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1. GoGo Monster: And here’s Taiyo Matsumoto and the best comic of 2009, a tale of two schoolboys in their third year of classes, one of whom spends most of his time fading in and out of a world of invisible spirits facing an even more obscure threat; it was published in Japan in 2000, right before No. 5 began serialization. I’ve had a review half-written for a little while now — the book came out pretty recently — so in lieu of that I’ll provide a sub-list of Reasons Why This is Great to compliment my Top Ten Funnies and Best of Show Disclaimers rundown:
John rated it really liked it
Taiyo Matsumoto is an amazing illustrator and writer but he seems to do the same story in all the works that I’ve read: two teenage male characters have a coming of age experience with some fantasy or magical realism elements. Typically, one of the characters is exceptional in some regard (an amazing fighter, a great Ping-Pong player, an excellent student) and seems to have some connection to an invisible world, sometimes in the form of a doppleganger. In GoGo Monster, as in Ping-Pong, the magical realism elements appear to be mostly in the mind of the Peko/Yuki character. Whether or not Super Star and the others are real, Yuki, Ganz and IQ all believe that they effect the world outside of Yuki’s head. The art in this book is not quite as polished as in Sunny or Tekkonkinkreet (both of which I believe were published later?), but it’s still engaging. If you’re looking for a typical manga with this book, you’ll probably be disappointed and/or bored as it’s very long, very slow and very strange, despite the fairly mundane setting of a middle school.
“Picture a Batman and Robin story put through a Peter Pan filter by Takeshi Kitano and you’d only be halfway to conceiving the unique, terrible beauty that is Tekkon Kinkreet, previously published under the name Black & White.”
“Matsumoto’s stark, black-and-white imagery won’t be to every reader’s taste; I’d be the first admit that many of the kids in Blue Spring look older and wearier than Keith Richards, with their sunken eyes and rotten teeth. But the studied ugliness of the character designs and urban settings suits the material perfectly, hinting at the anger and emptiness of the characters’ lives. Matsumoto offers no easy answers for his characters’ behavior, nor any false hope that they will escape the lives of violence and despair that seem to be their destiny. Rather, he offers a frank, funny and often disturbing look at the years in which most of us were unformed lumps of clay — or, in Matsumoto’s memorable formulation, a time when most of us were blue: “No matter how passionate you were, no matter how much your blood boiled, I believe youth is a blue time. Blue — that indistinct blue that paints the town before the sun rises.””
Taiyo Matsumoto is tough for me to write about in any kind of formal fashion. Not sure why. I think maybe some of it may be that he’s such an old influence for me—like I came into his work before Nihei or Daisuke Igarashi—maybe even before Inio Asano-though Asano hasn’t really influenced me artistically—but I think how I got there was I was reading Stray Toasters because when I was first sort of starting to figure out how to draw, I practiced by redrawing Frazetta and BWS, but I was looking at like Sienkiewicz and Ashley Wood—anyways so I was reading Stray Toasters, and my wife of the time saw one of the panels in it, and was like “oh wow, that’s Klimt”—so I went and looked up Klimt and was like “whoa” which led me to Schiele which was a life changing moment. As soon as I saw Schiele I knew there was something in there that I just FELT, and I wanted to explore that feeling through my own work and find my own expression through it.
So in trying to figure out how to take Schiele into comics I ran into Taiyo Matsumoto’s work. I think Tekkinkinkreet was the first work of his I read, then No. 5, then Gogo Monster, then Ping Pong, then Takemitsu Zamurai, and now Sunny. Ping Pong and Takemitsu Zamurai are prolly my fave works by him, with Gogo Monster a close third. But these works were huge to me, and I mean eventually I found Daisuke Igarashi—and I think Daisuke is even closer to my like platonic ideal of comics than even Taiyo is—but Taiyo was key. Maybe THE key. At least after Schiele. So there’s a lot of emotional investment with Taiyo.
I think fundamentally the strength of Taiyo’s work for his whole career is that he doesn’t just tell you here is a boy doing this thing—he gives you something more about the boy at that particular time just in the way his line jitters, or the way the shadow will cloud a face—and maybe the shadow will be these impressionistic brush strokes—or maybe it will be more traditional cross hatching techniques? But the choice always was about communicating something beyond simply what is physically there in the scene.
