Author Archive

h1

Pharoahe Monch – “Time2”

May 6th, 2014 Posted by david brothers

One of my favorite aspects of music is how easily it can transport me to someplace else. Whether it’s uplifting, grimey, freaky, realistic, whatever—a song can change how you think for a moment in time. You’re not at your desk, filing papers and cheating with Tumblr. You’re doing WORK, reading BLOGS, at the SAME DAMN TIME. You’re not about to cheat on your old man or old lady. You’re about to creep, yeah, and keep that on the down low. It’s the music and the lyrics combining to be something incredible. Some artists are better at it than others, but I think good songs are generally songs you can fall into and believe in for three minutes.

Pharoahe Monch’s “Time2” is a song that hits it. It’s about overcoming, and the main ingredient in triumph is adversity. The chorus is a plea for help, the first line is about the eternal struggle, and the song is about being in over your head. It was inspired partially by a man’s real-life meltdown in Times Square, and this verse is crucial:

La-la-la-last ye-ye-year they hired me
And this-s-s-s we-we-we-we-week the-the-they fired me
And I g-g-g-got all these b-b-b-b-bills to pay
And what the f-f-f-f-fu-f-f-fuck am I supposed to say
T-t-t-t-to my wife she’s p-p-p-p-pregnant
And if the kid does not go to college his life’s irrelevant
And my-my-my melanin-n-n-n makes me a felon
And-nd I just wanna take this fuckin’ c-c-crack and sell it

Musicians are performers, and all of them play roles. Sometimes that role is limited to their own, but when they branch out and start bringing in or acknowledging other points of view, things get good. I’m thinking of Nas talking to a kid in “One Love,” Freddie Gibbs trying to figure out if his girl stepping out on him for somebody at her college makes her stank or him immature, Lana Del Rey mocking her lover on several songs, or Kanye making records about self-loathing and pride. There’s something special there, and here, Monch kills.

The role Monch is playing here is one of someone who has lost his job and has no real options left. It’s a common story, everyone knows the tune, but the stuttering is what got me here. It makes this character Monch is playing real. It’s a little addition that changes everything, like when characters in movies actually stop to eat or a martial artist pauses to visibly catch his breath mid-fight. It grounds the narrative, and in so doing, makes it something out of real life. It’s different from just saying it.

Monch is one of the most technically gifted rappers ever, and it shows in this verse. He’s always bending and blending syllables, but the effect I get from melanin/felon and/and, and the way they all play off “fuckin,” is the type of thing that makes you want to run a track back.

“Time2” is off Monch’s PTSD, an album that might just be my main thing this year. Heartfelt, emotional, and it’s so real that I keep coming back to it. This isn’t even the most emotionally-charged moment on the album, though it’s pretty high up there. It’s about depression, it’s about feeling bad, it’s about going through it, it’s about getting better and being better. Monch can take you somewhere real with lines as simple as “My family customs were not accustomed to dealing with mental health/It was more or less an issue for white families with wealth” or as rugged as “You dont figitty faze me yo, I won’t tigitty tase you bro/Figgity fucking cut you in half like it’s nothing minus the laser scope.”

Post to Twitter Post to Facebook Post to Reddit Post to StumbleUpon

h1

Space Brothers: Maybe Next Time

April 17th, 2014 Posted by david brothers

chuya koyama - space bros - nope

Created by Chuya Koyama, translated by William Flanagan, serialized on Crunchyroll. Space Brothers.

Not even humans can defeat the weather.

I like Space Brothers a lot. I’m ninety-some chapters in at this point and it’s managed to be funny, thrilling, sad, poignant, and good without really being anything but a low stakes slow motion kind of comic. There may be death or failure or tragedy, but it’s not really a comic that trades on those. Koyama is telling a story about triumph more than tragedy, so any setback is put into a greater context that ameliorates it some.

Space Bros is good because its two lead characters are a remarkably motivated and successful astronaut and his unlucky older brother, who is attempting to become an astronaut. He’s a dummy, but he’s not dumb, like an adult version of a shonen protagonist, so the series is constantly walking this line between comedy, motivational speaking, and amazing and meaningful coincidences from the past reflecting in the present day. It’s all very unbelievable, but it makes me feel good/sad/good, so I’m into it.

