Still More of the Great Comics Giveway!

It's well into its second week and going over like gangbusters. And something unexpected happened today. Last week, a high school dude chose Astonishing X-Men: Torn, so I thought I'd give him Astonishing X-Men: Unstoppable this week. Instead, he decided he would rather have Alan Moore's V for Vendetta and one of the high school girls took Astonishing X-Men because she went absolutely gaga for John Cassaday's art.

"Did you take X-Men?" I asked her, because the book seemed to have suddenly vanished.

She grinned. "Yes, because I love the art!"

Not that I blame her. Those books are lovely to look at, and Unstoppable has Cassaday's handsome versions of practically every major Marvel character. It also has a tremendous image of an inverted Spider-Man high above Manhattan. Who wouldn't love that? It should be a freakin' poster already. So rest assured, John Cassaday-- you have at least one fan in Japan now. Well, two for now and one after I leave in May.

The other student, a high school girl, decided to choose between Batgirl: Silent Running and Batgirl: Death Wish.

"Which one is better?" she asked.

"They're both pretty good," I told her. "But Silent Running is the first one. I think. Or is it Death Wish? Yeah, Silent Running is the first one."

She wisely chose Silent Running. Later, I gave Death Wish to a woman close to my age and filled her in on the whole Cassandra Cain saga, then told her, "But after that, they ruined her." She smiled because she knows I'm a fool.

"Who is the writer?" she asked.

I pointed to the names on the cover. "Puckett... Scott... Those are their last names. In America, comics are written by one person, pencilled by another, then another person inks it and one more colors it. Oh yeah, then someone else puts all the letters on it."

She nodded and glanced down at her comic-by-committee. In Japan, a lot of comic artists use teams of assistants, but the books themselves are credited to a single author. And then there are creators like Yazawa Ai who work themselves sick turning out hundreds, even thousands of pages of art and story themselves.

I also gave away volumes one and three of Miyazaki Hayao's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (to two different people), Will Eisner's Best of the Spirit (to a woman who recently learned she's pregnant with twins), Mike Allred's Madman Volume 1 (to the college student already reading and enjoying John Byrne's Compleat Next Men) and Tokyo Days Bangkok Nights (cringing after I realized how much nudity it contains).

Sharing comics is fun.

You Want Some Original Steve "The Dude" Rude Art?

Why wouldn't you want some original Steve "The Dude" Rude art? That guy is awesome! He takes the best of Russ Manning, combines it with a huge portion of Andrew Loomis, then adds Jack Kirby superheroic dynamism and Dr. Seuss surrealism to make art that's both retro and futuristic. He's one of American comics's finest renderers of the human form.

His recent commission sketches of old time Marvel characters like Gwen Stacy in all her early 1970s glory accurately capture the feel of Gil Kane and John Romita without swiping; some of them look as if a staffer at the House of Ideas opened a forgotten file cabinet and hit the Bristol board jackpot.

And as he says: "Make an offer on anything! Covers, pages, more. Going, going gone!"

If I weren't in the middle of a trans-Pacific move and hard up for cash at the moment, I'd snag some original pages for myself. I highly suggest you do what I cannot.

Fantagraphics Jumps Into the Manga Market...

In news of the long overdue variety, Fantagraphics has announced they're going to start publishing Japanese comics. It's about time someone started making the more obscure and artsy-fartsy type manga books available in English. Here's my favorite quote from the Publisher's Weekly story:

[Gary] Groth said his reluctance to publish manga was due to his perception that commercial manga lacked "literary worth."

I was all set to rip this quote to shreds, but then I decided he probably has a point. Commercial manga. I think he's trying to position Fantagraphics' manga output in opposition to things like One Piece and Naruto. Hopefully he's since become aware "commercial" manga includes almost all of Tezuka Osamu's output, the brilliant Pynchonesque sci-fi epic 20th Century Boys and Nana, the writer-artist of which Journalista! writer Dirk Deppey called "the Gilbert Hernandez of Japan" on an Onion A/V Club message thread last year.

It's just more than a little amusing to see the publisher of material that challenges the mainstream comic book fans actually shares-- or shared-- their same cloistered, paranoid response to Japanese comics. The difference is he was able to couch his in lofty aesthetic terms rather than the usual complaints: All those big eyes! No noses! Not enough cross-hatching! This stuff can't be any good... it's... gasp... foreign.

Scratch a literary comic reader and find a... comic reader?

Guess I couldn't resist after all.

Anyway, knee-jerk reactions should last only as long as it takes... you know... the knee to jerk. So welcome to the club, Mr. Groth. Might I suggest you take a gander at the works of Ito Junji while you're still in the learning stages of manga acceptance? And I'm looking forward to seeing what Japanese comics Fantagraphics deems literary worthies fit for publication for the perusal of pretentious comic snobs like myself. Oh yeah-- I'm still introducing anyone and everyone to Love and Rockets here in Japan.

The Great Comic Book Giveaway Continues!

