Category Archives: School

[SCHOOL] OEL Manga = Alternative Comics? Presentation

Posted on by Peccosa
OEL/Alternative comics presentation @ MM

OEL/Alternative comics presentation @ MM

Yesterday I gave a presentation on OEL (Original English Manga, my research topic) at the Kyoto International Manga Museum and how it relates to Alternative Comics: the counter-culture comics movement of the early 80′s, which followed the Underground Comics movement. It’s a bit complicated to explain, but, essentially, OEL manga resembles Alt. Comics in the sense that artists in OEL manga favor self-publishing, small press, auteurism and represent a counter-move in their community (OEL manga artists are considered “rebels” by their own peers in the general manga fan community, as well as “amateurs” and “copy-cats”, amongst other insults).

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Ayer hice una presentación en el Museo Internacional de Manga de Kioto acerca del manga OEL (Original English Manga en inglés, que significa “manga original en inglés”, mi tema central de investigación) y cómo está relacionado a los cómics alternativos: movimiento contra-cultural del cómic que surgió a principios de los años 80, siguiendo el movimiento de los cómic “underground”. Es un poco complicado de explicar, pero en esencia, el manga OEL se parece a los cómics alternativos en el sentido de que los artistas que dibujan y desean publicar cómics estilo manga tienden a publicar por si mismos en vez de con una editorial (a propósito y no por falta de recursos, es porque no quieren perder los derechos de sus trabajos), prefieren un número de tiraje corto/bajo, hacen en mayoría cómics “de autor” y representan una tendencia rebelde dentro de su propia comunidad (es bien conocido que los artistas estilo manga son mal vistos dentro de las comunidades fan de manga y anime por ser considerados “amateurs” o “copiones”, entre otros descalificativos).

 

I introduced interviews I did to 3 artists who work in manga style who I met at 3 anime,manga & comics conventions last year: Anime Expo, Comic-Con and Caracas Comic Con. I don’t want to name them now, b/c I will write more extensive artist profiles on my OEL manga webzine, MANGAVERSOS, later.

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Introduje a 3 artistas que trabajan en estilo manga, y a quienes conocí en 3 convenciones diferentes de anime, manga & cómics, el año pasado: Anime Expo, Comic-Con y Caracas Comic Con. No los nombraré por ahora, porque quiero hacerles reseñas mas extensas a cada uno en mi webzine de manga original, MANGAVERSOS.

 

Here’s a short snippet of my presentation and the focus point of it // Aquí está un pedacito de mi presentación, que explica un poco el punto de enfoque de mi investigación (¡lo siento, pero solo lo tengo en inglés!):

[...the general OEL manga sentiment is towards a more independent way to become a professional manga artist, one that doesn't depend on debuting in Japan, being scouted by a big name publisher, or making the manga look as "Japanese" as possible in order for it to sell. For such reasons, OEL manga can be seen as resembling the way Alternative Comics behave within mainstream (comics) cultures. It is interesting to see how regardless of their country of origin, most artists favor auteurism, independent thought and sophisticated narratives. Making manga in a country where doing so is not the mainstream style (or part of the mainstream culture) is a way of being idiosyncratic. It is also a type of deviant art, where making manga is a cultural defiance, and in spirit with the tradition of alternative comics to provide a different way of participating in cultural discourse.]

And some pics // Y algunas fotos :

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Finally, I showed magazines I picked up in Venezuela.

Zuplemento was very well received!

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Finalmente, mostré revistas de cómics que conseguí en Venezuela.

¡La de Zuplemento fue muy bien recibida!

Zuplemento in Japan

~ A.

Time to reap what we sow

Posted on by Peccosa

After 4 long years of hard work and lots of frustrations, I finally managed to finish my Master’s and will be graduating soon! There have also been great times of course, I came to this country at 24 yrs old, and I’m now 28, I can definitely say that I have done a great deal of growing up here, and I’m glad to finally see some of the results of that, both on professional, academic and personal levels. So, for those in the Kyoto Area: The Exhibition of Graduation Works 2010 of the Faculty of Manga and the Graduate School of Art of Kyoto Seika University will open on FEB. 16TH-20TH, at the Kyoto International Manga Museum, starting at 10:00-18:00 each day, free admission. Please drop by anytime to check out manga and anime made by my graduating class ( I will also be showing my graduation work). Hope to see you there! ~

On a side note, I was recently interviewed by Hiroko Sasaki, producer and MC of a Japanese internet radio show called 「世界の留学生」(Foreign Students of the World), where she talks with foreign students in the Kansai area about their studies and projects here in Japan. Its the first time I ever did an interview for anyone, so I was very nervous (plus it was in Japanese, and I’m not very good at it yet, so I made a lot of embarrasing mistakes!) but it was fun nonetheless :) Please check it out and tell me what you think! You can check it out here (http://e-radio.cc/radio_blog/modules/gnavi/index.php?lid=45)

BD Workshop Manga (3 Language versions)

Posted on by Peccosa

It’s funny how I hadn’t posted anything in months and in the span of a couple of days, I’m posting yet more manga! Either I will keep posting artwork or I’ll go into lurking once again to emerge with something else ;)

This time, I’m posting web versions of a short story manga I made for a workshop I participated in at my school. It was led by two famous BD (Bande Dessinee) artists named Jean-Claude Mézières and Pierre Christin, creators of a famous BD SF (Science Fiction) story called “Valérian and Laureline“. Although they write SF BD, in our workshop, we worked on creating a short manga, 2 to 3 pages long, about Kyoto, or something related to Kyoto. I had already made up my story when they decided on the theme, so in the end, I just placed it in the context of Kyoto, though the story can basically take place anywhere.