It’s facile, but it reminds me a lot of Twin Spica, one of my favorite comics from a few years back. Twin Spica had a cast of mostly underdogs knocking down obstacles left and right on their way to the top. It was sweet, it was earnest, it was very good. Space Brothers is very similar, though with sibling rivalry and friendship at its core instead of cute stubbornness. Space Brothers is astronomically less melancholy than Twin Spica, but they both share a certain amount of bittersweet sentiment, which in turns makes the triumphs better.

Or the jokes, like this one, where the dummy older brother gets ready to train to become an astronaut, sees the weather, and thinks twice.

(Vertical’s begun releasing Twin Spica in ebook format. You should read it. I wrote about it a little.)

Post to Twitter Post to Facebook Post to Reddit Post to StumbleUpon

h1

Three Comics Kickstarters

April 16th, 2014 Posted by david brothers

Some people I like a lot are doing Kickstarters that make me feel good about where comics as an industry are going. Check it out:

Smut Peddler 2014: LADYPORN CONQUERS EARTH is masterminded by Spike Trotman. I interviewed Spike back in February as part of Inkstuds Spotlight. Spike’s a great interview, funny, free, and most importantly, she knows how to talk about biz in a way that makes it easy for newbies like me to understand. I came away even more impressed and entertained than I already was, and it’s a delight to see Smut Peddler 2014, a sequel to the porn anthology she Kickstartered years ago, to blow up so huge. She asked for twenty grand, so far she’s up to one hundred five with eighteen days to go, and that means that all of the wonderful pornographers involved in this project are getting a fat stack of extra money on top of their page rate.

It’s 1) an anthology project 2) focused on lady-friendly pornography 3) with a page rate for the creative teams and 4) bonus cash for the creative teams, scaled according to how much money the project earns. Any one of these four things is a pretty wild idea according to common comics sense, but here are all four and it’s already a raging success. I think that speaks to something about comics as we know it right now, that there is an audience for this stuff that is not just being underserved, but not served at all.

But more than that, on a basic “Comics Needs To Be Better” front: artists are getting paid. And as the money coming in rises, they’re getting paid more. This is good. This is what comics shoulda been doing all along. Pay attention to Spike and her gang. Learn something.

-I’ve known Jason McNamara and Greg Hinkle pretty much since I moved out west, and I was glad to see them put up THE RATTLER a 96-page graphic novel thriller. Greg’s an artist that people are gonna dig once he breaks out, and Jason’s a mean writer in the best sense of the word, a real blood-in-the-unrepentant-grin kinda guy. They’ve been cranking away at this book for ages, and the Kickstarter is to publish it, rather than complete it. The book is done, so this is more like a pre-order than anything else. I’m stoked, personally, both because it’s great to see these guys succeed, but also because it’s sorta representative of what I think Kickstarter can be great at, which is connecting creators and readers without a middleman or marketing team getting in the way. “Here is my book. If you like it, buy it?” It’s basic, but Kickstarter can enable a lot of people who had exceedingly limited options beforehand, and I think The Rattler is a good example.

-There are a ton of comics out there that aren’t Marvel & DC, and I’ve been slowly figuring that out and dipping my toe into those waters over the past however many years. It’s tough to know where to start, but I’m glad Zack Soto and crew put Study Group Comic Books out there. It’s a webcomics site with a bunch of indie comics from a wide variety of creators, with a few print books on the side. Study Group Comics: 2014 Spring Pre-Order Fest is the Kickstarter for Study Group’s books this year, including new Farel Dalrymple and Sam Alden. A big part of figuring out this side of comics for me has been being able to check out Study Group and following the breadcrumbs. Sometimes finding new dope stuff is as easy as clicking on whatever looks cool.

I like all three of these projects and the folks involved. On top of that, all of them have a digital-only tier with PDFs. That’s my favorite kind of Kickstarter. DRM-free is the way to go, and if you’re looking for a few new books, any of these should be enough. They all have about ten days left and they’ve all met their goals, but it’s still worth backing any or all of ’em.

Post to Twitter Post to Facebook Post to Reddit Post to StumbleUpon

h1

Nisekoi: Love Hurts

April 14th, 2014 Posted by david brothers

nisekoi - jokes 01

nisekoi - jokes 02
Written and drawn by Naoshi Komi, translated by Camellia Nieh, edited by John Bae. Nisekoi: False Love, 2014.

