Smaller versions of these made the rounds already, but I wanted highlight again Chip Kidd's amazing cover designs for Vertical, featuring their manga releases in the second half of 2007. It must be extremely exciting for Mr. Kidd to be able to play around with Takemiya and Tezuka's stunning panels and lines in sourcing his designs.
FIrst up, another series from To Terra creator and Shojo SF master, Keiko Takemiya: Andromeda Stories Volume 1 : 9/11/07
Andromeda Stories Volume 2 : 12/11/07
Next up, the striking covers for Apollo's Song & MW, along with links to more info on each title via Tezuka Osamu World (and Japanese preview page).
Evan here... REJOICE! The technical problems have been fixed and all of our scanlations are back online. Plus, they all look prettier now, as I fixed the contrast on all the ones that had pixel crud / ghosts (from a previously out-of-calibration monitor.)
So if you missed any of the stuff we've translated so far, take another look at our 2 year anniversary recap megapost that went up just before the server problems. We have a much higher bandwidth now that we've changed hosting providers, so the site should be nice and stable from now on... Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more fun!
We're here at the final dispatch of our series of Europe posts, based on things I encountered in Dublin, Berlin and Frankfurt last fall. Happily, these posts have sparked some super informative discussions and shed light on stuff we knew nothing about prior to seeing it firsthand. To recap, here's what we've covered to date:
Sadly, the commentary segment of my brain is rattled and foggy today, as it's now been more than 6 months since these photos/videos were taken. As mentioned previously, the main attraction for me at Frankfurt Book Fair was the Comics Pavilion in the German hall, which was the de facto manga fangirl/fanboy meeting place. Cosplay ground zero, if you will.
Things really picked up on the last two days of the fair, in which cosplay kids basically took over the entire pavilion, waiting in long lines to meet Anike Hage, Judith Park and, to a lesser degree, dudes like our new buddy Sascha Hommer and Mr. Jeff Smith. The split between females and males was about 90/10, and I heard from some of the kids that they had taken the train in from all over Germany, just to hang out with their friends/fan community and meet their favorite creators.
In a very savvy move (that I have trouble imagining happening at a US book fair), the Frankfurt Book Fair offered free admission to anybody that showed up in cosplay on Sunday, and held a 'Cosplay Masquerade' talent show in the afternoon. Germany cosplay cultural cross-pollination?!? You know I had to attend and document this. In lieu of repeating thoughts from the Judith Park post, and in the spirit of getting to the point, I present you: GERMAN COSPLAY PICS & VIDEOS!
The girl on the right was officially the scariest/awesomest person I saw in Europe.
You'll notice I don't recognize who most of the cosplayers are dressed up as. An eyebrow-less Victorian chambermaid? Fill me in via the comments.
German teenagers meet their friends, get their make-up & accessories just right.
First off though, it seems that a few people, including Simon from Icarus, and a user from scanlation megahub Manganews.net, are bothered that we did a small run of our scanlations and gave/traded/sold these to friends at APE. In a way, I can see this in a theoretical sense, but I think what we actually did for APE was much more mundane and non-commercial.
As mentioned in our last post, we compiled all the materials that are freely available here (or at least, will be available once we move to a new host). In addition to Evan's framed artwork, copies of our Bible comic, and a Same Hat flyer, we wanted to have a physical manifestation of our blog content for the hardcore Same Hat fans and our friends. To this end, we printed a total of 30 copies of our booklet, at a cost of about $135 to us.
Really, we would have been more than happy to give them all away to folks, but when you stay up until 5 AM paying Kinkos to duplex, copy, fold and staple booklets, then it makes sense to charge a nominal fee as a barrier-to-entry. As any con attendees know, there is always a group of fanboys, usually dudes with light sabers and jedi robes (yes, we saw a guy like that at APE07), that simply grab up any and all free stuff blindly, and we couldn't/wouldn't spend the time & money to print enough copies for that sort of consumption.
We gave away about half our tiny print run to friends and tablemates, traded some for other zines and minicomics, and then sold a few to people who dig the site. At the end, our net "profit" for this labor of love booklet came to a loss of over 100 bucks, but in the process, a bunch of people that were already interested in weirdo manga now have an offline artifact with pretty layout to check out when their internet is broken.
