From the monthly archives:

September 2008

The Cribsheet’s Essential Canon

Good news: Domingos Isabelinho has a new blog.  And, of course, it is essential reading. For proof, just read this quote: I have a confession to make: I have a problem with humor. I firmly believe that art’s purpose (apart from formalist concerns that must always be present) is to unveil some kind of truth. [...]

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City Cancer, Country Prophet

A small Sakabashira blog-swirl led me to this animation, which reminded me.  Even though Japan has its own impressive variety of explosive-scribble power lines, and continental Asia more, the most magnificent of all, now gone, came in Kowloon Walled City. Compare: (from the Archidose site dedicated to the city) 35,000 people on six and a [...]

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Imiri Sakabashira’s paintings and manga

And photos, I suppose, though I don’t know the context of the works in this gallery.  I just wish I’d been walking down the street when they were taken, especially if it was before I’d ever read Sakabashira’s ink-drunk manga.  They’re dreams, both dreadful and absurd. I’ve written about him twice before, though I don’t [...]

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Philip Guston’s Poor Richard

I recently had the pleasure of corresponding with the great, sabres-drawn critic Domingos Isabelinho, who has written for TCJ and John A. Lent’s International Journal of Comic Art, among others.  Our brief chat sent me back to his singular list of the greatest comics. One in particular caught me again: Philip Guston’s Poor Richard. In [...]

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Red-Colored Elegy notes

I have a long essay about Seiichi HAYASHI’s Red Colored Elegy in the new TCJ.  It’s one of the most important of all manga translated in English, so I’ve been mostly disappointed in the online reviews.  Most treat it as just another book to rush through for the next of fifty blog posts.  Must!  Create!  [...]

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Mea Culpa, TCJ #292

I had thought I whatever insight I have outweighs any sloppy mistakes I make, but I’m starting to wonder. Two boneheaded indiscretions, immortalized in print in the new TCJ: In the Azumanga Daioh review, snark fails me as I translate “Monthly” (“gekkan“) as “Weekly” (“shuukan“). Did I know better?  Apparently not.  I also think “kabushiki [...]

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