On the one hand, Naoshi Komi’s Nisekoi: False Love, currently being serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump is not my type of comic. It stars a Polite Loser who has girls of various types of specific fetishes chasing after him or aggressively ignoring him, depending on the lady. He’s pretty clueless and he secretly likes someone, but he’s in a fake relationship with another girl to bring peace to their respective Yakuza/mafia clans, so soap opera hijinks result…blah blah blah. It’s a hijinks romcom manga, not a crime manga, which is basically my entire problem. “This comic isn’t like an entirely different comic.” There’s a lot to like about it, anyway, though.

Nisekoi is drawn pretty well, despite not being my bag, so I like to flip through it when Jump comes out to see if anything catches my eye. While it isn’t entirely my type of comics, the joke in the middle tier of the first image and the entirety of the (nonconsecutive) second page have a sense of humor that are definitely my type of humor. I didn’t know comedy suplexes were a thing until I read GTO, and now I get a kick out of it every single time.

Post to Twitter Post to Facebook Post to Reddit Post to StumbleUpon

h1

Emerald City Comicon 2014: The Videos

April 11th, 2014 Posted by david brothers

I went to Emerald City Comicon, did six panels, and now you can see or hear most of them.

Image Comics Presents Comedy in Comics
Sometimes the best comics are the funny ones, but getting jokes across in print while simultaneously telling an engaging story can be tough. Luckily, we have a panel of experts who can tell you their secrets, tips, and a few really good jokes.

Panelists: Rob Guillory (Chew), Kurtis Wiebe (Rat Queens), Roc Upchurch (Rat Queens), Matt Fraction (Sex Criminals), Chip Zdarsky (Sex Criminals), Jim Zub (Skullkickers), Brandon Graham (Prophet)

Image Comics Presents Crime, Adventure, & Fantasy!
Gunfights, heists, cowboys, hoodlums, magicians, adventurers, aliens, and more: are you not entertained? Image Comics’ varied publishing line has something for everybody. Settle in and listen to the experts discuss creating entertaining stories.

Panelists: Kelly Sue DeConnick (Pretty Deadly), Jason Latour (Southern Bastards), Jason Aaron (Southern Bastards), Joe Keatinge (Shutter), Leila Del Duca (Shutter), Frank Barbiere (Five Ghosts), Joshua Williamson (Ghosted)

Image Comics Presents Building A Better Dystopia
No matter how good we have it, a future where we have nothing has its own thrill. These creators know their way around a dystopia, whether it’s due to mad science, economic factors, or nightmarish alternate dimensions.

Panelists: Nick Pitarra (Manhattan Projects), Greg Rucka (Lazarus), Simon Roy (Prophet), Ed Brisson (Sheltered), Johnnie Christmas (Sheltered)

I was also a surprise guest on Patrick A Reed’s “Hip-Hop & Comics: Cultures Combining” panel. It was a lot of fun. Some details for you:

Hip-Hop & Comics: Cultures Combining
Emerald City Comicon, Seattle WA, March 28, 2014
Presented by Depth Of Field Magazine

Featuring:
Patrick A. Reed
179 and Hops of Few & Far
David Brothers
Matthew Rosenberg
Jim Mahfood

The panel I did with Adam Warren and Brandon Graham was recorded, too, but the video hasn’t surfaced yet. Might end up being a once-in-a-lifetime experience…

Post to Twitter Post to Facebook Post to Reddit Post to StumbleUpon

h1

Freak-out Comix: East of West 09

April 1st, 2014 Posted by david brothers

East of West 09 - vizier

Drawn by Nick Dragotta, written by Jonathan Hickman, colored by Frank Martin, lettered by Rus Wooton. East of West 09, 2014. I work for Image.

This panel here is my desktop at work. It’s the Vizier from Dragotta & Hickman’s East of West, a character that has only appeared on a few pages of the series. I sat up and started paying attention as soon as I saw this panel, and it still makes me freak out a little. Black women in comics are rare enough, but ones drawn as well as this…well, Storm never had it so good, you know?

I spend a lot of time chasing that feeling. A comic that makes you freak out over some big move (“Now it’s my turn,” “’tis on,” the end of Top Ten, “thirty-five minutes ago,” “Me? I’m magic,” and so on) is cool, but lately I’ve been getting that feeling more from the little things, like a single panel of a comic that’s just perfect, or the way a character moves across a page. That feeling leads me directly to the feeling you get when you want to talk about something with someone else just to share the joy.

