Review: AX Alternative Manga

Posted on June 9, 2010 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

There’s a few things I don’t understand no matter how hard I try: most alternative comics and why people like Bon Jovi.

Thus, reviewing AX Alternative Manga is a bit of a challenge for me. I like art that’s attractive and usually art that’s clean. I like stories that I can follow, where I know what’s going on and it’s not just “Why are these people making a weird sexual dance contest out of a snoring man on the street?” I try to branch out as much as I can because I know there is merit in art and storytelling that is unconventional, but if I’m going to be honest here, sometimes I just want something simple, clean and attractive. AX has a lot of short stories that I neither found attractive or could follow well.

And that was the point of the whole thing!

AX is a compilation of short stories from the Japanese bi-monthly alternative manga magazine of the same name. The magazine itself rose from the ashes of the late alternative manga magazine Garo and now U.S. publisher Top Shelf Productions is publishing hand-picked stories from 12 years of AX history. It’s full of stories from manga greats like Tatsumi Yatsuhiro, Sakabashiri Imiri, Yamamoto Takato and, let’s face it, a ton of other artists most of us have never ever heard of before this compilation. There is a myriad of art styles, ways of storytelling and levels of absurdity. The magazine itself strives to bring whatever it is the creators want to publish to light, which is commendable in a publishing world where cliched stories and generic art can be the norm many mangaka are forced into.

I’ll start with some of my favorite stories, since that seems like the most logical place. My first favorite, and the story I could relate to the most, was Tatsumi Yastuhiro’s “Love’s Bride.” Because, (and I am not kidding) I have had a primate fall in love with me.  I was ten, he was an adolescent male orangutan in the jungles of Borneo named Gistok and we fast became friends. My last day there he tried to pull me up a tree by my hair very insistently, but alas, I had to return to California. There was something a little touching in the relationship between Usami and Chie-Chan, despite the fact that at the end of the story there was almost certainly some depravity going on.

I also really liked “The Rainy Day Blouse” and it’s sister story “The First Umbrella” by Akino Kondo, who did the cover illustration, because it just struck me as something very real that a girl would do and I like things that come off as inherently real despite it being fantasy. “Puppy Love” by Yusaku Hanakuma because I liked its message of accepting your family, especially the different ones, and its tragedy. “Rooftop Elegy” by Takao Kawasaki because it was one of those stories that is ridiculous and then just pulls together in the end, which I love.  And “Kosuke Okada and His 50 Sons” which was just strangely adorable.

Overall, AX was a mixed bag for me, and I expect it will be a mixed bag for most everyone who reads it. But I still LIKED reading it even if I didn’t get that “I get this entirely and my eyes have been opened and I love this” feeling about the entire anthology. I really wanted to get that feeling after reading it. I enjoyed about half of the stories in there,  most of the rest I didn’t really enjoy or just couldn’t understand and a few just grossed me out a little like Takashi Nemoto’s “Black Sushi Party Piece.”

In the end, I have immense respect for Top Shelf’s decision to put this anthology out. It’s certainly a risk to put out this kind of manga because most manga fans are going to avoid it and comic book and alt comics fans might reject it because it’s manga. This is certainly a book for people who are open to any sort of comics, people who are into short stories and/or people who don’t mind a lot of grotesque pictures of male genitalia. I do suggest you buy it because it is an important piece of manga publishing in the U.S. even if you don’t get alternative comics at all.

The publisher provided a review copy.

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Comics & Girls: We want to kick ass

Posted on June 2, 2010 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

It has been said that super hero comics are male fantasies. I don’t remember when and I don’t remember where, but it’s true. So when Hope Larson posted the results of a survey on what women want from comics, it was clear that every female who read those results was hoping to see more comics that satisfy female fantasies.

Girls and women want mainstream comics to change to include them. By include them, I mean that Marvel or DC shouldn’t be creating separate comics for the ladies (which is terribly sexist), but to allow female readers everywhere to read a comic without cringing at a super heroine who looks like a Barbie doll who’s gone under the knife or sighing at stories where women take a backseat to a more powerful male hero.

