May 2011
7 posts
MMF Guest Post on The Panelists →
thepanelists.org
I wrote about Japanese cartoonist Mitsuru Adachi’s Cross Game for group blog The Panelists as part of the monthly Manga Moveable Feast blogging event (wow, that’s a lot of links). I analyzed a few of Adachi’s narrative and structural techniques and talked about how Cross Game differs from other sports manga. You can find the other MMF contributions on Cross Game here.
One point that I would have liked to mention but couldn’t find a way to include in my piece is that Adachi is a very strong cartoonist. He has a great economy of line but still manages to create a sense of energy in his cartooning when necessary. His style also strikes an interesting balance between the influence of older Japanese cartoonists such as Tezuka and an incorporation of more modern approaches. In other words, Cross Game or any of Adachi’s other recent works are worth reading for the art alone, though the stories are good genre fun too.
I just re-listened to this panel (courtesy of the Comics Journal) on the Best American Comics Criticism book (a collection of comics criticism from 2000 to 2008 edited by Ben Schwartz and published by Fantagraphics) for the second or third time since it was first posted. While everyone on the panel has intelligent things to say about comics criticism and the comics medium in general, for my money the star of the show is cartoonist Sammy Harkham. I certainly don’t agree with everything Sammy says, but his passionate comments are easily the most insightful and thought-provoking, and solicit the most interesting responses from the other panelists. You should definitely give it a listen — hearing Sammy talk about how much he thinks Blankets and Asterios Polyp suck is worth the price of admission alone.
http://harveyjamestm.wordpress.com/2011/05/06/it-is-only-a-matter-of-time-before-we-find-out-where-dan-clowes-hid-the-bodies/ →
harveyjamestm.wordpress.com
This is great. I really enjoy a lot of Clowes’ early comics for exactly this reason — a tone of violent disdain and even hate that permeates almost all of his work from that time. This has, it seems to me, morphed in his recent stuff into a more subdued, complex disdain that is less visceral and more sophisticated, if that makes any sense.
Related: Dan Clowes issue of The Imp