This one made me freak out because it’s drawn so well and perfectly staged. East of West is a good comic, I’m into it, but this felt over and beyond what I was expecting, like finding a hundred dollar bill in a roll of twenties. I like finding things that make me feel stupid, like I don’t even know how to explain why it works as well as it does.

Post to Twitter Post to Facebook Post to Reddit Post to StumbleUpon

h1

how we talk about social justice

March 25th, 2014 Posted by david brothers

In pretty much every social justice debate, once things have flared up and we’re off at the races, someone in the conversation is going to say something about how people are just mad to be mad, something something lynch mobs (with varied or veiled phrasing), blah blah the negativity of the internet, and yada yada some people are just looking to be offended. Sometimes they mean well, sometimes they want to defend their friends, and sometimes they’re just jerks. It happens. This commenter always frustrates me, because those remarks work to undermine the point of the argument, and the burgeoning movement, in what feels like very dishonest and cruel ways.

This kind of semi-support often acknowledges that harm was done and mistakes were made, but then positions the person who did the harm as the victim of an angry, lying mob, and the mob’s sin as greater than the original offender’s sin. The problem becomes the (so-called) mob and not the person who actually did the thing that kicked off the whole conversation.

We treat the concept of racism as this awful, verboten thing that’s defined largely by cartoonishly bigoted historical figures and anecdotes. The problem with that is that when it’s time for someone to acknowledge the iota of poison that might have been instilled in them by a poisonous status quo, they reject the idea entirely. Racism is strictly defined as something without, not within. And nobody wants to be a bigot, so we sympathize when someone gets hit with that brush and our first instinct is to prove that they aren’t racist, irrespective of whether or not they did a racist thing.

Treating the application of the racist label as being worse than the original offense is a problem. It removes the responsibility and attention from the person who did the thing and pushes it onto the people who reacted to the thing. The conversation becomes “Is this guy racist or nah?” instead of “Was this hurtful, and why?” It’s a fine point, but one worth standing your ground on. It paints the people as folks looking to smear someone’s reputation instead of anything approaching the truth of the matter, and once you pair that with the idea that they’re just a mindless mob looking for trouble, you’re in even hairier territory.

The idea that people are really into dog piling, with the implication that they receive some type of cred for getting at somebody, is the part of this phase that grates the most. I can only speak to my lived experience and my time writing about this stuff at excruciating length, but being offended? Getting mad at somebody for saying or doing something? It sucks. It’s not fun. It doesn’t get you any cred. Being offended is like having something really frustrating happen to you, and every choice you can make in that situation to make yourself feel better—to answer the offense, to ignore the offense, to even acknowledge the offense—has a psychic toll that is positively draining. If there is an upside to being upset, I definitely missed a memo.

Are there people out there going super hard for dubious or nebulous reasons? Sure, anything can happen. But why would you assume disingenuous motives with no proof at all? Why would you attempt to discredit, instead of accepting and rejecting? “I disagree, here’s why” is one thing. That’s a discussion worth having. “You made this up,” no matter how many layers of faux-politeness it’s buried in, could and should get you slapped.

The vast majority of people believe we should all be treated equally and that the various -isms should be eradicated. But when we are faced with a situation where an acquaintance or someone we like has messed up, we’ve got to be careful. Our first instinct is to defend and deflect instead of examine, but in something as complex and important as social justice, that’s not the best route.

We’ve got to be more compassionate. We’ve got to try to be understanding about where people are coming from and why they might be hurt, especially if it’s utterly baffling to us. You don’t have to agree or like what they’re saying, but please respect it. Be very careful with the words you choose and what they imply. If you disagree, disagree with words and thoughts of substance, instead of throwing veiled stones about “social justice warriors” and “lynch mobs” in an attempt to discredit them.

Post to Twitter Post to Facebook Post to Reddit Post to StumbleUpon

h1

Emerald City Comicon 2014, 4thletter! Edition

March 24th, 2014 Posted by david brothers

Pardon my promo, but Emerald City Comicon is this weekend, and I’m headed up to Seattle to work it for Image. It’s gonna be pretty busy for me, I think. I’m running the signings at the Image booth and doing the panels, so I figure I’ll be at the con from open to close, running laps around the booth and to the panel rooms and back.

