on Twitter, we made a stop at The Superhero Supply Co.

I am a fan of the whole 826 project – I mean, kids being taught to express themselves through writing is excellent – and the storefronts are fun. The Superhero Supply Co. is awesome. The sense of graphic design on the packing is impeccable and there is so much fun stuff to look at and purchase. I bought a pair of sunglasses shaped like your typical superhero mask. When making purchases, you have to recite an oath saying you are going to use your powers for good and not evil, and you also have to come up with a superhero name (and yes, they do not let you get away with not coming up with one). It’s delightful fun. I think it was possibly the highlight of the trip for me.

We eventually made it to NYCC in time for the Graphic Novels: A New Literacy panel (and a note to con organizers: Please stop scheduling similarly-themed panels at the same time. This was at the same time as the What’s New at Penguin and DK panel and overlapped with the related What are Kids Reading Now? Graphic Novels and 22 Pages panel. This wasn’t the only instance of this that I saw in the program). The panel was awesome, even for someone like me who is not a teacher, librarian or parent. I don’t really discriminate in what I read – certainly I read a lot of comics but it doesn’t keep me from reading prose either. I think comics can show reluctant readers that reading can be something they love and there are so many great comics out there for older children (for instance, anything from First Second, which does have a lot of comics based on history) that there’s no reason to not include them in an educational setting.

And I think Sophie Brookover of Pop Goes the Library is one of my new heroes. She’s smart and doing great things.

After the panel, we wandered a bit more upstairs. For being late Sunday, it was still surprisingly crowded. I didn’t buy anything else due to exhaustion setting in and just a general disinterest in fighting the crowd more.

Overall, I had a good experience and there was definitely plenty of excitement. But I did leave there thinking “OK, I’ve done this now. I probably don’t need to do it again.” It was too hard for me to shop and other than the few things I bought, most of what was there either didn’t interest me (especially in terms of the small press stuff) or can pretty much be found anywhere. There may have been more, but trying to battle the throngs of people made it difficult to look at a lot of things. I would’ve liked to have gone to more panels, but a lot of them were on Friday or Saturday before I got there (that’s just how the schedule seem to fall).

If I go next year does depend on a lot of things, but I’d be happy to do it if I could just skip the whole shopping aspect and just spend the whole time in panels, screenings and presentations. That seems like where the interesting stuff probably is for me.

But I have no regrets. It was a fun weekend and I’m going to home happy.

In that admittedly bad photo are, from left, Matt Bird, Elizabeth Bird and Sophie Brookover