East meets West

I know it's not Barefoot Gen, but there was a particular manga I wanted to bring to the attention of whoever read this blog. It's a manga that was only introduced this year, Karakuri doji Ultimo, or Robot child: Ultimo. The plot is essentially not that different from Astro Boy, but they give him an evil twin to make it interesting. The red-headed boy (yes it's a boy) is the main character, Ultimo, while the character on the right is the antagonist, Vice. A note on why Ultimo's appearance is so effeminate; just as during the time Shakespeare's plays first came out and it was forbidden for women to be in theater and thus men played women's parts, this was also the case with older Japanese theater. Such manga or anime characters are said to be bishonen.So what makes this manga worth mentioning? It's actually a collaboration between manga artist Hiroyuki Takei, and comic book legend Stan Lee; in fact, Ultimo and Vice are the names of two characters found within Iron Man's continuity.

Stewie and Sputnik

I know this may seem extremely irrelevant, but I had to bring this topic up. While reading the graphic novel, Fallout, and viewing the movie Day One, I remembered another scenario about Germany's endeavors in nuclear power. It was in an episode of Family Guy, in particular the episode, Road to Germany. Long story short, the characters travel back in time and wind up in 1939 Europe. To get back to their own time, they needed a uranium battery to power the machine that would return them to the present and there was only one place in Europe at the time that was studying nuclear power: Berlin. This was the big setup joke: Stewie>> "Berlin had weapons of mass destruction! How come America doesn't go over there and stop them?" Brian>>Oh, I don't know, maybe its because (slowly turns to television audience) they don't have any oil?" Stewie>>"OH! Clap Clap Clap." This little trade-off reminded me of how childish it seemed during Fallout and Day One of how America just had to have the nuclear bomb developed before Germany. It then brought up the memory of when the USSR launched Sputnik. In less than ten years, the United States had gone from a nuclear arms race with Nazi Germany to the space race with the Soviet Union; we didn't get the first probe into space, but we certainly got the first man on the moon. Are we that competitive as a nation?

Funny Actors, Serious Roles

I just had to get this off my chest. As we've been watching Welcome to Sarajevo, I was reminded of another, albeit different in structure movie. Woody Harrelson would be an actor most people would immediately recognize fo his comedic work on the late TV series Cheers and here he is casted in a more serious role (a war-torn country probably doesn't get more serious than that). It reminded me of another time when an actor who branded purely as comedic tried out a more serious role. I'm reffering to Bill Murray in the more obscure movie, The Razor's Edge, almost two decades before he appeared in Lost in Translation.

In The Razor's Edge, Murray plays a son from a rich American family who goes on to fight in World War I and is aghast at what he sees. After the war, he goes into hiding in Paris living more down to earth. Upon its 1984 release, the movie didn't recieve the recognition it does today, people were just too use to comedic Bill Murray.

A richer experience

Sorry about those little rants...on to more serious topics.

The three most recent graphic novels we've read in (Persepolis, Pyongyang and Safe Area Gorazde) all have one thing in common: They introduce an audience who is unknowing of a culture to how it lives, works, etc. It reminds me of a Japanese manga called JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Granted they are fundamentally different as the first three books are practically documentaries while this manga series is purely a fictional trek between Japan and Egypt within 50 days, the series author and illustrator, Hirohiko Araki, has actually visited the other countries visited in the series which include Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Pakistan, Abu Dahbi, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. Not only does this make the backgrounds richer for the experience, the story is also given brief little information for tourists and simaritans alike including the Tiger Balm Gardens is Hong Kong, how Singapore is one of the busiest shipping ports in the world, how haggling is vital in middle eastern market places, the construction of Egypt's Nubia dam and just how crowded and unsanitary Calcutta, India is.

ONe big frustration after another

Everytime I use to Edit Html, to post the embed code from Youtube, all I got was a big empty box with a red X, and simply hyperlinking doesn't seem to work either. I'll try to post a blog relevant to PyongYang later.

Help!!!

I still have no idea how you upload a movie to your blog.
If anyone has any suggestions, for God's Sake leave a comment!

Printmade?

Now there is a sudden shift; from reading about retired superheroes and or deconstructing the idea of a superhero we find ourselves in a new genre of graphic novels. I was only recently aware of Persepolis. Over a year ago when Entertainment Weekly featured half a book's worth of the movies that were scheduled to be released between September and December 2007 and there was Persepolis in the back. The second time I actually saw Persepolis was a clip during this year's Academy Awards mostly because Best Animated Feature is the only feature I tune in for, then I all but completely lose interest in the show. Anyways, after having completely read the graphic novel (the one on the far left), I know the scene I witnessed occured in the second graphic novel (the biological changes the author experienced during puberty). Unfortunately, Persepolis lost to Ratatouille.

It wasn't until my Graphic Novel class that I learned that Persepolis started out as a graphic novel. The main question that kept coming into my mind was the art style. Did Marjane Starapi actually draw this black and white world or was it via printmaking? After some research, it turns out not only was it hand drawn, but the series is actually four books when it was first released in France. The book we just read is books 1&2. The series was simply compressed to 2 books for the English audience.