Me, Derek and Hellen holding down the fort
In the talks we had with the new people we met, it was extremely clear that there is a small but rabid circle of people anxious for this type of stuff to be released in English, and we'll keep doing our prosteletyzing work here. In the meantime, we recommended them to Kinokuniya for more Sensha/Aihara (in Japanese, granted), AbeBooks and Booksense for used copies of the very out-of-print Maruo titles from Creation and Blast, and to buy the three books of the discontinued Museum of Terror books and the upcoming Gyo & Uzumaki re-releases from Viz.
That said, the expo was about the chance to talk comics and zines with some rad compatriots for 2 days straight. We ended the weekend with a celebratory group dinner at an all-you-can-eat Indian place. Here are some of the pictures we snapped:
The sole cosplayers we saw at the 'alternative' expo
At the fair, we reconnected with friends like V. Vale (Publisher of Re/Search), Derek Kirk Kim (Eisner winner and nice guy supreme), Jason Shiga (mathematical rapper and Eisner winner), Mari Naomi (painter and indie cartoonist), and Ed Chavez (MangaCast blogger)
We also saw our friend and author Jason Thompson (ex-Viz editor of Pulp, Gyo, Uzumaki and Drifting Classroom)
The most unexpected person we met was cartoonist Aaron K, in town from Chicago. The entire Bang Gang crew is huge fans of his comics, and we wondered what the hell happened after he disappeared off the internet last year. Turns out he's making music and working on a new comic, Manatee Island. He showed us the first 18 pages, and it looks to be really, really great. Somebody publish this guy!! We're hanging out later this week, and will try to talk him into letting us scans some panels for the site.
Finally, here is the haul from this year. With the Last Gasp party on Friday night (where they let APE exhibitors buy stuff right off their warehouse shelves) and the great spread at the expo, I ended up burning a HUGE hole in my wallet. Check out the goodies:
The Mourning Star by Kazimir Strzepek, strongly recommended by both Hellen & Johnny Ryan!
Garo-successor and indie manga compilation AX (アックス) issue 37.
Finally tracked down Dungeon, Zenith Volume 2 by Sfar/Trondheim!!
Met Esther Pearl Watson and Mark Todd and bought issues 4 & 5 of Unlovable, John #1 and a garbage zine.
Tom Gauld's new collection of Very Small Comics from Buenaventura
Inside Vineyland by Lauren Weinstein (my GF originally read this serialized in The Stranger)
Re/Search hardcover reprint of their long unavailable Industrial Culture Handbook!
LtoR: Hellen Jo postcard, collection of mid-90s Eighball postcards, Walken card from Brandon Bird
Tablemate Anthony Wu's new mini Brain Market, Jason Thompson's Hyperborea adaptation
Julia Wertz's Fart Party 4.5, Derek Kirk Kim's Lowbright strip collection
Jason Thompson's entire collected webcomic, The Stiff
Jason Shiga's MINDBLOWING choose your own adventure monster, Knock! Knock!
Okay, this is the weirdest thing I got-- Jason Shiga's rap album, featuring I Love My Shigacorn and 2pac Lives
APE07 exclusive, Shiga's fold-out adventure The Last Supper
The new issue of Giant Robot (thanks Michelle!!) and Jason Thompson's adaptation of Lovecraft's The White Ship
LtoR: Mari's APE mini, a mini trade, Just The Facts comp by David Collier
My GF picked up books at Last Gasp too: We finally have our own copy of Kramers Ergot 6!
LtoR: Incredible Mark Bayer stationary, Law & Order-meets-Batman card by Brandon Bird, Witchcraft compilation of pre-code horror comics
Beautiful screenprint by Hellen
Derek Kirk Kim put together a mega-poster with dozens of characters, including GI Joe's and the Predator (also Conan and Picard)
Tetsuo from Akira
Galactus!
Thanks to everyone for your comments and support. It sounds like about 25 more of you that read the site regularly would like your own booklet. I think that I'll simply drop the bucks myself and whip up those as a spring thank you present for being awesome and checking our site out over the past two years. We won't be making this available in perpetuity, but once I've gotten that run finished, I'll post and ask you all to send us an email at samehatATgmail.com.
Coming next: Online shops we endorse, Parasyte and more on Aaron K
Evan and I will be tabling this weekend at the Alternative Press Expo (APE) in San Francisco. The Expo runs from 11-7 on Saturday, 11-6 on Sunday. Our group willl be selling wares again this year under the moniker THE BANG GANG, with our buddies Hellen, Derek, Anthony and Jake.