I wanted to post the manga, but I didn’t know which language version to post, so…here’s all 3 of them: Japanese, English and Spanish. In regards to the Japanese version, I used Kansai dialect (Kansai-ben) to accentuate the fact that it’s in Kyoto, so it might be a bit weird for some people who are used to the standard, Tokyo dialect of Japanese (though I find Kansai-ben way more interesting!). As far as the English and Spanish versions, the only note is that I made the translations very quickly (and under lack of sleep!) so there may be some mistakes (let me know if you find one!). Also, the Spanish version obviously has no accents, because the font I used is for English use only, but…whatever :/

Ok, so I hope you like it, please let me know what you think, so I can keep improving my work :) Cheers!

…..…..


Asbestos Manga

Posted on by Peccosa

Although this is for one of my classes/projects, I though I’d post it here since it’s artwork, and I’m curious to see/hear what people think about it. It’s a short comic about a project my university if collaborating in, alongside Kobe Universities and various NPOs and other organizations, here in Japan as well as overseas. For more info, please read!

And also, leave a comment! Like I said, I’m curious as to what people think ;)

To research, or not to research…the actual question is: WHAT to research?

Posted on by Peccosa
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She looks how I feel right now :/

I’ve been struggling with narrowing down my topic for my research thesis paper, and although the presentation of my topic and outline is due next week on the 14th ( meaning I have less than a week to write my statement, my outline, translate it all into Japanese, gather some sources and visual material and arrange it all in PowerPoint…God, just saying it all that is starting to give me a panic attack), I’ve yet to make up my mind about what I want to talk about. It’s not such an easy decision, because I will be working on this for 2 whole years. In a way, this means making a commitment to read, research, write about and discuss this topic for that amount of time, and for someone who likes to juggle various (and very different) ideas all at once, I’m at a loss as to which of those great, interesting ideas to choose and “marry” myself to, at least for those 2 years…or more, if I decide to carry on the research into my PhD.

My first topic of interest was writing about Manga as an Educational Tool: How Comics, Manga and/or Graphic Novels can be used to teach. Any subject, in any language. All that would change is the format; instead of reading a textbook, you would learn advanced calculus or the history of the Roman Empire in a comic book. All facts accurate of course, but at least students will WANT to do their required readings. Or at least, that’s the idea.

But, I realized after reading up on some papers about current research in manga and comic theory that I’m actually more interested in two other very different topics, and their influence in Comics & Manga: Psychology and Feminism.

Yeah, I know it has NOTHING to do with educational uses of comic books, but after I gave it some thought, I realized they’re recurrent themes in my work. I’ve always been fascinated by psychology. The Mind, it’s structure, the fact that you can study something that is immaterial and unquantifiable, and that exists in every human being. The Ego, the Self, the “I”: what is it, how does it work, how does it exist, what creates it? What is the Self? Who are you? Who am I?

Hah, sorry, that came off a bit too existentialist!

And yet I realize, in my work and life, I’ve always veered towards that path of thought.  I love Herman Hesse’s “Steppenwolf”, I read Jung out of fun and I’d be a Buddhist if I could manage to stop eating animal products. The concepts and ideas about the Ego, Existence and Reality has fascinated me from a very early age.

Then, there is the obvious (but often overlooked by myself) fact that I am a woman.  Having been brought up in a household of only women by a single, working mom, I have a pretty good notion of what a strong, self-reliant woman is like. Her virtues and defects, and everything in between. I love heroines such as Lit. Ripley in the movie “Alien” and the heroines of cyberpunk anime, like Kusanagi in “Ghost in The Shell” and Miyazaki’s Nausicaa. I love Ursula K. LeGuin’s stories, and her depiction of smart, independent, yet romantic and spiritual women. She is one of my most important role models, and deeply influences my aspirations as an artist and writer. About a year and a half ago,  I read her essay book, “Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places“, and learned she is a self-proclaimed feminist. Then a couple of weeks ago, my teacher gave me a bunch of articles to read about Cyberpunk, and feminism ideologies, namely Donna Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto“, a brilliant study of feminism in postmodern art and literature, keeps popping up everywhere I look.

In the end, I found myself mulling over the following questions:

- Am I a feminist who writes and draws comic books?

- Or moreover, am I an existential feminist who writes and draws graphic novels that deal with post-humanism and women’s role in futuristic dystopian societies?

This last bit is what really intrigues me. But then, how do I make that a research paper? :/