Friday, December 17, 2010

Gothic Monsters from Tatsuya Morino

Artist Tatsuya Morino puts a unique twist on the great monsters of Gothic literature in a series of illustrations featured in the book Kaibutsu Gensō Gashū. You can definitely see similarities to great (and strange) American comics artists like Basil Wolverton and many of the underground artists from the 60's. See all the images here at Pink Tentacle.

JAPANESE ARTISTS FACING INDIFFERENCE AT HOME

  From the Wall Street Journal:



Last year, leading Japanese auctioneer Shinwa Art Auction Co. decided to sell contemporary art, so it set up shop—in Hong Kong. With demand very weak in Japan, Shinwa's Yoichiro Kurata says, "It's really hard for young Japanese artists to survive."

Read the full article

Thursday, December 16, 2010

"Extreme Sex" Manga Under Scrutiny in Tokyo

From The Sydney Morning Herald


TOKYO - Japan's capital city is to restrict the sale of manga comics and anime films with extreme depictions of rape, incest and other sex crimes, a plan that has brought cries of censorship.

The bill before the Tokyo assembly would require publishers and shops to sell only to readers aged over 18 any material that depicts "virtual sex crimes" if the images are "unjustifiably glorified and exaggerated".

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Note that the comics are not being "banned" but merely subjected to age restrictions.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

JUNOT & JAIME: Together at last


Synchronicity: My favorite comic book artist Jaime Hernandez does an accompanying illustration for a short story ("The Pura Principle") by my favorite new fiction writer, Junot Diaz. In the latest issue of The New Yorker. It just hit the stands; but, ever-generous,  The NY is happy to post it online for you to read for free RIGHT HERE. I haven't read it just yet myself (busily working on my own stuff...or avoiding working on my own stuff, one in the same).

Friday, February 26, 2010

Mmmm...Olivia

Olivia Munn may be the best combination of incredibly sexy and incredibly funny to occur in a single bipedal humanoid in recent memory...but I think she could use a better book design (Chipp Kidd wasn't available?). Love the title, though.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

GIANT ROBOT Needs Some Cash Money!

This really surprised me. It's pretty obvious that print newspapers and magazines are on a steady decline to obsolescence, and yet I LOVE them so much...and Giant Robot is one of the best and most diverse mags in print. These guys (Eric & Martin) own retail stores, and even a vegan restaurant, so I assumed the magazine was on very solid ground. But apparently not.
Having briefly published a magazine myself I know how excruciatingly hard it is to get advertising; how distribution and rising shipping costs can be utterly dispiriting; and how everything in print is losing ground to the immediacy (and illiteracy) of the web. So anyway, watch the video and throw a few bucks to GR, if only to keep them around for your (and my) own edification.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Ink Mountain

I don't surf around the web to keep up with all the amazing art and illustration stuff out there now but here's a most excellent comics & art blog by people I don't know. Take it from Kanye~
INK MOUNTAIN

THE LIST OF DELICIOUS THINGS




This TOMER HANUKA cover for IDN magazine's special "Colour Issue",
originally done as a book illustration for Marquis de Sade’s Philosophy in the Boudoir. Of course Tomer and brother Asaf did their first ever print interviews way back in TCI #5 Vol. ; and Tomer was so generous that he offered to do an original cover as well.