Here’s what I’m moderating and who I’m talking to. You can find a signing schedule here. The booth’s 212.

Image Comics Presents Comedy in Comics
Sometimes the best comics are the funny ones, but getting jokes across in print while simultaneously telling an engaging story can be tough. Luckily, we have a panel of experts who can tell you their secrets, tips, and a few really good jokes.

Program date and time: Friday, March 28, 3:00 p.m. in Room TCC 301

Panelists: Rob Guillory (Chew), Kurtis Wiebe (Rat Queens), Roc Upchurch (Rat Queens), Matt Fraction (Sex Criminals), Chip Zdarsky (Sex Criminals), Jim Zub (Skullkickers), Brandon Graham (Prophet)

Image Comics Presents Sex Criminals
Sex Criminals debuted in 2013 and quickly became the book of the year. Now, a few months into 2014, the same looks to be true! Sit down with creators Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky and bare your soul, fetishes, and anecdotes with the Sex Criminals.

Program date and time: Saturday, March 29, 2:00 p.m. in Room 3AB

Panelists: Matt Fraction (Sex Criminals), Chip Zdarsky (Sex Criminals)

Image Comics Presents Crime, Adventure, & Fantasy!
Gunfights, heists, cowboys, hoodlums, magicians, adventurers, aliens, and more: are you not entertained? Image Comics’ varied publishing line has something for everybody. Settle in and listen to the experts discuss creating entertaining stories.

Program date and time: Saturday, March 29, 5:00 p.m. in TCC 301

Panelists: Kelly Sue DeConnick (Pretty Deadly), Jason Latour (Southern Bastards), Jason Aaron (Southern Bastards), Joe Keatinge (Shutter), Leila Del Duca (Shutter), Frank Barbiere (Five Ghosts), Joshua Williamson (Ghosted)

Image Comics Presents Building A Better Dystopia
No matter how good we have it, a future where we have nothing has its own thrill. These creators know their way around a dystopia, whether it’s due to mad science, economic factors, or nightmarish alternate dimensions.

Program date and time: Sunday, March 30, 3:00 p.m. in Room TCC 301

Panelists: Nick Pitarra (Manhattan Projects), Greg Rucka (Lazarus), Richard Starkings (Elephantmen), Simon Roy (Prophet), Ed Brisson (Sheltered), Johnnie Christmas (Sheltered)

On top of that, I’ve got a non-Image panel I’m running on Sunday featuring a couple of cool cats:

Harsh Realm: Adam Warren and Brandon Graham
Room: HALL D (602-603)
Time: 1:40PM – 2:30PM

Adam Warren (Empowered) and Brandon Graham (Prophet) are two creators at the top of their game. The two gather to discuss how they incorporate their influences in their work, creating comics that don’t look like any other comics on the racks, & more!

This is probably my biggest con weekend ever, at least in terms of responsibilities. I should probably quit trying to figure out what I’m gonna wear and start thinking about what I’m going to ask, huh?

Holler if you see me, forgive me when I’m busy.

Post to Twitter Post to Facebook Post to Reddit Post to StumbleUpon

h1

and we are all cyborgs

March 19th, 2014 Posted by david brothers

Last year, I provided an afterword for Archaia’s release and updating of Shotaro Ishinomori’s Cyborg 009, drawn by Marcus To, written by FJ DeSanto, and colored by Ian Herring. My copyright was left out of the book, but part of the deal was I kept the rights to the text so I could bring it here and show it to you. If you’re into Ishinomori, this Cyborg 009 dvd set is well worth checking out, too. This text is as it appeared in the hardcover, though I’ve styled the titles and headers differently than they appeared in print.


ishinomori, innovator

Something as simple as a cursory overview of Shotaro Ishinomori’s career can impress even the most jaded comics fan. He holds the Guinness World Record for “Most Comics Published By One Author,” laid the foundation for two separate popular genres, and blazed several different trails across a wide variety of projects. He had a fuller career than most people dream of, and even fifteen years after his death, his creations are still being revamped, remastered, and revived for all-new audiences. His influence is tough to overstate, and his remarkably fruitful career has resulted in a bibliography that’s a library unto itself.