Today, my boss's wife received Nodame Cantabile 1 with much glee. "I love this one!" she shouted. In my second class of the day, I gave still more BPRD and Hellboy books to the one student who's become a big fan of Mignola's little corner of the comic book universe; she also received the classic Watchmen to give to a student who I convinced to buy the Japanese-language version earlier this year. Later, I placed several DC Showcase books and a Marvel Essentials on the table in my classroom, then brought in my class, a high school trio. The choices: Teen Titans 1 and 2, Batman and the Outsiders 1, House of Mystery 1 and 2, House of Secrets 1 and Essential Tomb of Dracula 2 .

The kids thumbed through the books for a while, not sure of what I was doing; their English is improving all the time, but they're still fairly new to the language. Finally, I forced the issue by addressing each by name and asking for a selection. One girl chose Batman and the Outsiders, another chose Teen Titans 2 and the guy picked Teen Titans 1. Later, we had time for some free discussion.

"Why did you choose this book?" the high school boy asked the Teen Titans girl.

She did a quick mental translation, then shyly answered while looking at me for reassurance: "I don't like... horror." Her voice was practically a whisper.

"How about you?" I asked the other girl.

"I don't like horror, too," she said and smiled.

"And why did you pick this book?" I asked the guy.

"I don't like horror also," he said.

Well, they picked some fun books, and you can't go wrong with the likes of Neal Adams, Nick Cardy, Jim Aparo and George Perez. But they're still missing out on Alex Toth and Nestor Redondo. And I've learned giving comics away is incredibly fun. And if I help build a bridge across the cultural gap between American and Japanese comics, so much the better. So far the students seem fascinated by the differences between our storytelling approaches.

I also believe reading comics is an excellent way for students to improve their English skills. I've often recommended manga because of it familiarity, but I like exposing people here to characters I enjoy from my own country as well.

Spain Rodriguez Talks Che! And Still More of the Great Comics Giveaway!

SPAIN RODRIGUEZ: A Legendary Underground Cartoonist from Revel In on Vimeo.

As in Guevara, the revolutionary. Not the stadium that bears his name. Just kidding. I stole that joke from The Rutles.

A friend of mine posted this link to me on Facebook, telling me, "Right up your alley." And he's right. I love these old underground artists, and while I've long been acquainted with Spain Rodriguez by name-- which is spectacular, by the way-- I hadn't seen a whole lot of his work. I'm also deeply interested in 60s counterculture and political movements and have been since childhood.

Time to look into getting a copy of Che: A Graphic Biography.

But before adding to my comic book collection, I still need to give away dozens of books. Today, I handed over John Byrne's nifty The Compleat Next Men, Volume 1 to a shaggy-haired, good natured college dude. Later in the evening, I gave some trades to a class of high school students. The young man got the kickass Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 3: Torn by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday, while the two young women received the cleverly titled yet lackluster (putting it kindly) Batgirl: Kicking Assassins and the wildly uneven New Mutants Classic, Vol. 2 by Chris Claremont and Sal Buscema. And for my last giveaway of the day, I gave a young woman-- also a college student-- a choice of the first two generally awesome Batgirl collections or the adorable Re-Gifters by Mike Carey, Marc Hempel and Sonny Liew.

"What kind of... stories are these comics?" she asked cautiously.

"Well, these are action-adventure," I told her, pointing at the Batgirl books. "And this one is kinda like shojo manga," I said, tapping Re-Gifters.

She snatched up Re-Gifters and said, "Thank you so much for giving this to me!"

Today's Comic Book Giveaway...

It took place on a cool March night, in a Spanish restaurant while sitting a table away from a guy who looked just like a member of Belle and Sebastian. I don't know any of the names of the individual members so you get to guess which one! We ate tortillas de patatas and costillas fritas, I drank a Coke and she had a chu-joki of Kirin beer.

I gave her a double shot of Fantagraphics's wonderful Love and Rockets series: The Girl from H.O.P.P.E.R.S. and Perla la Loca. I would have given her Maggie the Mechanic, but I couldn't find it. Next time.

The Great Comic Book Giveaway!

I'm doing Amazon several steps better-- I'm giving away comics for free! But you have to be in Japan and personally acquainted with me to benefit. Sorry. Kind of a tease, huh?

Because I've got way too many books to take with me on the plane, I'm giving away just about everything. One student came away with three Hellboy and BPRD trades, plus some monthly comics and an entire class received the first four volumes of Fantastic Four Visionaries: John Byrne. One of my best friends is going to get the three softcover Locas books from Fantagraphics and I'm planning on giving a class of high schoolers some retro DC Showcase books-- Teen Titans and Batman and the Outsiders. A very special someone will get my beloved copy of Mariko and Jillian Tamaki's sublime Skim. Another student who bought the Japanese-language edition of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's classic Watchmen will soon own the English version as well. And I know the perfect person to give my Coraline with its too-pretty P. Craig Russell artwork a good home.

I plan to keep very little. Mostly things that are out of print. But now that I've started giving stuff away, I may keep on until I have nothing left. It's such a joy to see people's faces light up and to hear them promise to work very hard on their English so they can read these books. Some are even a little intimidated.

If you ever feel the need to lighten your own load, donate your old books to libraries or give them to random strangers. It feels good.