For APE07, we've spent the past week putting together a booklet that I think is really fucking rad (IMHO). In addition to having some copies of our original webcomic, The Bible, we've compiled every scanlation to date into a 120 page book, along with other goodies sprinkled throughout the pages. We're planning to basically give them away for a few bucks, trade or even if you come up and say you like our site (Yes, we're doing this as a major loss, but the occasional buck or so should cover part of printing costs). Take a look at the cover and its inspiration:
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I'm leaving work to print up 25 copies in a few hours (yep, that's the scale of distribution we're talking here), and we hope to make some available after APE via the blog. Leave a comment if you're interested so we have a general sense of how many additional copies to print up :)
Also, Evan is selling some of his art, in snazzy neon frames:
APE weekend is always a crazy whirlwind of sleep deprivation, but we're especially looking forward to seeing Jason Shiga, Jason Thompson, Julia of Fart Party, PressPop (the publisher of AX), visiting the Last Gasp offices, Gene Yang, our GR pal Michelle, Vale from Re/Search, and others. If you're gonna be there, please stop by booth 247 and visit us!
I'm gonna be taking photos/videos and will post a proper APE RECAP next week.
At Kinokuniya last week, I picked up the first volume of Cromartie High School creator Eiji Nonaka's newest series, Mirai Chounaikai (未来町内会) - best translated as Future Neighborhood Association.
As I'd said before, I think Cromartie High School was probably the best comic to be published in English in 2005, and ADV is already more than halfway through releasing the series (I think it's 17 volumes in total). Quick pat on the back to them, ADV is using the original Japanese covers and each volume looks really kick ass.
While Cromartie is still totally rad, it's cool to know that Nonaka has already moved on to a new comedy series, and it's being serialized in マガメガ. For more info, you can check out their Mirai Chounaikai page for a preview of the first few pages of the manga.
The series revolves around a neighborhood association in the year 2076. No really, I'm serious. At first, it's literally PAGES and PAGES of neighbors sitting around tables having zoning discussions and stuff. But in a way, the initial setup and scope of this comic already makes it pretty damn experimental and weird, for a comedy manga.
It looks like as the story goes on, Nonaka introduces weirder and weirder neighbors and committee issues, like these intense mutant warriors that look like something out of Mai, The Psychic Girl or Dragonball. The basic format, with repeating scenarios, running parodies and a growing cast of odd characters, should feel pretty familiar to Cromartie fans. Here are a few shots from the comic:
He's basically saying: "Well, this means that offically, as of today... Papa has been named Committee Chair of the Mirai-cho Neighborhood Association!"
Lots and lots and lots of this.
A ROBOT! ...but is it the same one?
I'll need to take some time to get through the comic, but it seems even more absurd than Cromartie in its banality and plot conceits. I wonder if ADV is gonna license and release this one too?
PS: Later today we have some Alternative Press Expo news to post... Evan and I have been working all week on a new booklet for this weekend!
The scheduled release date according to Viz site is tomorrow, 4/17/07. But it looks like the Kinokuniya in SF got their shipment early! I picked up and read the fifth volume Saturday afternoon (like a real nerd proper: over hot dogs, fries and Dr. Pepper).
This isn't the first time Kinokuniya has hooked me up ahead of schedule with Viz titles; They've regularly had new volumes of Phoenix, Death Note and Nana available 1-2 before their official release dates. Maybe they get the special hookup because Viz's headquarters is only like 2 miles from them?
PS: As you might have noticed, the scanlations are still down. We're working with out host to get things back up and running ASAP!
There is good and bad news here... and then some more good news.
Good News #1 is that we've had a huge spike in daily traffic, which means more of you weirdos are reading our scanlations and content (yay).
Bad News #1 is that the site hosting all our original stuff already smashed the normal monthly quota within the first ten days of April and we need to pay to upgrade bandwidth (boo).
Good News #2 is that we're going to do this over the weekend, and the scanlations should be back online by Monday! (yay x2)
thanks for your patience, and check back again soon!
As some of you might remember, Evan attended San Diego Comic Con in 2006, and was able to attend a panel/interview with Yoshihiro Tatsumi and Adrian Tomine. We originally blogged about this last July.
Now that we've got our own YouTube channel, we're working on putting up old clips that might be of interest to you guys (and tagging our own favorites). So, we're happy to share two SUPER short clips of Tatsumi speaking. These clips might be best enjoyed by people with really short attention spans, superb hearing and fluency in Japanese (yeah, sorry they suck):
Tatsumi speaks, and his interpretor tries to keep up
Tastumi talks more (with a quick flash of Tomine)
We'll work to record any crazy events and happenings that we think might be worth blogging about, and you can add us as a favorite by clicking here.
