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For those of you who are wondering what PULP is (most of you), it was a manga anthology that Viz published years ago, back before manga got really popular. It featured some of the edgiest and most experimental manga ever seen in North America. Most of these were very good. It also featured many intellegent articles on a variety of diffrent subjects, from manga to Takeshi Miike. Like all good things in life, it came to an end back in 2002. What this post is actually about is that by accident I managed to discover its website was still up and running (http://www.pulp-mag.com/), and if you look under archives you'll find many of the articles published in the magazine are featured, though only for the issues 4.7 and above. Anyone interested in manga or Japanese cinema should definitally take a look. In particular, they have a great interview with manga genius (and I do mean genius) Usamaru Furuya, as well as ones with Junji Ito and Naoki Yamamoto.

Man PULP was great, I figured out it existed just as it went out of print...

It actually was replaced by Shounen Jump.

Luckly there is a pretty good scanlation community to replace what was lost from it, but this is still sutff that goes under the radar of most american fans.

Finally, there is a really cool interview with Paul Pope about his experiences at Kodansha, for anyone who is interested in being a "manga artist" its eye opening to what Japan would accept (though he was axed before any of his work was published over there, much of it being finished by himself and published over here), from foriegn artists- its not copies of Naruto or Fruits basket...

All of you should check out Pope's work though, for heavily manga influenced comics done right, he was an influence on both Cloonan and O'Malley (two other artists who get manga influence right, as I'm sure Kagemusha has said many times before).

Somewhat OT: Kagemusha, have you gotten around to reading Cloonan's comic about the pirates that Tokyopop published, if so how is it?

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Somewhat OT: Kagemusha, have you gotten around to reading Cloonan's comic about the pirates that Tokyopop published, if so how is it?

I've got a weak spot for post-apocalyptic stories from a childhood watching Mad Max, and Treasure Island was my favorite book for a good chunk of my life, so I went into it hoping for a good nostalgia romp. It's nothing revolutionary, but it is fairly fun. Her writing isn't nearly as polished as her art, though this isn't supposed to be a brilliant read. The whole "pirates who are Jersey trash" aspect is a little stupid, but the first volume was a good setup for what hopefully will be a fun adventure. One big problem is, shockingly enough, the artwork. Half the time I had no idea what was going on because Cloonan simply used WAY too much ink to shade the pages. If she'd lay off the ink and use a simpler style (which I know she can do from Demo) the action scenes would be alot more enjoyable. Overall it's pretty fun and better than virtually every other OEL (or whatever they're calling them this week) title Tokyopop publishes with the exception of Dramacon.

That's surprising, what I usually like about Cloonan is her artwork. Though from what I saw in a frame of East Coast Rising it was great.

Btw, I know this is still OT, but everyone here should start reading Scott Pilgrim, I just finished up volume three. It rocked!

Reguarding the bankability of something like PULP in todays market, I think it could sell, but what Viz is doing now with the signature line is smarter. The mag always targeted a kind of cult audience within the manga community, and I can't see it actually bringing any new readers into manga from, say, the American comic community. Of the title published under the imprint, only Dance till Tommorow and maybe Strain really could appeal to anyone outside PULP's target audience. Perhapse Black and White, as it's good enough to draw people in despite the unconventional art. Other than those, the titles in the magaizne were interesting and mostly above average, but I'd rather see things like Monster or Drifting Classroom that are able to bring in a big audience and get Viz to publish more title under the new "mature" imprint. I hate to say it because unlike Shonen Jump, PULP's articles were actually interesting. There's a collection of essays out there under the imprint (good luck finding it) that's pretty interesting.

Also, with the comics journal starting to dip its feet into the manga world (Dirk's been posting manga related stuff on their forums btw) and other magazines like Giant Robo devoted to the whole Japanese pop culture scene, I think that most of what pulp did is already served by other sources. Not to mention a few of the old pulp writers have blogs now like this one from Patrick Macias: http://patrickmacias.blogs.com/.

