Posted by Guest Author on Jan 10, 2008 in Comic Books
With American anime sales on a downward trend, a lot of attention is being paid to its partner in crime manga, the Japanese comics that are often adapted into anime (if they’re not already adaptations themselves). In North America and Europe manga has exploded, but the sheer volume of manga published in Japan means that not every series makes it over here— and even the ones that do don’t always get the attention that they deserve! So here’s one of our Top Ten Underrated Manga that we recommend that you should get your hands on:
Bokurano
North American publishers seem wary of Mohiro Kitoh’s manga Bokurano— possibly due to the difficulty that Dark Horse had with Kitoh’s Narutaru, which began reasonably family-friendly before it took a serious turn for the dark side, preventing Dark Horse from even releasing later volumes. No one yet has licensed Bokurano.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 10, 2008 in Star Wars
The concept is simple: Recreate a vehicle from Star Wars in steampunk style using LEGO! The Bricks to Bothans Forum (dedicated to LEGO Star Wars) is holding a Steam-Wars Contest, where fans get to submit their LEGO creations of Star Wars vehicle done in steampunk style. Shown above is a steampunk X-Wing fighter by Brickshelf user Jerrec. For info on the contest go here:
Posted by Guest Author on Jan 9, 2008 in Comic Books
With American anime sales on a downward trend, a lot of attention is being paid to its partner in crime manga, the Japanese comics that are often adapted into anime (if they’re not already adaptations themselves). In North America and Europe manga has exploded, but the sheer volume of manga published in Japan means that not every series makes it over here— and even the ones that do don’t always get the attention that they deserve! So here’s one of our Top Ten Underrated Manga that we recommend that you should get your hands on:
Antique Bakery
Odds are good that if you’re not a fan of yaoi— boy/boy romance manga for women —you haven’t read Fumi Yoshinaga’sAntique Bakery, which is technically not yaoi (barely). Her series is part slice-of-life comedy and part drama about four men working in a bakery together. Primary among the men is Keisuke, the son of a wealthy family who has an odd fixation on sweets because a man who kidnapped him as a child fed him cakes.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 9, 2008 in Japanese TV
Shown above is a funny skit starring Japanese comedian Ken Shimura from the the Fuji TV series “Ken Shimura’s Lordship like Vaca”. I got a real kick out of this skit which is based on Bjork’s swan costume:
Posted by Guest Author on Jan 8, 2008 in Comic Books
With American anime sales on a downward trend, a lot of attention is being paid to its partner in crime manga, the Japanese comics that are often adapted into anime (if they’re not already adaptations themselves). In North America and Europe manga has exploded, but the sheer volume of manga published in Japan means that not every series makes it over here— and even the ones that do don’t always get the attention that they deserve! So here’s one of our Top Ten Underrated Manga that we recommend that you should get your hands on:
Hajime no Ippo (“The First Step”)
George Morikawa’s boxing manga Hajime no Ippo is probably the longest-running underrated manga out there. A full 81 volumes have been produced since its inception in 1990, all of which remain bereft and unlicensed. Oh, and it’s still running, too.
Posted by Guest Author on Jan 7, 2008 in Comic Books
With American anime sales on a downward trend, a lot of attention is being paid to its partner in crime manga, the Japanese comics that are often adapted into anime (if they’re not already adaptations themselves). In North America and Europe manga has exploded, but the sheer volume of manga published in Japan means that not every series makes it over here— and even the ones that do don’t always get the attention that they deserve! So here’s one of our Top Ten Underrated Manga that we recommend that you should get your hands on:
Gintama
This actually is a combination underrated manga and anime— the anime, in fact, is unlicensed in spite of its immense popularity in Japan. VIZ has started releasing the manga in the U.S., but with so little marketing that many are barely aware of its existence. Which is a shame, since it’s a fantastic (and funny) series!