Short post tonight, but let me just say that I'm extremely geeked about New Comics Day tomorrow. Like most of you (I'm guessing), I hit up a local comics shop during my lunch break, each and every Wednesday. Well, the moons of Jupiter and the winds of good fortune have aligned, and give us new volumes of two of the best series being published... on the SAME DAY. Oh, shit-- ENJOY:
DRAGON HEAD 6
DEATH NOTE 11
...and on the non-manga scene, check out this one: The Complete Universe of Dupuy & Berberian, 300 pages of new comics in English by the creators of Get a Life and Maybe Later.
Can't wait to dig into all three of these books. Alright, it's time for a cup of decaf and some work emails for me. Here is one last omake to beef up the post, DRAGON HEAD Kubrick set: Based on the movie adaptation, but pretty sweet nonetheless.
This one came in via our email address (samehatATgmail.com), from a reader named Winslow. Dude is a New York City resident, and his tattoo features the radical art used for the cover of Mr. Arashi's Amazing Freakshow. Little did Suehiro Maruo know that this particular comic would end up as the source of so much ink!
His tattoo artist Stina features this one on her site, and Winslow is planning to eventually go for an entire Maruo-themed sleeve design. He's open to any great ideas, so if you have a Maruo image in mind that you think would make a good addition to the Ero-Guro shrine he's assembling on his arm, definietly post it in the comments!
Thanks again to Winslow for sending this along! Are there any more Maruo/horror manga tattoos out there? Might as well send them to us and help grow the collection! Same Hat's new charter: manga news, scanlations and manga tattoos!!
THE SETTING: The Manga Pavilion in the German Publisher hall at Frankfurt Book Fair, the biggest book and publishing fair in the entire world. THE CAST: Me talking to a white German teenage girl, dressed in an H&M-meets-Harjuku-cosplay outfit with dyed streaks in her hair. THE SCENE: The German teenager is part of a queue of about 250 other girls, in a line waiting to get their comics signed by SOMEONE that looks like a Japanese or Asian American hip hop girl.
ME: So, who are you guys waiting in line to meet? German teenybopper: It's Judith Park! ME: Oh, is she an American comic artist? German teenybopper: You don't know Judith Park? She is the most famous manga-ka in Germany!! ME: [Stunned silence]
For those new to the blog, this post is the penultimate dispatch in a series of posts based on things I saw and people I met while in Ireland and Germany last Fall.
And making this clear from the start-- I don't have any stunning insight on what exactly this means. I also am probably going to use all the wrong terminology here. But figuring that manga-influenced comics made in English by non-Japanese creators are referred to as Original English-language manga (OEL manga), I am gonna try calling these comics Original German-langauge manga (OGL manga). The main impetus for this post was that the scene at Frankfurt got the weird little motor in my brain spinning. And it made me also realize a few other things:
1) The European reading population and comic buying scene (Esp. in Germany/France/Spain) might have figured out manga in a major, commerically-viable way before us (where, us = Americans). I make this declaration based solely on the breadth of manga available in translation there, the # of Japan-related magazines and publications, and the level of maturity of the OGL/OFL/OSL manga scenes in each country.
2) Teenage girls and cosplayers in Germany appear to be just as fascinated and empowered to participate in comics BECAUSE OF manga as their American counterparts. If the concept of manga sparking larger female participation in comics (financially, creatively, etc) makes you raise an eyebrow then you must have missed the memo in the early '00s.
3) The OGL manga scene has its own young stars, and it looks like they're coming to our shores soon.
I'm really hoping this is one of those posts where people who know way more about this scene (and the implications and embedded arguements therein) jump in via comments and get a proper discussion going-- If I've said anything idiotic or misinformed, then let me know.
But back to my task for today: Who, exactly, is Judith Park (other than the biggest manga-ka in germany, DUH)?
I've done the basics of web research (Lambiek, Wikipedia (DE), and her homepage) , so let me lay it on you. She was born in 1984 in Duisberg (near Dusseldorf), and according to her english profile, she's into Frank Miller, Michael Bay blockbusters, Rocco's Modern Life and Miyazaki films. It's not clear where she is based right now, but I did learn while I was in Germany that Frankfurt is home to the biggest Korean expatriate population in Europe.
Her most famous comics pictured above, Y Square and Distopia. It also sounds like she's now working on a new yet-unnamed book.