That isn’t to say we want all those male heroes to be replaced by strong women in outfits that don’t make them look like hookers, but that we’d really like more of a team dynamic. More ladies stepping up to the plate would be nice. If we can look up to those ladies and not see someone who looks like her primary function is to make guys horny and isn’t kicking ass as much as she should. Below are my suggestions to help make super-hero comics more accessible without compromising what makes them popular in the first place…

1. Stop with the Porn Star Barbie: I get that guys want their eye-candy, but to be honest it grosses me out (and a lot of other girls I know) to see the way most ladies are drawn in comic-books. It’s actually one of my main complaints about comic book art is that everything is so grossly over-exaggerated and 0ver-stylized. I am not saying that needs to change drastically, but it would really really be great if got to see some thick girls (they don’t have to be fat girls,  some girls are just naturally thick at their healthiest weight) or girls that can fit into bra sizes regularly sold at Kohl’s or someone who wears sneakers with their crime-fighting garb instead of some ridiculous heels. Don’t force everyone to show off their tits either. Let a girl cover her chest up. Maybe then she can show off her J.Lo booty. Maybe there are some male readers who would really like to see some J.Lo booty. And a lot of girls with big butts ARE proud of them. Anyway, you don’t have to change Emma Frost’s bra size. Just stop turning her into some exotic dancer whenever she puts on a costume. It would actually be way nice to see the men toned down too.  The one really nice thing about Kick Ass was that Mark Millar did not force us to believe that Kick Ass was anything more than a normal guy with a normal body type. And let’s face it, few people are instantly attracted to men with monstrous muscles when they walk down the street but intimidated!

2. None of this: If you clicked on that link, you just saw a bunch Disney princesses and other characters in various states of sexy pin-up girl. They are also in various states of vulnerability, with the exception of Maleficent, and undress. Guys, your first reaction may be “so what?” but there are tons of women out there who look at something that has art like this and choke down guilt for buying something so demeaning just because they like the story or a character. It’s like making a girl buy condoms when she would never ever make you buy her tampons or pads. It’s uncomfortable and what if someone notices? Awkward! In this art, these female characters have to pose like models when most of them AREN’T models. Do you ever see the guys pose like that? No. Because that would look (excuse my language) gay.  So they get action shots or power stances when they’re on a cover, but when a woman (or women) gets one, she’s more likely to look like she’s auditioning for Victoria’s Secret.  Where are the ladies’ power stances? Just once, I’d like to see a bunch of women on a cover with no tits pushed out for the world to see!

3. No more sexual violence: Like the above, it makes women in these comics vulnerable. And do we ever see a male super hero become the victim of sexual violence? Uh, no. That would be emasculating. Guys wouldn’t respect Batman anymore if he had to reach for the soap in a prison shower. Even gay characters don’t have to deal with that kind of violence. So why is it O.K. for the ladies to be the subject of that kind of violence? It isn’t no matter how you put it. If you can’t make it happen to both men and women without turning off your readers, THEN DON’T DO IT. Figure out some other way for a character to be humiliated and shamed. It’s not impossible.

4. Treat your ladies like they are your bros: Not every woman in super hero comics has to be so much a part of the team that she only dates/marries/sleeps with/etc. with other super heroes. There are plenty of girls who wouldn’t even think of dating some of their guy friends because they don’t want to ruin that friendship or make it awkward. And where are the great romances between super-heroines and their civilian partners? I can’t think of any that are as well-known or long-lasting as Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson or Clark Kent and Lois. Sure, it’s normal for a group of close friends to have hookups, but that can easily lead to the kind of drama you left back in high school. Do you really want to read about that AGAIN? Wouldn’t it be cool for more super heroes and heroines to find love and acceptance outside the world of capes? Yeah. Wouldn’t it be cool for them to still be totally active as a super hero with super hero and non-super hero friends? Oh yeah.  I want to see more super heroes and heroines just be great friends who plan parties and go drinking with the X-Men AND people outside the JLA.

5. Let the ladies kick ass and take names: It’s not that they can’t, it’s that men so often steal the spotlight. Letting a lady shine every once in awhile will probably make her more popular. Then all the much-ignored super-heroines might be able to become the stars of blockbuster movies and whatnot. That seems like a really great way to monetize the ladies. Either way, if publishers depend on what they know will interest the readers they already have, they lose a lot of opportunities to create interest where there wasn’t any before.

6. Don’t make your super hero comics about romance: Let’s face it, if women were getting into capes because we wanted to squeal about such and such with so and so, we would probably avoid all the issues that didn’t focus on a romance. Ladies like action too! That’s why any devout female reader buys comic books.  We know where to get our romance fix a lot faster and a lot cheaper than collecting tons of issues of comics. That isn’t to say you can’t include romance at all, but include it in such a way that a reader is getting a glimpse of the life outside super hero life. Let them do their laundry on top of going out on a date. Show real life when you’re showing real life! Super heroes need to make dinner too! In the end, you should be creating your super hero comics for everyone. Not just women, not just men, not just children. Expand your market as much as you can and you’re more likely to get more readers. It can’t hurt to try. What have you got to lose? Readers you didn’t have before anyway?