Ishinomori often worked in a science fiction mode, filling his stories with giant monsters, transforming heroes, and robots big and small. His bombastic sci-fi tales worked magic on his target audience — young children and teens, generally — but that doesn’t mean that they didn’t appeal to adults. The contrary is true, in fact. Ishinomori employed classic hero versus villain tropes and slapstick humor in his work, but made sure to include just enough nuance and depth to make the stories fascinating from an adult point of view, as well. The subtext in his work speaks volumes, and often presents a fascinating point of view. Beyond that, the subtext meshes with the child-friendly material in a remarkably organic way.

Cyborg 009 is a classic example of Ishinomori’s broad appeal. A team of nine humans-turned-cyborgs rebel against Black Ghost, an evil organization bent on doing wrong. They fight other cyborgs and giant robots using special powers and laser guns. Each cyborg has his or her own custom power or specialty. Some are capable of moving at mach speed, while others can breathe flame. The fights are flashy and exactly as exciting as they need to be, but the subtext provides Cyborg 009 with an unexpected amount of depth. That depth makes the conflicts in the series even more resonant and exciting. It hints at a greater context than something that is purely the forces of good battling the forces of evil.

merchants of death

Cyborg 009 begins with a history lesson. Ishinomori quickly summarizes World War II, including the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, before introducing the idea of nuclear proliferation and the Cold War. He then immediately transitions to a meeting of the real villains of the series, creating a direct link between war and our villains. Instead of being a shadowy cabal of evil magicians, scientists, or aliens, the men behind the horrors sweeping over the globe were much more mundane. They were mere arms dealers and warmongers. They put up with the dramatic overtures of the Black Ghost and produce weapons of mass destruction in order to make money hand over fist. The evil of their actions is simply an acceptable side effect of business. It’s collateral damage.

Ishinomori’s use of warmongers as the prime movers of the series is pointed casting considering the atmosphere at the time. Cyborg 009 debuted in 1964. That’s less than 20 years after the end of World War II and the introduction of atomic warfare, 11 years after the end of the Korean War, and square in the middle of rapidly escalating violence in Vietnam. The world was in the process of being carved up by opposing forces, and the business of war was booming. The creation of newer and more lethal weapons allowed war to become a very profitable enterprise. The predations of warmongers partially led to the overwhelming paranoia and fear that permeated the Cold War era, and nuclear panic ensured that everyone knew that the world could end at any moment.

It’s telling that the villains have such a banal motivation, as well. Ishinomori’s villains may employ the classically cartoonish and outlandish tactics that you would expect from an organization with a name like “Black Ghost,” but at their core, they’re simply men who want more than they have and will stop at nothing to get it. They’re greedy, and greed is a very human failing. The human element is what makes Ishinomori’s stories so resonant, even decades after they were first introduced. The villains in Cyborg 009 are human to the core, and it is the very human capacity for unthinkingly callous evil that drives the Black Ghost.

The cyborgs are part of an arms race. In this case, the warmongers want to create new weapons to take advantage of new battlefields, and thereby avoid the peace process. They’re an escalation, another result of the evolution of war. Black Ghost’s plan to turn humans into cyborgs requires the corruption of human beings. Rather than soliciting soldiers or building a volunteer army of cyborgs from scratch, the organization chooses to kidnap innocent humans from a variety of places and walks of life and turn them into cyborgs. The Black Ghost, like war, can and will touch you, no matter how far removed you may think you are from the conflict.

man made machine

The international and diverse cast of Cyborg 009 hammers that home. Our nine cyborg heroes and the cyborg villains they battle are ballerinas and chefs, actors and delinquents, privileged and oppressed, adults and children. They represent us; they represent humanity. The cyborgs are unique, both in power and personality, but they all have a great capacity for good or evil. Like most humans, they simply have to choose between their baser natures and doing good.

The concept of free will is a vital part of the Cyborg 009 story, but Ishinomori explores coercion and the limits of free will, as well. The villainous cyborgs are under the control of evil forces, but still manage to demonstrate genuinely human traits, sometimes even in the midst of battle. Sometimes they’ve been bullied and are lashing out, and other times they repay a kindness as best they can, even if it goes against their programming.