– Sarah Horrocks
5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece.
By Luca Vitale on September 22, 2007
Format: Paperback
This might be the best graphic novel ever written, and I don`t say that lightly. It`s a shame that it doesn`t have a wide circulation in Europe and US. It`s pretty much impossible to compare to anything else, Tekkon Kinkreet it`s the most lyrical and at at the same time the most anti-conformist comic you`ll ever read. Think Miyazaki, Tank Girl and Takeshi Kitano all wrapped up in one story that is so good it hurts. Just get it, if you like indie comics chances are this is your new favorite one.
1.0 out of 5 stars very bad
ByEvzenie Reitmayerovaon January 28, 2010
i dunno about the story.
the pictures are so bad it is hard to follow what is actually going on.
it looks like it was drawn by a 2 years old kid with no talent.
i started to read this book a couple of times but couldnt finish it.
it proves even manga can be drawn very bad.
what a dissapointment.
Joey Comeau rated it it was amazing
Shelves: recommendations
This is one of my favourite comic books. It’s surreal and sort of mystical in a way that isn’t lame, but is instead psychological and unexpectedly violent. I was very surprised by this book.
UPDATED REVIEW:
Two years after first reading this book, I have come back to it again and again, each time finding more to love. This has gone from being a really nice surprise and “one of my favourite comic books” to being my favourite BOOK, period.
(A) It’s the most furiously cartooned book I’ve read all year, a no-assistants one man show of total vision penmanship that leaves its ‘realistic’ scenery vibrating; buildings literally wave and curve in the background while characters adopt scribbly or sharp appearances based on minute shifts in mood. It’s like Matsumoto seized on the propensity of manga characters in stories where boys see spirits to shift to superdeformed mode when something funny happens and exploded it into three-dimensional sphere of hypersensitive bodily flux.
“Although, I’m still not sure why the book is called Gogo Monster.”
4.0 out of 5 starsFantastic Book
ByChristopher Luceroon January 27, 2013
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase
All-in-all the book is just an amazing read and a must for everyone. My only problem is that when it came in the mail, the very top part of the slip cover was wrinkled because the shipping. Its kinda annoying but still, the book is something to own rather than just read online.
(B) Gone is any trace of the punkish action comics posture of Tekkonkinkreet. Why is that a virtue? Because GoGo Monster functions as a stealthy follow-up project; there’s no doubt in my mind as to why Viz selected it to follow that long-brewing success, since it’s functionally a loose remake, at one point even replicating a plot twist. The trick is, the work formerly known as Black and White concluded with its heroes extricating themselves from the heroic narrative as a means of growing up. Thus, GoGo Monster rips the explicit fantasy out and presents another two boys in a similar story that’s nonetheless entirely different, more delicate, daydreamier. Better.
Mabomanji rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: bd-comics, friend-s-recommendation
J’adore le style de Taiyo Matsumoto, il dessine avec beaucoup de détails mais surtout avec beaucoup de dynamisme en choisissant des points de vue inhabituels. Il y a une qualité cinématographique à son dessin et à son travail de découpage des planches et d’enchaînement de l’histoire, un vrai travail de montage. Je me suis retrouvée embarquée dans cette folle poursuite à travers le monde entier et j’en ai oublié où j’étais. Le monde futuriste brossé est fascinant et on apprend à chaque chapitre un peu plus sur ce qui s’y passe. Politiquement c’est intéressant avec cette organisation pour le maintien pour la paix qui voit ses jours comptés car elle arrive au bout de sa mission. Reste de le mystère de cette femme libérée par Number 5, elle semble être innocente et pourtant elle a un pouvoir magnétique et semble attirer toute la nature à elle. Un tome passionnant dont j’espère la suite au même niveau.