I hope that Dirk continues to explore manga deeper, he's really providing the kind of non-fans view of the medium that is rarely seen in the US right now, and promoting the works that the alt comix crowd would get into.

The production IG boards used to cover the same ground to some extent, but they are gone and they've been replaced by the anipages BBS, which while good, haven't had too many posts about asian cinema, it seems they are a bit more focused (even if its a lot of the same guys).

I do miss pulp, but I think if you look hard enough you can find the same kind of stuff done better. In addition other companies like Fantagraphics (the comic strips by Toru Miki) and Drawn and Quarterly (The gorgeous editions of Yoshiharu Tatsumi's work) are getting into publishing alt manga, so hopefully we can expect work that is at or exceeds PULP in the near future.

Dirk was a great guy on that "OMG COMICS JOURNAL HATES MANGA" thread, rebuting the criticism against the Journal as well as actually providing some insight into his personal tastes. As of now, I'm still waiting to see what Ponent Mon can do with their new distribution deal. I have seen alot of their books in major bookstores (wisely in the comic section), but I hope they're going to try some new things rather than release a title every six months and hope it does well enough to publish another one. They could use some better translations and (especially) product design, and most importantly better promotion. I'd like to see then try to become a sort of manga version of Pantheon (or First Second). They've got books from Jiro Taniguchi and Kan Takahama coming up, so they definitally could appeal to a larger audience with those. I'd like for them to look into more projects that aren't associated with alt. manga or nouvel manga, though it isn't likely since Boilet seems to run the company creativly.

I'm not sure how much control of the company Boilet has, but they seem to be very much influenced by him, he actually controls a division of Casterman that's devoted to alternative manga in France called Sakka (http://sakka.info), whose lineup makes me very jealous and makes me want to learn French...

Anyways, I've kind of written off ponent mon, they publish great stuff, but if they can't get their act together through better prices/promotion/translations (and your right about the third, I didn't notice it at first, until I picked up the Japan anthology after reading through Scott Pilgrim, their translations need a good rewrite), I don't think they can survive. The translation issue is probably the biggest one, because a lot of alt comics guys would be turned off by rough writing, even if the quality of the story and art and everything else is excellent.

I don't really like the label alternative to describe what they seem to publish (progressive or mature would be better), but reguardless I dream of having an American company that would publish that stuff (what the f!ck is "TWIM" doing on there though?). The yhing about most of those title is they really do have alot of mainstream appeal: Blade of the Immortal has a very devoted following over here and The Music of Marie has the same kind of universal appeal of a Miyazaki film (maybe a bit more mature, but that's only one aspect of the story). At the current moment, most companies don't want to look at anything that isn't directed towards teens, or if it is intended for adult audiences it has to have gore or an epic story to "be good."
But for all their high prices, Ponent Mon's been a bit iffy on the quality of matterials and translations. Botchan (which I really haven't been able to get into) and Japan were both high quality, but alot of their older stuff was a bit shoddy on the binding. Their descriptions usually reek of pretension and a kind of "Look at me, I'm artsy" attitude that turns so many people off (look at Blue). As for Boilet, I think the guys got talent, and most of his stuff I've read has been good, just not incredible. The guy's also got the biggest case of asian fever I've ever seen Surprised

This is a bit OT (though I doubt anyone else is reading this), but what was your favorite story? Personally, I was again amazed by how well Kan Takahama does slice-of-life stories. It's refreshing to read such a bittersweet take on life (plus her art is great). Taiyo Matsumoto was amazing as always. As for the French stories, I've gotta go with the conventional choice and pick Sfar's tale of his obnoxious friend, though the young woman's story was very good as well.

Kagemusha wrote:

(what the f!ck is "TWIM" doing on there though?)

Thank God I wasn't the only one wondering that.

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I don't really like the label alternative to describe what they seem to publish (progressive or mature would be better), but reguardless I dream of having an American company that would publish that stuff (what the f!ck is "TWIM" doing on there though?).

Yeah I think your right on that one, though I even read somewhere (I think it was Paul Gravett's book on Manga) that the alternative and mainstream segments in Japan have a lot more overlap than they do in american comics, some stuff over there that would be alternative here could be in a more mainstream (though not like a shounen jump manga) publication.