They are human first, even when their human identity has been stripped away. Many of the cyborgs have been altered far past the point where they can be strictly defined as human. Cyborg 0013, for example, is a giant robot, while another is a Western-style mansion. But, no matter what we go through, no matter what horrors, we are still human. We have the capability to not just adapt to our situations, but to overcome them.

the good doctor

Part of what gives us the strength to overcome adversity is our community. We find strength in groups, wisdom from our elders, and motivation from seeing people like us succeeding. In the case of Cyborg 009, Dr. Isaac Gilmore serves as their mentor and engineers their jailbreak. Gilmore served as a scientist in the Black Ghost organization, and shares responsibility for the creation of the cyborgs. He rebelled against his employers, and in doing so, represents another important aspect of the human experience: repentance.

Gilmore, as an agent of the Black Ghost, did wrong. His intentions may have been honorable, but he took part in an experiment that forever ruined the lives of more than a dozen human beings. Many of the advances in science that led to the creation of weapons of mass destruction didn’t come from men and women who wanted to destroy the world. The pursuit of knowledge often comes with a catch, and Gilmore was lucky enough to realize the catch before he progressed too far down a dark path. He chose to stop and repent for his dirty deeds, and that gives him a strength and depth that is vital for the story of Cyborg 009.

Making up for mistakes is an important part of the human experience. It’s a way of exercising control over both yourself and your environment. You refuse to let yourself be defined by your mistakes, you work to make up for those mistakes, and in doing so, you change the world around you. You become the good person that you want to be when you seek forgiveness for your mistakes, and the knowledge that you have the capacity to slip up keeps you on the straight and narrow. You’ve been there before — you don’t want to go back again.

the morally upstanding juvenile delinquent

Joe Shimamura, better known as 009, is another example of a heroic character with rough edges. Originally, he was the son of a Japanese woman and a foreign father. He was considered an outcast, and he suffered for his heritage. He was bullied and teased, and he slipped fairly easily into the life of a delinquent. He didn’t become an outlaw because he wanted easy money, or because he felt like being a delinquent was fun. He was forced into a corner and he adapted.

He never left behind his inner goodness, however. After becoming a cyborg and returning to Tokyo, he comes across an old friend in Shinjuku. The friend is more than willing to bully and rob another person, but 009 rejects that idea. He stops his friend and rebukes him in front of a complete stranger. This kindness is repaid later, when the stranger is revealed to be a rival cyborg in disguise and chooses to spare 009’s life.

009’s graciousness is another sign, and an important one. You always have a choice. If you find yourself between a rock and a hard place and you do something wrong, that doesn’t mean that you’re incapable of doing right. It just means that you made a choice. You can always choose differently, even if it means temporarily alienating a friend to comfort a stranger.

The fact that 009 is the titular character and the window into the Cyborg 009 universe is fascinating. We see the world through 009’s eyes, and as a result, we can’t help but identify with him. 009 and the reader are both new to the world Ishinomori has created, and 009’s experiences color our own experiences with the world.

Many heroes are written as if they were always morally upstanding and have never, ever wavered in their beliefs. It’s a comforting idea to think that there is someone out there who always makes the right decision, but that isn’t realistic. Everyone makes bad decisions and goes through trials and tribulations. 009 is no different from anyone else. The difference is that he’s made the decision to reject the negative choices he made before, and to do right from that point on.

danseuse, soldat, femme

Francoise, unit 003, is innocent and unaffiliated. Where 009 had to fight simply for the right to live life as he wanted before he became a cyborg, 003 spent her time as a ballerina. Her passion was to entertain people, to be a living work of art. In a way her purpose in life was the opposite of what war represents. War devastates communities, destroys livelihoods, and lines the pockets of the men and women who don’t care who they hurt. There are no winners when it comes to war.

Dancing, on the other hand, is meant to enrich our lives. You can experience it on a physical level, as you admire the acrobatics and contortions the dancer performs. You can also experience it on an emotional level, as the movements of the dancer spark feelings within you. Dancing is meant to create appreciation in a viewer, while war only ever creates conflict.

By drafting 003 into their war, the Black Ghost organization is doing exactly what war does: it corrupts innocence. It takes something beautiful — whether that’s dancing or simply living your life as you wish — and dashes it against the rocks. It’s cruel and unfair and 003 is a perfect example of why. She’s a kind and sweet person, nice almost to a fault, and she did absolutely nothing to deserve her fate.