Judith is scheduled to appear at number of appearances at German book and comic fairs, and her site contains lots of pics from recent events she's attended. I read the Google Translate version of this profile of Judith from November 2005, where she says that she draws for about 9 hours a day, and got her start by winning a manga competition held by the publisher Carlsen, which is one of the three big German comic book publishers. You can also see more of Judith's art at her deviantART page. (She also has a YouTube channel documenting her "gay chinchillas"-- her words).
More recent pics of Judith from her site:
Now, this is not to say that the German OGL manga scene (as far as I could feebly decipher) is just about Judith Park. I also had the dumb luck to see another rising German comics star, Anike Hage, signing at the pavillion. Anike Hage is even younger (only 21!) and has a number of OGL titles out with Tokyopop DE. I just read here that Anike Hage's Gothic Sports has been licensed to be released by Tokyopop US, as part of their ambitious international comics push. The release date on Amazon for this book is May 8, 2007.
A few last tidbits, I found a German con report that has some pics of Judith signing and of German cosplayers (the theme of the last post in this series). In his archives, I also found that Jeff Smith posted details on the German manga scene, and pics from hanging out with Anike on his blog around the time of Frankfurt Book Fair. Finally, here is a translated article about Judith Park's sales figures and continuing popularity in Germany.
Fone Bone & Anike Hage's protagonist together
Jeff Smith and Anike Hage, exhausted after signing comics all day
Okay, my brain has run out of steam, but I want to hear more from you guys about manga in Europe (Germany specifically), any thoughts on Judith & Anike, or generally about Original-English/German/etc language manga in all of its international incarnations!
EDIT: I should have directly mentioned Elae's awesome site Deutsche Mangaka, which is specifically about the OGL manga scene. From her site, I just learned that Judith Park's Y Square was licensed in English, but no official release date yet. Very interesting cross-pollination news :)
Short post today, but this one aims to put a huge grin on the face of every Umezu fan out there.
In a recent post on his website, Kazuo Umezu put up a link to his online photo gallery, hosted by Google's Picasa Web Albums! Who woulda guessed that Umezz was hip to social photo-sharing sites?
His photo albums hold about 180 pictures , including candid shots from talks and signings, and even some images of Umezu as a young boy!
On top of that, an entire album (36 pics) is full of one similar headshot pose, but each with a different, wacky face. Oh, and if you didn't already know it, this set should quickly make it clear to you what Umezu's 'signature outfit' consists of...
How can you not love Umezz?? I'd kill for the chance to get to meet him someday... but in the meantime I'll continue to dream that he is my effeminate, ridiculous great-uncle!!
I know, I know... TWO POSTS in one night? But, in the spirit of making old readers happy, and keeping the new readers (HI NEW READERS :B) enticed enough to come back often, we're working on upping the posting frequency.
Pardon our shamelessness for making this one about ourselves. For anyone that wants to know more about why we started this site and all that jazz, Evan & I were recently interviewed by manga blogging queen Brigid Alverson (of MangaBlog and Digitial Strips fame). The interview, covering topics like Japanese horror, the ethics of scanlation and our original webcomics, was for Brigid's monthy manga column at Comixpedia, called Brigid's Bento Box.
So, head over to Comixpedia and check out the interview, and then come back here to let me know if you think we sounded like idiots or bored you to tears.. or maybe um, inspired you to start your own scanlation blog?
A rare sighting of the elusive editors!
Okay, so now that you've read the interview (you clicked the link, right?) you know that we're working on an original webcomic horror thingy called Stillborn, and the new Sensha story should to be posted very soon. SO, the important question for you guys is: What should we scanlate next? We're considering more Yoshida Sensha 4-panel gag strips (in color), comics by Heartbroken Angels' Kikuni, etc...But, what would YOU like to see? Let us know in the comments.
I don't know what to say except that LJ'er rootstudio is totally rad: Insane? YES. Flattering? INDEED. Inspired cartooning? You're DAMN RIGHT!
As he explained in this post, "For those of you who don't know it yet, Same Hat! is the most awesome horror/wonky gag manga blog ever. So it's only fitting I should pay tribute radicolaishness with this crummy parody of this original strip by Yoshida Sensha from which they got their name..."
AWW, thanks rootstudio!! Everyone should check out his journal for great comics commentary and great doodles of weird shit.
PS: This is the second ever Sensha-inspired parody strip we've seen, the first being 'Same Paddle' by another LJ'er, paradesend.
All fan translations of manga that you'll see in the archives are previously untranslated into English and range from comedy to horror to avant-absurd weirdness.
Same Hat is written & edited by Ryan. If you would like to contact me, please email: samehat @ gmail.com.
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