fantagraphics:

Nijigahara Holograph

by Inio Asano; translated by Matt Thorn

February 2014

$26.99 Hardcover • 200 pages

Black-and-white • 7” x 9.25”

ISBN: 978-1-60699-583-9

Fantagraphics continues its line of acclaimed literary manga with new classic Nijigahara Holograph by Inio Asano. As society slowly spirals into darkness an unexplained explosion in the butterfly population is just the first of many curiosities in the town where rumors of a creature in a tunnel under the school spread like wildfire. A curse haunts the town as the story follows the scapegoat, Arié, who is plunged into the tunnel’s horrors and offered up to the creature. Many other characters harbor secrets, grudges, suicidal thoughts, and the physical scars of battles lost. How are they all linked and can the citizens of the town live with what they’ve done as the years creep by? Asano’s mysticism and slow terror take over the town in the span of a decade as told in two timelines.

Nijigahara Holograph is scheduled for release in February 2014 and Asano joins Shimura Takako (Wandering Son) and Moto Hagio (The Heart of Thomas, A Drunken Dream and Other Stories) in the Fantagraphics line of premium manga by the world’s greatest cartoonists. Translated by Matt Thorn, this 200 page book of beautiful black and white comics will be printed in gorgeous hardcover edition and presented in original “right to left” manga style for an authentic reading experience.Inio Asano’s previous translated works include Solanin and What a Wonderful World and he continues to create new work in Japan as one of the young voices of his generation.

Oh God yes, it’s probably been like 3 years now since I last read something by Inio Asano.

Okay just barely made the cut here, can’t say this one came out so great. The word was Perseus. I had about 10 minutes left and I still hadn’t figured out compositions much less design so, yeah on to the next one.

snailking:

A massive collection of never-before-collected pre-Comics Code horror comics of the 1950s.

Of the myriad genres comic books ventured into during its golden age, none was as controversial as or came at a greater cost than horror; the public outrage it incited almost destroyed the entire industry. Yet before the watchdog groups and Congress could intercede, horror books were flying off the newsstands. During its peak period (1951-54) over fifty titles appeared each month. Apparently there was something perversely irresistible about these graphic excursions into our dark side, and Four Color Fear collects the finest of these into a single robust and affordable volume.

gona just have to just tack this on to my thesis expenses. That sounds a little depressing, its not, I want to eat this book. Fantagraphics, you are so good to me!

pantheonbooks:

spx:

Don’t be alarmed, but I thought I should point out that today is JUNE 16th,

Meaning SPX 2012 is EXACTLY. THREE. MONTHS. FROM. TODAY!

You’re all coming right?

SPX, featuring Pantheon’s own Chris Ware (the upcoming Building Stories) and Daniel Clowes (Mister Wonderful)!

I am so absurdly pumped for this. I…I can’t even try to explain how excited i am.

this is my post for last weeks DTSB prompt, the ideal meal. I was all over the place this week so that’s why its so late.

I’ve been wanting to draw a comic about…something. Been in a bit of rutt trying to figure it out. So I drew this today and decided fuck it, I’m going to make it a comic some how.

Hopefully posting this now we’ll keep me a bit more dedicated to it. I’m thinking I’ll create some strip comics first to get familiar with the character and his world.

May be a little while still before you see those comics, I got to work double shifts saturday and sunday and my girlfriend is in town after that. So give me a little while, but if it seems like I’m avoiding it send me mean messages in my ask box.

Panel from Ray Bailey’s Bruce Gentry (1949) - right after Gentry’s new wife leaves him because he first chose to save a small family from dying of the flu rather than go on a vacation with her.

I started research for my thesis today. I’ve yet to really flesh out any specific idea but I’m using Fredric Wertham’s influence as my jumping off point.

This article couldn’t have been more convenient for me to come across. I was just reading about the shifting intellectual changes of the 50’s, and this article grounded a lot of those ideas back into comics.

I do wish it had been more specific about how the process of reading comics subverts the New Criticism agenda, but other than that an interesting read.

I must have first come across your work in a comics anthology in my senior year of high school, just as I was letting myself be swallowed whole by comics. I can’t remember for sure because I’m fairly certain I was horribly put off by your work and couldn’t for the life of me understand why it was among other great artists like Chris Ware and Art Spiegelman. I found your work hideous and crude, and completely lacking in any sense of beauty or poetry.

And yet as time went on, and I fell deeper and deeper into the bottomless pit of comic’s culture and history, your name just kept popping up. When I got more interested in the avant garde scene you just became flat unavoidable. I just didn’t get it. Even for outsider comic artists you seemed way outside.

Sense you were such a stumbling block, I resigned myself to at least become more familiar with you.

Read More

Punch (2012)

This is the final piece i created for one of my classes. All of my collage work up to this point has only made use of painted paper. I’ve kind of been straying away from doing more media-based collage for several reasons. Mainly that gathering up a strong enough library of things to work from takes time, but also because I have a hard time wrapping my head around producing something that way.
I finally figured I should stop avoiding it and give it a try. Being an avid fan of comics and their history with a large catalog on my computer of golden age comics, I figured that’d be the place to go.
The obvious connection in terms of Fine Art History would be with Roy Lichtenstein, but it differs on several elements. Lichtenstein’s approach to creating his paintings was filled with irony and disregard for the comics medium. He addressed comics as a “low” art and the success of paintings only further served to mock the poorly respected comic artists.

My work doesn’t have the insincerity of Lichtenstein. It becomes simply about taking the subject and appropriating it to serve a new purpose.