As for the stories, I'd have to go with the following:
French
1. Fabrice Neaud - Gay guy visiting sendai
2. Nicholas De Crecy - Guy turning into japanese marketing phenomonon
3. Joann Sfar - Obnoxious friend who rants about negative japanese culture

I liked the first one the most because it had kind of a lyrical quality to it, you felt a sort of detached passion for the scenary and foreign world the author wrote about, I really liked it. As for the other two, I found them both amusing, both of which discussed some of the more negative parts of Japanese culture with De Crecy reminding me of an essay I read in one of Takashi Murakami's books about how kawaii mascots pervade every facet of modern Japan's life with everything from cities to public service announcements (and of course the internationally popular hello kitty) having them along with the bitter and often true rants about how Japan isn't a land of sugar and honey that Joann's friend talks about very directly. His comment about westren otaku not realizing that if they said they were french they'd be more likely to be published is spot on and something every amateur american "manga" artist should know - You aren't going to be published in Japan for doing Love Hina remakes - instead they want stuff like paul pope, foiegn and exotic, but still under their terms :P. (I did bring this back to the earlier part of the conversation :P)

As for the Japanese ones:
1. Taiyou Matsumoto - One with the painter who didn't talk
2. Moyoko Anno - Crickets
3. Kan Takahama - One you talked about

I liked Matsumoto's story of the man who drew but couldn't talk the best, it was the most memberable of the lot and the artwork was very impressive. On the other hand Anno's short but very meaningful work was great, I felt it kind of captured the feeling most of the Japanese artists were going for the best, abstractly representing Japanese culture in very Japanese (read minimalist) way. I've seen better work from Kan Takahama, but she's still a lot better than her French counterpart in the whole nouvelle manga thing, in that unlike Boilet her stories are a lot more poignant and a lot more interesting. This one was good but I liked her work in Kinderbook and Mariko Parade a lot better.

All Boilet every seems to write about is his yellow fever, I think it would do him better to explore different subjects sometime... I like his work, but it seems to be the same thing over and over again... on the other hand the active role he's taken in promoting more mature manga to a french audience should be applauded, as well as his whole "Nouvelle Manga" movement which IMO should be a model for manga influences on comic artists in other countries (read OEL stuff) to produce higher quality works than normal.

Also did you notice the Japanese one about the guy with the flower growing out of him? What did you think of that one? I thought it was kind of an analogy for east meets west, east being allured by the difference of Japan, like a woman is allured by the difference of a man... just a thought on that, it was a story I had to think about a bit to get at what it was talking about.

Finally I was really impressed with Anno's short story, from what I heard of her work previously (from the guy who is the translator of a certain scanlation group both of us frequent) she was supposed to be generally a watered down version of Okazaki, doing josei stuff like Sakarasawa which were like Okazaki's in feel but didn't quite have the bite Okazaki's stuff had...

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though I doubt anyone else is reading this)

If it wasn't for the single comment by shamlessfanboy I'd say the same... maybe we can rename this thread to the Neilworms and Kagemusha discuss manga noone else reads thread :P.

About the meeting of alternative and mainstream: very true, which is why I think the term "alternative" shouldn't be used for manga. It's either underground (Garo or AX) or mainstream; just alot of stuff published by big companies happen to be progressive or experimental. Just look at some of the stuff Shogakukuan put in Big Comic Spirits in the the 1990's, before they had Ikki (which more or less is a counterpart to Kodansha's Afternoon minus some otaku manga).
As for Little Fish's story, came of as artsy for artsy sake to me. Now that I think about it I guess you could have that interpritation, but I think these kind of stories work better on film.

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Finally I was really impressed with Anno's short story, from what I heard of her work previously (from the guy who is the translator of a certain scanlation group both of us frequent) she was supposed to be generally a watered down version of Okazaki, doing josei stuff like Sakarasawa which were like Okazaki's in feel but didn't quite have the bite Okazaki's stuff had...