5.0 out of 5 starsDevoted Comics Fans Should Not Pass This One By
ByGraphicNovelReporter.comon December 8, 2009
Format: Hardcover
Yuki Tachibana is an outcast at Asahi Elementary School. He sits alone, drawing on his desk and occasionally shouting out weird exclamations. If he talks to the other children, it is only to warn them about the “others,” beings kept in check only by the power of Super Star, the boss of the other side. Yuki’s only friend is the school’s caretaker, Ganz, though he sometimes talks to IQ, an older student who is academically gifted but interacts with people only through the box he wears over his head. When Makoto Suzuki’s school is shut down for mysterious reasons, he is sent to Asahi Elementary and placed in the desk next to Yuki. Despite the other students’ warnings about Yuki’s strange behavior, Makoto befriends the boy and soon finds himself wondering how much of Yuki’s tales are true.
Matsumoto, manga-ka of Tekkonkinkreet, offers a tale that is part fantasy, part horror, and part mind-trip. On the one hand, it can be read as an exploration into the thought process of a child with autism or a similar disorder, a child who does not see or react to the world the way the rest of humanity does. But on the other hand, Yuki Tachibana might be right and Super Star may be the only thing keeping the beings of the other side from riling the children of Asahi Elementary School to rebel against their teachers, do poorly in class, and be mean to one another. However, it may be that GoGo Monster is neither of those things, or both at the same time.
Matsumoto doesn’t offer an easy read. His plot twists and turns. The dialogue is spare and often consists just of overheard comments that are not necessarily relevant. The characters are mostly inscrutable. And frankly, that is much of the fun of reading GoGo Monster. It is a story to dive into, allowing it to wash over you, and then, later, after it has swirled around in your brain for a time, to dive into again.
The art is as off-kilter as the plot, keeping you searching the panels for hidden details and meanings that may or may not be there, not allowing you to turn the page immediately. Matsumoto’s style is rough, purposefully sloppy. Some characters are realistically portrayed, while others have a messy, cartoonish quality. The drawings within the panels do not always correspond with the dialogue going on at the same time, forcing readers to look deeper for the connection and the meaning. As Yuki is drawn further into the world he sees, the images are terrifyingly subtle. The monsters are never obvious, which heightens the sense of a young boy caught by unimaginable and unseen forces. There is also a lot of beauty in the United States edition of GoGo Monster because of VIZ’s high-quality printing job. The book is hardcover, with the story starting right on the endpages of the front cover. Bright, colorful monsters cover the outside of the book, even overlapping onto the edges of the pages, which are tipped in red and burgundy. A slipcase completes the package.
Readers looking for an artistic read, one that requires that the brain be fully engaged, will find much to appreciate here, as long as they don’t mind taking their time. Other than the typical comments on poop and sex that fourth-grade boys make, there is little to keep this out of the hands of readers old enough to appreciate the strange story. It’s not for every reader, but devoted comics fans should not pass this one by.
— Snow Wildsmith
“Did you know that Matsumoto made this manga entirely on his own (no assistants) and did it in one shot. So it never ran in a magazine, he just sat down for a long while and cranked out 448 pages of genius. Seriously who does that?!”
“Tekkonkinkreet melted my mind.”
Charlie rated it did not like it
Shelves: graphic-novels, young-adult, japanese
I read this because it was by the same person who made Sunny, and because I couldn’t find Sunny: Volume 2 online. This one wasn’t very good. Mostly it’s just left me feeling gross. I don’t even really know why.
“Creating manga is kind of like you’re a child who’s stolen some money, and when asked about it you lie and say you found it on the ground, but then the grown-ups keep asking more and more questions, and you have to keep making up more and more lies and make it more real. Like, I’ve already gone and said that I’d make this series, so now I have to follow through on that original lie to the end and make it look like something real. People who are good at making manga are really good liars, I think.”
Taiyo Matsumoto, in a 1997 interview.
“When people turn into grown-ups, their insides melt into a mushy glop and their brains get hard and stiff,” he tells Makoto. “They get infested with maggots and a purple stink.”
(C) But you don’t need to know that part. GoGo Monster is also a lovely self-contained unit, an original hardcover graphic novel, even in Japan, where such things are pretty rare. Every bit of the format is exploited, with a cardboard slipcase giving way to a wraparound cover that doubles as the work’s first page, although the ‘first’ page is actually page “-8,” which leads into page -7 on the inside-front cover, then -6 through -1 on tinted pages, followed by several pages of black to indicate a narrative break of two years, and then full-color titles on page 0, thereafter counting to over 450 in crisp b&w.; You bet your ass the solid black inside-back cover is significant – it’s another break in time, one we can’t see past.
