krazy komiks konvention
July 22nd, 2011 Posted by david brothersBought: Peter Milligan, Steve Dillon, and Brett Ewins’s Bad Company, Judge Dredd Mega-City Masters 2
Saw: a very nice Charlie Huston panel that I had to work through like a douchebag
Read: The Walking Dredd, and the rest of the Megazine that I bought.
Thursday at San Diego: overall success. Had a nice night out, too. Was planning to go to the hotel and crash at around 2000, ended up going to the CBLDF party (donations at the door) and caught up with a few friends, then dipped to karaoke, then found out there was an hour wait at karaoke so we bounced to the Hilton, and then made it to the hotel after 000. Life is pretty okay. Shouts to the lady at the karaoke bar who was so impressed I stepped aside for her or something that she gave me one of those awkwardly deep hugs.
Things I’m gonna do today: slowly grow to hate listening to people talk about corporate comix more and more, spend a grip on French comics against my better judgment, and showing up wild late to the iFanboy party. Why am I showing up on CPT? Because of this:
6:30-7:30 The Best and Worst Manga of the Year— There are a whole lot of Japanese manga, Korean manhwa, and manga-inspired comics out there — but what’s worth buying and reading, and what’s not? Manga/comics bloggers/pundits Christopher Butcher (Comics212.net and The Beguiling), David Brothers (4thletter!), Eva Volin (School Library Journal), Carlo Santos (Anime News Network), and Deb Aoki (About.com Manga) share their picks for the best new and continuing manga series for kids, teens, and grown-ups and jeer at the most annoying manga published in 2010-2011. Room 26AB
Come out, ’cause I got jokes, son.
One last thing (for this week at least) on Hisao Tamaki’s Lovely Angels:
This is about as perfect an encapsulation of the Dirty Pair as you’ll ever see on one page. You’ve got Mughi, wanton destruction… it looks good. I like how it almost looks like they’re standing on a globe, while things explode in their wake and Mughi vogues in the background.
There’s a difference in the attitudes of Kei and Yuri on these pages due to a story thing, and I like how that difference plays out. They’re both still unbelievably good at their jobs, but Kei’s moving and dodging while Yuri is bloodlusting/sleepwalking through the swarms. Both are still doing work. Very cool.
Yuri’s hair in this, and the her actions, are one of the coolest things in the whole book. The fast drop, Kei’s look of surprise, and then BAM. I seriously love the way Yuri’s hair spreads in panel three and falls in panel one. Hair isn’t something I notice a lot, barring Storm’s stupid hair in X-Men. It’s usually used to show simple motion–a jump, a whip-fast turn–but here it’s used to set the speed of the scene. It’s very elegant. Yuri is so mean in this scene.
Blood rains down. Dirty Pair is super bloody, but this is a rare instance of the blood showing up dark on the page, rather than white. I’m curious if that’s a ratings thing (we can only get SO explicit, so let’s save it for impact) or strictly a stylistic thing.
These are seriously fun comics, though. I’d love to see them translated. I’m not sure if the release of the Dirty Pair tv show was a success or not, but I’d like to think that if it was, this manga could pretty easily draft along in its wake. It’s got a modern style, but isn’t mired in modern conventions, so it’d be a nice alternative to a lot of stuff right now.