The thing about Okazaki is none of her stuff I've read actually feels like it was specifically intended for women. They've got this universal appeal like alot of good director's put into their films, something that is often lacking in the gender-specific world of manga. Both River's Edge and Helter Skelter are some of the best manga I've ever come across, and neither can really be pinned down in categories. To be honest, Anno's work is uneven: you can clearly see the Okazaki influence (though from what I've heard this is true for the majority of josei manga-ka today), it just usually doesn't catch up to the quality (she does have some good stuff though).
In any case, right now I haven't been reading too much progressive/alternative or whatever-you-want-to-call-it manga. I've been on a One Piece binge, and I'm re-reading Me and the Devil Blues and SOIL. Other than one of Jiro Taniguchi's titles, which is very good, I'm pretty much all mainstream for manga and american comics (you got any recommendations? The last thing I bought was the DMZ trade and that Mouse Guard comic).

I've been not reading too much until now, as I was in class, and wanted to focus on grades not comics, so I'm kind of in the situation you're in right now.

I've heard that Black Hole by Charles Burns is very good, and Pongyang is currently on my list of comics to read over the summer. The latter is about an animator that goes to North Korea and writes about his experiences there.

As for manga, a new volume of Phoenix is out if you haven't read it yet, and Eden isn't too bad (though volume 2 kind of disappointed me after a strong start in volume one). As for "progressive manga" keep looking closer at the two main scanlators who put out this stuff... (PM me for more information, though I'm sure you know who I'm talking about) one group even put out part of Satoshi Kon's manga Kaikisen, which I liked, but they've been waaay too slow in releasing it. If you want something cute, weird and kind of fun, try Milk Closet.

One shots are always good, sometimes better than full length works by the same suthor. Like for instance Kiriko Nananan's "At the Park" is one of the most moving manga I've read, but its only about 15 pages long. Its about how romance can tear apart friendships, and its very poignant and true. I think its Nananan's best work.

Speaking of one shots, try out some of Yoshiharu Tsuge's work, Screw Style was published in an old comics journal (don't remember the issue, I can look it upif you'd like) and a few more of his shorts have been scanlated, they all are excellent and very surreal.

Black Hole is exellent, and Pongyang is very good as well. I've read most of the manga you mentioned (Eden volume 3 is better than the first two IMO) except Skrew Style, which I believe is in TCJ 250, and I really don't feel like ordering a single issue online. I guess I could see if my local comic shop could order it. As for that certain scanslation group (I'm actually the one who responded in their new post under the name "Huff"), my favorites from them (Kon's series, SOIL, Yunagi no Machi and the AMAZING Music of Marie) are on hold unfortunatally.
Like I said before, I haven't really been reading alot of American stuff lately, mainstream or alternative. I did make an effort to check out every one of Vertigo's new series for the past six or so months, but for the most part I've been pretty disapointed. Stuff like Loveless and The Exterminators had pretty mediocre first issues, and the much hyped Testament was pretensious and not even that well written. DMZ is pretty good, but all the hype about it accuratly portraying what it's like to live in a war zone (I'd like to know how these critics have any idea about that) is a bit far fetched. I guess I could be biased as I recently watched The Battle of Algeirs, but DMZ just wasn't that masterful of a story about urban warfare. At least we have Gilbert Hernandez' new book to look forward to, and American Virgin is quite good, but if Y the Last Man is the best Vertigo can offer, the label's glory day have really passed it.
On a brighter note, I just got into Rocketo, and I can't remember the last time I had this much fun reading a two-fisted adventure. Great stuff.

Neilworms wrote:

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though I doubt anyone else is reading this)

If it wasn't for the single comment by shamlessfanboy I'd say the same... maybe we can rename this thread to the Neilworms and Kagemusha discuss manga noone else reads thread Razz

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Ah, but you both forget the ways of the lurker. You know, the people who are genuinely interested in the conversation but feel their knowledge is too inadequate to participate (ie, me). What do you think I've been doing at the anipages forum for the past 6 months? By all means, continue. Wink