“Unnormal gut.”
Yanakano_san rated it it was ok
Dirty hopelessness, absolute inanition, students with their clapping game of bloody happiness – young people who were too old and apathetic since the very, very first moment of life.
Matsumoto may call them “the heroes of my youth” – I call them “the lost generation”.
Because something (strangely sounds like “oh shit!”) happens, always did and always will, and let it happen – who cares anyway? Who? Is there any point? Has there ever been?
They know the right answer (which is “no, never”).
They are able to kill for nothing, to die for a far, ghostly goal and to live without feeling alive in the mess of blood, flesh and madness of Japan; their spring is blue, and their summer will come only to make them all finally fade.
(D) The main action of the book takes place over five chapters: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring. This is a cycle, though, not a schematic. If anything, GoGo Monster is reminiscent in tone (not style) of John Porcellino at his sensation-of-moments airiest, with seemingly half the pages in the book devoted specifically to evocation: word balloons floating idle chatter in the air, familiar characters’ faces gazing out, words repeating, images repeating, airplanes, rabbits, scribbles on a desk, not so far from the scribbles that are the children.
5.0 out of 5 stars A uniquely brilliant manga.
By hi on 11 May 2010
Format: Paperback
Taiyo Matsumoto is not your average manga artist. Blue Spring, one of his earlier works, is a collection of short stories about adolescents in the transition between youth and manhood. They refuse to conform to what they see as a bleak present and an even bleaker future, as if confused and angered by it all, with Matsumoto showing their detachment through their daily escapades with the yakuza, society and themselves. It is unflinching in depicting the harshness of their realities with the stories ranging from a deadly rooftop game to a group of young baseball players reminiscing over a game of mahjong with ‘Revolver’ being my favourite and most complete of the stories.
It struck a chord with me because the anxieties they felt were very human while their brash actions and sometimes extreme violence depicted how we would act if we rebelled against our inhibitions. The characters all had recognisable qualities in them but at times felt quite disturbing, especially in ‘What do you want do be when you grow up, Yukio?’ The content is quite explicit throughout underpinning the nihilistic lives that these youths lead with the raw art style reflecting this.
I didn’t expect to like Blue Spring as much as I did but definitely feel lucky to have found it. It doesn’t try to act as a social commentary, it simply acts as a depiction, with the author himself putting it best when describing youth as a blue time:
“Blue – that indistinct blue that paints the town moments before the sun rises. Winter is coming.”
(E) Dotting this mental-temporal landscape are startling scenes and images, ranging from a multi-page depiction of a boy swimming in front of an adult — every page-topping wide panel set outside the pool exactly the same while below are jagged, tense variations of working through water with a cramp — to one of the indelible character designs of 2009(/2000) in the form of the story’s semi-antagonist I.Q., an older boy wearing a silly assortment of boxes over his head, always with a single hole cut out to reveal a spectacularly eerie photorealistic cross-hatched eye, always the most detailed bit of anatomy on any given page. Cross-hatching serves as the looming presence of adulthood throughout the book, finally erupting in a classic I-am-a-master-cartoonist-and-I-can-do-ANYTHING-I-WANT visual blowout climax in which all panels become filled with infinitesimally minute cross-hatches and stippling so that the reader is forced to stare deeply into every panel, slowly navigating as if literally in a dark room, just barely making out faces or legs or terrible animal shapes, and it’s actually scary.
By L. Martin on August 3, 2015
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
This is a very strange manga. It is BEAUTIFULLY set up (pretty covers and slipcase, unusually high quality paper) which suggests to me that someone thought it was somthing extraordinarily fine. And yes it a fine manga—of a particular type. It is a story of an boy who is an outcast at school and lives in his imagination instead. This is a deeply meaningful subject for me because I was such a boy, and the first half or more of the book does a great job of showing how that feels, and what a great thing it is for a boy like that when he makes a friend. However, not much beyond that ever happens! No matter how symapthetic one is to the MC, I think any reader would like some events, developments, changes etc., and particularly a nice ending. I was waiting for some of any of those things, perhaps building interestingly upon the boy’s being able to further develop his new friendship with a second boy in the school, this one also being a semi-outcast like him, but instead all I got was an incomprehensible ending. I was disappointed.
