A Mess of Comics

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Batman / The Spirit Pg 24 (2007)

Sureee,  maybe I’ve talked all of these into the ground but here: 

My wheelhouse is mostly 1980′s boys manga 

some good stuff to track down– Tezuka (astro-boy, Black Jack) Matsumoto (Yamoto, Harlock) Go Nagai,(Devilman) Lone Wolf and cub,  Blade of the Immortal, Nana, Barefood Gen, Fist of the northstar, City hunter. 

Dragon ball (the early stuff especially)  and Doctor Slump– Toriyama’s work was a big gateway for me into manga and the stuff he was doing in the 80′s really clicked with me– Also his later Sandland is pretty great too. 

Shirow’s Appleseed– What would a perfect society look like and what problems would it have? but also lots of cyborg cops. One of my favorite comics ever. it’s dense and sometimes confusing in really interesting ways. I think Shirow’s choices and page layouts and storytelling are fascinating. 

a comic about some of his storytelling that I did in Image plus– that was reprinted in my Royalboiler artbook

Grey– a shortish manga (6 issues in the US 80′s release) about a guy who will do anything to realize the dream of his dead girlfriend. Drawn in a sparse style 

I made a comic about Grey–

Lum and Ranma  and Maison Ikkoku– Takahashi’s 80′s stuff has such a fun tone to it. 

A comic lovers I did about her work– 

Area 88–  A commercial pilot tricked into joining a war. 

Urasawa’s work (20th century boys, Pluto and Monster) really revived my interest in modern manga and taught me a lot about the value of plot and structure– as well as helping me see the value in the assistant system in modern manga. 

Venus wars, Yoshikazu Yasuhiko’s drawing always looks so effortless– the same feeling I get from like an Alex Toth’s work. 

Otomo (Akira, Domu) I have an especial fondness for his pre Domu work. but that stuff is rare in english. 

nausicaa– I have a theory that Akira is best at the start – Its at it’s most Akira– the gangs, the mystery and the characters are at their strongest. but Nausicaa continues to build and build in quality and theme until the end. ( not to shit on Akira– even with that critique, no one else can Otomo like Otomo) Nausicaa is my favorite thing Miyazaki has done, it’s a shame he is so much more interested in animation than comics. 

Berzerk– Kind of like if Conan had one running revenge plot that pulled you through the entire saga. Another book I started reading when I was disenchanted with modern manga– that got me excited about what is possible in comics. – 

Uzumaki– Ito is the best horror comic artist I’ve encountered. 

Children of the Sea by Daisuke Igarashi. The weather this artist draws ties his work to reality in a way I haven’t seen before. 

jiro taniguchi walking man– I feel like this comic is like the pure element of something that I need in all comics. that slow relatable feeling of just being a person in  the world. 

There’s also some manga that I’ve never read in English that has influenced me a lot like You are not alone – the way the artist shows feet specifically

and To-Y that I talk about in this comic lovers about music.