War respects no one. It doesn’t pick and choose whom it affects. It simply happens and we’re left to pick up the pieces. In the case of 003, she was left enhanced by her experience with the Black Ghost, thanks to the addition of high tech communications capabilities, but is left divorced from her previous life. She can’t go back, not without bringing the baggage she now carries with her. War’s touch is indelible. You can move past it, but it sticks with you. You’re forever changed.

cyborg soldier, human heart

One of the most impressive things about Ishinomori’s original Cyborg 009 stories is how resonant and relevant they remain to this day. The world has existed in a state of constant warfare for decades now, if not longer. Skimming the newspaper or Internet shows that armed conflict is a fact of life for many, many people. There are powers beyond our control that wish to divide the Earth up, reasonable people who have been forced into bad situations, and bad people who are eager to take advantage of bad situations. War is here, it is real, and sometimes it’s even right outside our window.

Ishinomori’s cyborgs represent us, but they do more than that. They encourage us. They inspire us. They suggest that someone, somewhere can stand against great evil and not just survive, but succeed. They can make a difference, whether that difference is pushing for nuclear disarmament in real life or battling evil cyborgs in fiction. All it takes is making a choice. The specific choices change as time goes on, but the core idea is incredibly versatile.

The cyborgs are human. Once you understand that, the meaning behind the rest of the series flows like water. Their enemies are war incarnate, men and women who would exploit the Earth for their own gain. After being touched by those enemies, the cyborgs are decidedly different than they were before, but their innate human goodness remains the same. They rage against the injustice they suffered, and they fight to make sure that that injustice is never perpetrated again.

The setting of Cyborg 009 is a world that is constantly on the brink of being destroyed. Governments wage war, shadowy figures finance and enhance those wars, and the only thing stopping humankind from being overrun are the actions of honest and moral human beings who refuse to let the wrong side win. The cyborgs are sacrificing their lives to prevent that exact outcome. There are plenty of reasons to be afraid, but there is a reason to have hope, as well.

Seeding a comic intended for children with these ideas may seem strange at first glance, but Ishinomori pursued his allegory in such a way that the story remains perfectly appropriate for all ages. Ishinomori stops well short of becoming overbearing or preachy. There’s nothing in there that’s inappropriate for children. Ishinomori couches the allegory in familiar ideas: a delinquent with a secret heart of gold, a wizened mentor, and a flashy and bombastic evil organization. It’s only once you scratch the surface that you realize the reason why Cyborg 009 works as well as it does is because it is working with deeper themes than pure “good versus evil” or squeaky-clean generic adventures.

– david brothers, 2013

Post to Twitter Post to Facebook Post to Reddit Post to StumbleUpon

h1

My Grandpa’s Stories Can’t Be This Weird

March 18th, 2014 Posted by david brothers

Kazuhiro Urata - Grandpa 01

Kazuhiro Urata - Grandpa 02

Written and drawn by Kazuhiro Urata, adapted by Tania Fukuda, translated by Abby Lehrke. My Grandpa’s Stories Can’t Be This Weird, 2014.

Kazuhiro Urata’s My Grandpa’s Stories Can’t Be This Weird, which runs in the free Manga Box app, is dumb. It’s the same kind of dumb that made Akira Toriyama’s Dr Slump one of my favorite comics. It’s aggressively-but-knowingly dumb, a shaggy dog joke with digressions that are actual jokes instead of distractions.

The hook is almost always the same. There’s a boy who just wants to go to sleep, a grandfather hellbent on reading a story to his grandson, and a storybook that is a wacky version of an established story. The kid reacts to each absurd new element with disbelief until the end, when the story kinda-sorta comes together.

There’s just one main joke here, and the fun is seeing how the joke is twisted into a new form with each new strip. Everything about this excerpt makes me laugh, and it’s just the first three pages. There was one a while back where he replaced all the characters in a fairy tale with murderers, good and bad, that has me ready to cry laughing by the end of page one, and the Red Riding Hood story is a new twist on an old joke with several utterly incredible bits.

There are a few other comics that have that one-joke framework that I like. I was an avid reader of Ryan North’s Dinosaur Comics for years, and ONE & Yusuke Murata’s One-Punch Man has a surprising number of gags based around one punch. (My favorite is a background gag, a bear that got knocked out in the woods.) My Grandpa’s Stories is more steeped in anti-humor than any of those series, but I’m really into it. Reading it is kind of like waiting for the point where a balloon tips over from inflated to burst.

Post to Twitter Post to Facebook Post to Reddit Post to StumbleUpon