The first half or two thirds of this manga tells such a moving story of the child outcast life that I can recommend it for that. Be prepared to deal with a mysterious ending, and perhaps you’ll love it as others here have.
(F) All of this seems absolutely effortless, from the most worked-over panels to the (far more plentiful) pages of perfect, energetic doodling. I have no problem believing that Matsumoto may not have known what would be two pages ahead of him at any given time, though I doubt that’s true, it’s too complete a work. The book is best read in one sitting; it’s a breeze of a comic, sincerely refreshing. So great is its artist’s expressive power that even the book’s chilly, ill-fitting English typeface seems outright alien, as if drawing attention to the futility of translation. Aesthetes may still object, and they wouldn’t be wrong.
__________________
Writing
https://letsfallasleep.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/taiyo-matsumoto-and-michael-arias-influences/
http://marvelous-coma.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/no5-vol2.html
http://www.cartoonstudies.org/schulz/blog/matsumoto-taiyo-a-comic-essay/
http://sites.gsu.edu/awalsh6/portfolio/critical-reflective-statement/
Podcast with great links below
http://www.factualopinion.com/the_factual_opinion/2013/06/taiyo-matsumoto-and-his-comics.html
All numbered and lettered points pertaining to Gogo Monster are written by Joe McCulloch and can be found in their original form by scrolling down at this link –
http://joglikescomics.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/most-equivocal.html
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p.s. Hey. So I was rummaging around in my dead blog’s cold storage and found this post made by our very own Jamie, and it seemed mega, so I decided to reassemble it so that you and future generations of blog viewers will have it at your fingertips eternally or at least until this blog gets murdered too. Obviously, it would be great if you give Jamie a heads up of your choosing in your comments today, thanks. And thank you belatedly and currently, Jamie! ** Chris Cochrane, Well, hello to you too! That battle you speak of is the reason why so many really talented and unique artists lose faith and give up prematurely. It’s when you find out how marginalisation works and how the goal of being centralised is so arbitrary and overrated and discover how sure you are that you’re doing something valuable. A trial by fire, as they say. I don’t know. Envy/congrats about the This is not This Heat show. I’ll check my local listings. Oh, how awesome it would be if you and Aki collaborate! I really hope that transpires. Let me know. Love to you, maestro. ** Jamie, Hey! There it is. Strange to see it again? A sight for sore eyes? Thank you again! Yeah, thanks a lot about the crap. I mean, it’s familiarity is ultimately a help, and I’m completely confident that the film will ‘win’ in the long run. It’s just so annoying. It reminds me a little of when I was a kid, and my parents had dumb, terrible ideas about what I was doing or needed to do, and I knew I was smarter than them and right, but there was no way to convince them otherwise since I was the ‘kid’, and I had to be patient and wait to get old enough that I could get around them and do what I wanted. The situational instigators of my rant yesterday are too complicated to lay out in the p.s, but thank you for asking and it’ll be fine. I’m already back to forging ahead. It does cheer me up mightily that you’re coming to Paris at the end of August, yes! I’ll be here. I go to NYC sometime at the beginning of September, but I’ll be ensconced ’til then. Cool! You guys coming just for fun or … ? Excellent! Happy you liked that novel. My yesterday was working on the film script rewrite. I want to get it finished before the TV script works eats everything towards the end of this week. And an old friend of mine who I haven’t seen in, I don’t know, close to 30 years, suddenly contacted me and said he’ll be in Paris today, so I’m meeting up with him at noon, and that’s sweet. And it was awful/hot outside. How did Wednesday go? Hopefully it got audio recorded and then given to some sound tech wiz who, upon playing the recording backwards, distinctly heard an angelic voice say, ‘Best day ever.’ Syntactically weird love, Dennis. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. Oh, okay, then I probably saw something about the retrospective and that set me off. Yep, that coordinating sucks when you have to do it yourself. GAVAGAI sounds very promising indeed. Eyes peeled. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Danny Wylde, yes. Aka Chris Zeischegg. Cool that he was on Bret’s podcast and propped my stuff. I’ll listen. I’ve never met him, but I’ve interacted with him on FB, and I knew (about) his porn career. Very interesting guy, yes. He sent me his book, but I haven’t started reading it yet. Nice. ** Corey Heiferman, Hi. Thanks for sharing the Majors poem reading thing. Ha, yeah, those page scans were iceberg-y. Interesting: what you wrote. And about your conclusion re: Joyce. Yes, where the dead and famous French people drank their espressos, etc., is a big thing here, especially on the Left Banke, in the so-called ‘Latin Quarter’. There are plaques all over the place noting where the dead literary dudes and dudettes sat, slept, did this and that. And themed walking tours as well. In that world, Cocteau is still a superstar. Well, now I wonder about that too. About the similarity. Probably not entirely dissimilar for sure. ** Misanthrope, What you describe about your novel isn’t inherently trad. It’s all in the voicing. Definitely staying away from Russell. People say he’s a nice guy, but people also say nice guys finish last. ** Damien Ark, Hi, Damien. Cover letters are a gruesome thing, but I would say keep it short, to the point, cheerful, confident but not overly so, … I don’t know. Don’t expect the letter to do too much. Keep it simple. I know when I get cover emails, which I get all the time, the longer they are, the more I tend to close the email. But, yeah. Very good luck, obviously. ** Okay. I intro’d Jamie’s post up top, so now the only thing to do is to re-encourage you to delve into it. Okay? See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
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Lovely post! I’m a big fan of GoGo Monster. Have to check out more Matsumoto.
Hey Dennis, it’s very hot and humid here. My dad wanted to spend a few hours in an air-conditioned museum, which worked well.
I’d say “Paradise Park” is my favorite in Millhauser’s Knife Thrower collection, though I do have a soft spot for “Flying Carpets”.
Bill (first, perhaps)
Hey Dennis! Thanks for restoring and reposting this. It’s an honour to have it back up in the new blog. I quite enjoyed it, which surprised me, and it totally made me want to go and read some Matsumoto comics again, so it’d be nice if it has that effect on anyone else.
Oh, I hear you on being talked down to by those who know more than you, or think they do. Absolutely infuriating. My old boss, Jonathan, used to do a bit of that, telling me about his time in the film biz. I’m so glad you’re up and forging ahead. That’s the spirit!
Two quick questions, if you’ve time: have you ever tried DMT and, if so, what did you think? and have you read the poet Sam Riviere? I’m currently reading Sam Riviere’s Kim Kardashian’s Marriage and Tao Lin’s Trip and enjoying both.
Yay to Paris! We’re redoing Hannah’s failed birthday trip from last year. I’m still kind of taking it easy, so maybe not hit a theme park (but maybe?), but would be lovely to meet you and do something, if you’re willing and free.
My Wednesday? It got audio recorded and then given to some sound tech wiz who, upon playing the recording backwards, distinctly heard an angelic voice say, ‘Best day ever.’ Totally spooky after you wishing that. How was yours?
May your Thursday be like a gift from a new-school and unimaginably kind Santa.
Scrumdiddlyumptious love,
Jamie
There’s a new Errol Morris film called AMERICAN DHARMA premiering in September at the Venice Film Festival (as well as Frederick Wiseman’s MONROVIA, INDINIA!)
I’ve never taken DMT, but I’ve read several books about psychedelic drugs recently, and I found it telling that both Tao Lin and Michael Pollan described experiences on DMT that were intense and overwhelming in an unpleasant way while they were tripping but they were able to process in a positive way in the long run. It’s odd to me to increasingly hear people drop casual references to it – it doesn’t sound like a party drug by any means: ENTER THE VOID and Joe Rogan probably did a lot to popularize it. Alt-right asshole Mike Cernovich claims he’s started experimenting with it, for whatever that’s worth.
