Over on his blog german designer and omni-opinionist HD Schellnack is currently putting himself on the line, accepting, completing and documenting assignments given to him by his readers, not unlike for instance Dirk Schwieger?s Moresukine project
And, yes, he?s doing it just for kicks.
This was my mission for him: “Get on a train, choose four random persons and hand them a snowball, blue, red, yellow and green respectively. You may wear a gorilla mask.”
And, what can I say? That guy killed. Not only is the mask hilarious, but he also chose one of the coolest possible locations for his performance, the teleferic in Wuppertal. The one the elephant fell out of, so apes with snowballs should not really get people to blink much more than twice.
(Of course he cheated a bit by handing out ice cream instead of snowballs, but man, murder on the dancefloor, is all I can say.)
So, Congrats HD, mission accomplished ? Gorillas On The Train
I have this thing about loss.
Loss in all it´s glory. Dependance in all it´s tragedy.
Lost places, their position in the realm of meaning; shifted.
Abandoned by their masters´ hopes, their dreams; stripped of relevance; punished, caressed, reused; washed over by interpretations of purpose;
Enduring, they wait; eternally; redeemed for their creators´ hybris.
» Absence Of Water a photo-set by Gigi Cifali
Why, you ask, is there sunshine after the rain.
Why, you ask, is there laughter, is there anger, is there pain.
Wyh then, you ask, do children have to grow up.
Why then, you ask, do tears have to dry.
Because, and that is what they told you, there is no point.
To all of this and none of this.
Because, they say, you are not asking the right questions.
Machinegirl is dead.
» Cozy Sollipsism 10 – 2+1/2 hours anniversary extravaganza
I remembered a time when everything was better.
I remembered a time when everything was simple.
I remembered a time when everything that glittered was gold.
And then I woke up.
You´ll have to be very, very strong now.
[In which, while the rest of the gang is already busy compiling their Best-Of 2008 lists, I finally manage to post my list of the best the last year had to offer]
Initially I had planned to do three seperate lists, for Manga, Mini-Comics and, er, “proper Comics”, coz honestly, comparing a self-copied Mini-Comic to a multivolume high-end series of french albums is neither sane nor sensible, but then I thought, what the fuck and tossed it all together anyways; sometimes I like life´s little imperfections.
Of course, looking through the list, you will notice some glaring omissions; all of these fall firmly into one of two camps, “didn´t read it” or “didn´t like it”. Prime examples would be Acme Novelty Library #18, Drifting Classroom and Mushishi, which I haven´t read (but bought) at this point, or Shortcomings, Immortal Iron Fist or De Cape et de Crocs, which I did read, but didn´t think to be all that hot. (So according to the Chris Butcher definition of Best-Of lists this thing here isn´t worth shit at all)
The way I´m gonna handle this then, apart from just listing stuff here and now, is not to accompany each entry with a little note as to why I think it to be rocking; in a way I´m gonna use this to put the pressure on myself, as I´m – drums rolling – going to review each of the books, in sequence, starting at the bottom; hopefully finishing before it time to compile this year´s list. Since I´ve never done much reviewing on this blog it´s gonna be kind of a steep learning curve and it might not always be fun but who knows, right?
Now for some stats: Japan steals the top spot, a little surprise even to myself, with 21 titles on the list, American Comics (which includes Exit Wounds, which frankly I didn´t know where to put; Israel takes part in the Eurovision Song Contest after all) come in second with 13 titles, Euro Comics and Minis share third place with 8 titles each (which is a roaring success for minis looking at other people´s lists).
It´s a bit complicated actually, as Tom Gauld would technically be Euro, but is counted for the Mini Comics team, also Gipi even published by First Second is Euro instead of US. Leave it to me to mess up my own statistics.
(Of course if you look at it under the premise “Japan against the world”, the world wins by 29 to 21 but that would be kinda cheating.)