At first glance you might mistake this package for something from Japan, but Lotte is based out of Korea. This love themed package design is a bit more inspired than the mini chocolate cookies inside. Although I found that this cute illustration on the back of the package was rather cute:
The first thing about the above video that’s amazing to me is that Isaac Asimov is talking about global warming as a threat to humanity back in 1989. Keep in mind that this was before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. At that point in time the main concern with most folks was nuclear war, for example Carl Sagan talked about this in his epic TV series Cosmos.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 5, 2008 in Pulp Fiction
Shown above are the covers for Witches Tales from August 1971 and Strange Galaxy from February 1971. They’re part of a wonderful collection on Flickr put together by Shawn Murphy:
“Welcome to the strange and gruesome world of EERIE PUBLICATIONS. These magazines were cheap knockoffs of the more popular CREEPY and EERIE magazines put out by Warren Publishing. These are some of the most insane, bloody and violent magazine covers you will ever see. Ever since I saw my first one I’ve been obsessively collecting them. This is a large sampling, but I still need many more. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!!!”
Werewolves are back in the movies! Underworld and it’s sequel have managed to make the wolf man a popular topic for film in the new century and the latest release in this genre is Skinwalkers. With a PG-13 rating and a pretty formulamatic plot Skinwalkers was perceived as another tired retread from a Hollywood in desperate need of originality. Yet as the movie progressed it showed itself to have a little spark and a cast of actors and characters that you found yourself caring for.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 4, 2008 in Japanese TV
Shown above is an animated vintage commercial for Fujiya Peko cakes. In her kimono Peko looks cuter than Minky Momo ever did, in fact I’d say it’s high time she lands her own anime show!
Thanks to the marketing division of Bandai shown above (click for a full image) is Deslar Wine. It’s no secret that Star Blazers was quite an inspiration to me growing up, well it seems a generation on wine drinking fanboys in Japan have now arrived — and want to enjoy more sophisticatedmemorabiliaassociated with Space Cruiser Yamato:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 3, 2008 in Comic Books
A graphic novel about old school phone phreaking and computer hacking? How could an old school fanboy not be sold on this concept! And from the looks of it Ed Piskor has done a great job with this comic book which features everything from acoustic modems ala WarGames to a scene with the Woz and Jobs selling blue-boxes in a primitive pre-iPhone world:
Every day Ian Stone starts his life, at some point during that day Ian dies a terrible death only to find himself in a new life with an unsettling feeling that he’s been through something horrific. Thus the plot setup for the Deaths of Ian Stone for the best movie to come out of Horrorfest in 2007.
I recently enjoyed myself spending much time exploring the website GRIN: Great Images in NASA, which has an amazing collection of over a thousand images which any fanboy would love! Below are some of my finds, make sure to click on each photo to see a larger image:
Saturn V, S-II Stage is Lifted into Test Stand: The S-II stage of the Saturn V rocket is hoisted onto the A-2 test stand in 1967 at the Mississippi Test Facility, now the Stennis Space Center. This was the second stage of the 364-foot tall Moon rocket. The second stage was powered by five J-2 engines.
I’m starting to hear some good things about Cloverfield, but the Statue of Liberty treatment reminds me a bit too much of the end of Planet of the Apes and we’ve already seen the blowing up New York City thing in Independence Day. And not to make it personal but in my mind JJ Abrams is still not on my “friends list” until he patches things up with William Shatner over the next Star Trek film. Although that won’t stop me from standing in line to see the movie on opening day of course…
P.S. Although I have to say that Cloverfield’s marketing campaign is very blogger friendly which makes me happy!
“One of the most prolific writers in history, on any imaginable subject. Cared little for art but created lasting and memorable tales.”
This made me rather happy on a silly level as I grew up reading the Foundation series and chaired a small science fiction convention on Long Island in the 80s that had Asimov as a guest of honor. Although credit for getting him as a guest has to go to Elyse Rosenstein who was very involved in organizing the Star Trek conventions in the 70s and the Lunacon science fiction conventions in the 80s.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 1, 2008 in Comic Books
When I saw the above X-Men poster I was blown away! The credit for the illustration goes to Eric Tan who works for Disney in California, his inspiration came from old German film posters.