By starting to cater to more than just grown men and children, comic book publishing companies will be fulfilling not just male fantasies, but female ones as well.  Not just women, but catering minorities or other ethnicities will probably have more of an impact than most publishers would think. I know the way the Jewish community works, anything that involves Jewish people some way somehow gets talked about in Jewish papers worldwide. I doubt other communities are much different. If a comic book company does it right, they’ll get good press with an untapped audience. People will probably buy their stuff just because it’s got an Armenian or Cambodian or transgendered super hero or heroine. Why? Because  people will think it’s cool that someone in the mainstream media is finally paying attention to THEM.

What we have now is a world of fans that would love growth, but an industry that relies too much on a world of fans who are stuck in their ways. Just look at the comments of this interview with Hope Larson, who did her survey in order to better reach more people who would want to read her comics. The misogyny, hatred and arrogance of some of the commentators will just make super hero comics a dying breed because people will start moving over to where their fantasies are satisfied.

It’s time to get with it. Starting with the ladies and working our way through everyone else.

Another great read on the subject:

The Problem with Representations of Women in Comics – Jezebel.com

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I'm going to Fanime!

Posted on May 28, 2010 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

Hey everyone!

I wanted to bang out another blog post before I went to Fanime, but I ran out of time…

Anyway, I’ll be at Fanime this weekend and if you’ll be there too, why don’t you come over and check out the panel I’ll be hosting with Manga Recon’s Sam Kusek?

Interning in the Manga Industry
Saturday 7 p.m.
Check the schedule for room details

Bye everyone! Have a great memorial day!

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May MMF: To Terra, A Space Holocaust

Posted on May 24, 2010 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

There was something chilling about reading To Terra… from Vertical for the first time this weekend. I couldn’t really put my finger on it until I started thinking about how I wanted to write up the series for this month’s MMF.  It reminded me of the Holocaust in different skin.

The obvious comparison, is the on-going oppression of the Mu. The Mu are killed when found before or after the Maturity Checks (think eugenics) and any Mu hiding in human society is likely to be killed on the spot as well. There’s no death camps or labor camps for Mu, but they are discriminated against for their telepathic abilities and weaker bodies despite the fact that they are still human. While the Jews didn’t exactly have telepathy, there were plenty of other “qualities” that the Jews “possessed” that made them so reviled by other Europeans.

On top of that, human society uses the Mu as lab rats, much like the infamous Josef Mengele. Much like the Jews, the Mu go into hiding and must use the most desperate measures in order to stay hidden, moving from place to place and hoping they are safe there. My grandmother did the same thing after Kristallnacht, moving from Austria to Hungary and then into the Hungarian countryside when the Nazis came for the Jewish men and took my grandfather away. (He later was freed from Auschwitz-Birkenau by American troops while waiting in line for the gas chambers.) That intense journey to find a safe place to call home reminds me of the Mu in so many ways. Much like the Jews, the Mu have their own resistance and there are even a few humans who are against the Super Domination regime like Seki Ray Shiroe.

Even the human side of things reminds me very much of Nazi Germany and the anti-Semetic attitude of the rest of Europe at the time. All the humans listen blindly to the super computer, Mother, while she dictates every detail of their lives, from the level of the education to whether they get to marry or not. That may not be totally Hitler-like, but it certainly matches certain aspects of the Nazi regime. Educational Station E-1077 isn’t that far from the Hitler Youth, weeding out the elites of society from the inferior chaff, preparing new leaders and also new soldiers. Keith Anyan is the perfect example of this. He’s breed right down to the very last gene to be Mother’s perfect child. The foster parent system on Ataraxia and other planets in To Terra are similar to Nazi eugenics that attempted to promote Aryan dominance through careful marriage choices and create the perfect genetic and mental environment. There are even some hints that Mother is not what she seems or promotes,  much like Hitler’s supposed Jewish ancestry.

Of course, the comparison isn’t perfect. There’s no real equivalent to Jomy Marcus Shin, Physis or Soldier Blue as the Jewish resistance was scattered at best and the Jews in hiding certainly did not have one leader.  However, if I were to make a comparison on a smaller scale, you could equate them to being like the rabbi of a shtetl, many of whom kept their communities together after being taken to concentration camps. Such people were pillars of their communities no matter what happened to the people and Jomy and Solider Blue are similarly exalted by the Mu.

A quick edit: I forgot to add that the Mu’s spirit and drive to return to Terra is never extinguished, much like the Jewish spirit was never truly trampled no matter what indignities they faced.

Don’t get me wrong, To Terra isn’t about the Nazi regime or the Holocaust, but the similarities struck me so hard when I realized it that I can’t help but wonder if Keiko Takemiya researched the time period as an example for her totalitarian society and it’s victims. All of this is making me so eager to read the third volume and see if this similarity continues.