So then, without further delay, here goes, the best books of 2007, according to me:
50. Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba + Takeshi Obata
49. Seafood, Twilight Of The Seacow, Trilobite by Josh Frankel
48. Eight by Atsushi Kamijo
47. Red Eye, Black Eye by K. Thor Jensen
46. Moresukine by Dirk Schwieger
45. Fell by Warren Ellis + Ben Templesmith
44. The Monkey & The Crab by Shawn Cheng + Sara Edward-Corbett
43. Clarence Principle by Fehed Said and Shari Chankhamma
42. Death By Chocolate Redux by David Yurkovich
41. Homunculus Hideo Yamamoto
40. Gakuen Alice by Tachibana Higuchi
39. Thin-Bear Loves His Brother by Joseph Lambert
38. Battle Angel Alita:The Last Order by Yukito Kishiro
37. Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service by Eiji Ohtsuka + Housui Yamazaki
36. Usagi Yojimbo by Stan Sakai
35. Trans Siberia, Trans Alaska, Trans Atlantis by Tomasz Kaczynski
34. Le Marquis d’Anaon Fabien Vehlmann & Matthieu Bonhomme
33. Re-Gifters by Mike Carey + Marc Hempel
32. Hikaru No Go by Yumi Hotta + Takeshi Obata
31. Désoeuvré by Lewis Trondheim
30. Scott Pilgrim Bryan Lee O´Malley
29. Insekt by Sascha Hommer
28. Criminal Insects by Stuart Immonen
27. Alive by Tadashi Kawashima + Adachitoka
26. The Aviary by Jamie Tanner
25. Bokurano by Mohiro Kitoh
24. What A Wonderful World by Inio Asano
23. Shonen Shojo by Satoshi Fukushima
22. Leo Geo by Jon Chad
21. Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan
20. Dogs + Water by Anders Nilsen
19. Guardians Of The Kingdom by Tom Gauld
18. Parasyte by Hitoshi Iwaaki
17. One Piece by Eiichiro Oda
16. Stop Forgetting To Remember by Peter Kuper
15. Yotsuba&! by Kiyohiko Azuma
14. Garage Band by Gipi
13. Astral Project by Syuji Takeya
12. Iblis by Kelli Nelson
11. Blood Alone by Masayuki Takano
10. The Blot by Tom Neely
9. Gantz by Hiroya Oku
8. Eden by Hiroki Endo
7. 20th Century Boys by Naoki Urasawa
6. King Cat Classics by John Porcellino
5. The Complete John Difool by Jodorowsky + Moebius
4. Pourquoi j´ai tué Pierre by Oliver Ka + Alfred
3. Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms by Fumiyo Kouno
2. Kamigami No Itadaki by Jiro Taniguchi + Baku Yumemakura
1. Donjon by Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim + Various
Sometimes only comics can do what comics can do.
There is a silent simplicity to this übercute, 12-panel story about a hatching chicken that would be hard to achieve in any other medium; well maybe except for an experimental electronic recording.
In animation, I´m sure you´d be tempted to drown the toned-down, sparse, even brutally so, brevity in visual punnery; sugarcoat; charm it to death.
12 panels. Story told. Sometimes only comics can do what comics can do.
» Queenie Chan .: Sleeping Chick
There might come a day, in the future, sometime, somewhere, when I will be able to resist the offer to make a list, but today is not this day; not even when I´m some 20 days late into the game.
Well, I WAS, in spain after all.
So while I was away, as soon as I was on the plane no less, all the cool kids played a little game called “Name Five Archival/Translation Projects That Aren´t Happening Right Now (As Far As You Know) That You´d Love To See.” – but looking at that list, there´s not much I´d run out to buy should it actually be published.
Fortunately the even cooler kids, the ones I´d choose to hang out with, even if they´d only sneer at me, decided to do play a manga specific version of that game; and I´m gonna play too.
So there, here, the five manga works I´d love to see, translated:
.: Pluto by Naoki Urasawa
After two low-selling series published in german so far, and by low selling I mean looooow selling, this was supposed to be Urasawa´s break-out hit. There was a lot of buzz surrounding the announced release of Pluto, at least in the circles that I usually move in; and given the current waves of success enjoyed by “literary” mangaka like Jiro Taniguchi, all cards played right, he could have become the next critical darling.
Unfortunately, it was not to be.
If rumors are to be believed; well, scratch rumors as the would-have-been german publisher has gone on record stating that, due to legal difficulties between Tetsuka Productions and Shogakukan, as things are now, it would be highly unlikely that Pluto would ever be published outside of Japan.
.: Nijigahara Holograph and pretty much everything else by Inio Asano
Extremely polished drawings pervaded by a fists-clenched-serenity; mundane at times, but boiling beneath the surface; Asano is the Jim Jarmusch of manga.
.: Subaru – Solitude Standing by Masahito Soda
A book about dancing, not the kind of material I´m instinctively drawn to, full of heartbreak, hope and, pathetic as it sounds, life.
For most people the at times sketchy, at times seemingly rushed art was kind of a turn-off but for me it was what initially attracted me to the series.
Currently the sequel is being serialized in Japan, but since, much like Monster, Subaru sold pretty much as good as donkey droppings the probability of it ever being published are slim, and that is the optimistic estimate.
.: Kid? Ryodan Hachifuku Kami by Satoshi Fukushima
In some ways the little kid brother of Asano, his drawings are loser, the storytelling not as tight, yet broader in topic, the 4 volume Shonen Shojo – a collection of short stories – was one of the pleasant suprises of recent publishing cycles.
Kid? Ryodan Hachifuku Kami is currently running in Comic Beam and I´d really like to see what he can achieve when working on a longer narrative.
.: Bokurano by Mohiro Kitoh
Giant robots; we´re talking about japanese comics after all. But Bokurano has the added feature of inbuilt heartbreak; yeah I like my emo cranked up to 11, I´m the Spinal Tap of emo; as it has kids doing the fighting, kids that were tricked into fighting; kids that die after they win. Kind of like a cross between Gantz, minus the naked girls and excessive gore, and Mobile Suit Gundam.
And while we´re at it how about reprinting Naru Taru?!