I’m interviewing Ryan Krivoshey, the CEO of Grasshopper Film, which I think is currently America’s most adventurous film distributor, today. They released NOCTURAMA last year, and put out Travis Wilkerson’s DID YOU WONDER WHO FIRED THE GUN? and a theatrical re-release of THE CHRONICLE OF ANNA MAGDALENA BACH earlier this year (after putting out MOSES AND AARON on Blu Ray last fall), and have released a number of films I’ve reviewed in 2018, including AVA, ARABY and COCOTE. They have a real commitment to films from around the world – those three titles were made in Iran, Brazil and the Dominican Republic – that’s quickly disappearing from US culture. In August, they’re putting out PROTOTYPE, a 3D avant-garde film depicting a hurricane in Texas. I have no idea how they stay in business, because maybe four films in the two & 1/2 years they’ve been operating have turned a profit. They’re also starting to produce films, and the first one, about making craft beer (I’m not sure if it’s a documentary or narrative) premiered last spring.
@ Jamie, I remember seeing this Taiyo Matsumoto Day back in the day and it’s a pleasure to revisit its delights. I was a teenage comics fiend esp in the 90s Deadline heyday, and Matsumoto defo pushes those buttons while still keeping his own singular vision.
Hey Dennis,
I voted for God Jr to be in this hotlist. The German version is great. I have and love this book.
I read that you and Zac will tour Germany. I am not sure if I can help with anything but If you need some kind of support, helpful hints or direct help – you can really ask. It doesn`t matter what. The Europa-Park is just one hour away from where I live.
Love U. Schlix
Dennis, You’re a nice guy. Do you ever feel like you’ve finished last?
Though there’s being nice and there’s being-a-doormat nice. A person will probably defo finish last if he or she is the latter.
Kill them with kindness, someone once said. You attract more bees with honey than with vinegar.
Okay, enough of the idioms.
Yeah, I won’t be reading another Russell after this one. Just so much unnecessary crap that doesn’t add or enhance the story. One funny thing, too: the synopsis on back cover spells the main character’s name wrong…twice. Ugh.
I hope I don’t have a bone spur in my foot.
Jamie, I really enjoyed this. Thank you for all of your hard work! It felt like you were walking me around a comic shop and talking about what you find on the shelves. I really enjoyed the way some of the frames were broken up into radial and other kinds of non-boxy segments. You got some gears turning that it can’t be too hard to subdivide a movie frame like that digitally. A memory of my friend in middle school making stories and trading cards out of our friend group and various people in the school also came to mind.
Dennis, I was wondering if you had a take on deliberately seeking out or not seeking out potential influences. I’m starting to develop an idea and I know of some books in the same same sub-sub-genre that I haven’t read, and it’s fun to ponder whether I should go out of my way to read or not read them. I’d long taken it as an assumption that ideally a writer should know everything about everything, at least within a certain area, but now I’m not so sure.
Dear Dennis,
I hope that this finds you well and apologies for contacting you via your blog.
The reason why I am writing to you is because I am organising an event entitled ‘Artaud & Sound’ in collaboration with Stephen Barber, Martin Bladh and Karolina Urbaniak of Infinity Land Press. The event is scheduled to take place on Saturday 15 September at the Visconti Studio, which is situated on the grounds of Kingston University, London. It will begin with the playback the 1947 recording of Antonin Artaud, followed by a selection of readings and sonic compositions by invited artists, musicians and writers.
On behalf of everyone involved, I would like to take this opportunity to invite you to contribute to the event, which will be recorded on the day, then potentially broadcast at a later date on NTS Radio under my supervision.
In addition to the aforementioned event, Kingston University would also like you to invite you to present a Stanley Picker Lecture on Friday 14 September or Sunday 16 September at the ICA, London. The format of the presentation is open to the invitee, so, it could for example take the form of either a screening of Permanent Green Light followed by a Q&A, or a simple presentation of your work.
I look forward to hearing from you and hopefully working with you over the coming weeks.
Yours faithfully,
Matt
Hi Dennis,
Thank you for getting back to me, and no problem re: slow response. I know that these things can take time, especially if you already have potential commitments.
Also apologies for not getting back to you sooner, I strangely cannot see your response to my original email, thankfully Karolina notified me.
If you could please give the relevant folk a nudge that would be great, because as you may have gathered we are very keen for you to be involved. Its very pleasing to know that you are also interested, and I hope that we can make it work on this occasion.
Speak soon,
Thanks,
Matt
Phenomenal work, Jamie. Really pulls us Down he Manga Rabbit Hole.