As for the the quality of the story and the art, both are amazing. Like I said before, I’m kicking myself for not finding volume three a little sooner before the MMF started. Takemiya’s writing kind of smooth in that way that I keep reading without noticing how far I’ve gotten or really noticing the craftsmanship of it. I think that’s the best kind of writing, where you just sit down, finish and go WOAH because you’re suddenly hit with awesome. The art is just what I want out of a scifi story. A lot of scifi manga decide to do something I like to call “detail porn” where every little technical aspect of a device is drawn. I’ve always thought that kind of art was overdone. Instead, Takemiya uses her shojo stylings and some of the aspects of the story to make the background art not just about the machines behind the people, which is great because this manga is very much about the people. Another thing I noticed was the way she differentiated between the soft, ethereal Mu and the somewhat harsher humans. The Mu all have light hair, clear eyes and slightly pointy but delicate features whereas the humans are either sharper or fleshier. I like how the Mu are sort of fairy-like while the humans are very real and kind of pudgy or something.

As for the editorial side, the translation is excellent and I noticed only a few mistakes like not erasing the Japanese text behind the English text. The biggest recurring problem I saw was with word flow that occasionally split out into the art. I kind of come from the school where art is top priority in manga and we’d best not interfere with it.

Overall? I’d recommend it. It’s a masterpiece of a different kind and it’s wonderful to see different kinds of classics released in English.

If you’d like to check out other Manga Moveable Feast entries on To Terra…, please check out Kate Dacey’s roundups at The Manga Critic.

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The End of CMX, Two Days Later

Posted on May 20, 2010 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

Two days ago, I gave the middle finger to DC for shutting down CMX.

I don’t feel much less angry about it today. I loved CMX as a manga fan. They put out great titles that should have received more love from other fans, let alone their parent company. They didn’t get that and I assume that’s why DC is closing CMX. One big hit can’t ALWAYS pay for all the losers.

But the biggest reason I said “fuck you, DC” was because it was obvious to me that DC never understood what it was doing with CMX and regarded it with the usual up-turned nose attitude a lot of comics fans take towards manga fans, illustrated best, I think, by David Welsh’s reaction post at Manga Curmudgeon. It was pretty clear to the manga blogging community in general that DC didn’t care about CMX whether it made money or not and that hurt the most.

I can’t say I hate DC in general. I certainly do not hate all the writers, artists, editors, accountants, marketing managers or anyone like that. They did not kill CMX, the highest echelons of DC did. Even then, I can see where those executives were just making another business decision. If an imprint is losing enough money to make your boat sink deeper into the water, why bail yourself out pail by pail with leaky buckets when you can just stop the hole from leaking entirely?

I understand it. If I were running DC, maybe I would have done it myself (albeit, very very very hesitantly), but it doesn’t make me less sad or less angry to understand that. Why? Because I’m a fan and I always have been, even if now I can go to Comic-Con as an industry member.

For more commentary about the CMX shutdown, visit Deb Aoki’s summary of blogger reactions at About.com. I’m not the only one who said “fuck you!” to DC.

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DC Drops CMX Manga

Posted on May 18, 2010 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

As if last week wasn’t enough of a blow to U.S. manga publishing, DC is closing CMX Manga, its manga publishing arm, and will cease publishing any new titles after July 2010 except for webcomic-turned-print Megatokyo under another DC line.

There’s nothing really to say about this other than a big: FUCK YOU, DC. What the hell do you mean you won’t finish Swan or Apothecarius Argentum or Stolen Hearts or From Eroica With Love!?

What about Deka Kyoshi? What about Nadeshiko Club vol. 1 (which is also by Stolen Hearts mangaka Miku Sakamoto)? What about all the series from DC I’ve been looking to collect  but haven’t been able to find easily? Thank goodness you’ve finished Emma! At least I won’t be denied my victorian romance unless I can’t find a volume in stores.

I know this is fan entitlement, but I think it’s only fair when DC’s made about all of the manga blogging community (and surely  many, many readers) so completely depressed by their announcement! I’m sure with all the Blackest Night/Brightest Day pandering could fund CMX long enough to finish what they’ve started. At least Del Ray is doing THAT MUCH.

And as if that weren’t bad enough, Amazon let slip a new CMX title YESTERDAY. JUST YESTERDAY.

I am completely disgusted with you, DC. And mad and sad and pretty much ready to cry if I hear more bad news about manga…

Goodbye, my sweet...

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(Hopefully) Brief Hiatus

Posted on May 14, 2010 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

For those of you who haven’t heard the news through twitter, I am currently having internet troubles at my current apartment and the internet at my new apartment won’t be turned on until Wednesday at least. To make matters worse, I have gotten a lot of assignments from Tokyopop, so obviously those are my biggest priority at the moment. Hopefully a friend will be helping me out on the internet front for a few days until I can do so in my own place. Luckily, this hiatus shouldn’t last more than a week.

Thank you everyone for your continued patience with this blog and your readership. I hope these problems will all be settled soon so I can get back to regular posting!

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