Bill Randall

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Dirk at Journalista!, the blog of the magazine I write for, has declared it “Garo Week” after lucking into a copy of the late, lamented, legendary manga anthology for the avant set. I figured I’d join him. He’s posting whole stories, but I’m too lazy for that. Besides, I never like more than half an issue– some artists I revere, others I loathe.

Its covers, however, I love unreservedly. Shonen Magazine had a better run when Tadanori YOKOO took the point, but Garo ran great covers for over 25 years. The last few years sucked, and some of the early ones were hit-and-miss, but the best could make a great coffee-table book. Considering half the artists inside couldn’t really draw, that’s saying something.

I have just a very small collection of Garo, picked up mostly at the Osaka Mandarake when I was on an IGUCHI Shingo kick. I paid less than they cost back in the day. Some I got just for the covers, like this one. More after the jump, from May ‘68 to the mid-90s.

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I wind up at PingMag, a bilingual English-Japanese design journal, fairly often.  I first found it through this article on Namaiki while researching Fukuokan permaculture and the Power of Duck.  Since then, I often return to its articles on art, film, design, and pop-cult detritus .  A sample:

• This time, I was researching Koi no Mon, a crazed manga by Jun HANYUNYUU.
• Gez Fry, self-taught illustrator who fled a diplomacy career, explains his “manga-style” and slags US comics art
• The producers of Tokyo Loop, an omnibus of animation feature Tabaimo, Yoji KURI and Kotobuki SHIRIAGARI, among others.
• The making of Tekkon Kinkreet into an anime, with lots of production art and photos around the studio.
• The Butt-Biting Bug, about which the less said the better.
• YMCK, pioneering 8-bit band, with videos.
• Dark & comic animation from Run Wrake, described in an interview.
• Jennifer Baichwal, director of Manufactured Landscapes, a fine doc on Edward Burtynsky’s large-format photography (pictured above).
• Some guy who dresses in olde clothes and hand-cranks a projector to show film’s incunabulae.

The Comics Journal has announced their Best of 2007.  My own contributions, in addition to my addendum, are:

• Red Eye, Black Eye by K. Thor Jensen
• (and Trains Are Mint #4, which may or may not be a “comic” but is a lovely collection of drawing by a young cartoonist)
• Elvis Road by Elvis Studio
• Powr Mastrs Vol. 1 by C.F.
• Achewood by Chris Onstadt
• How To Be Everywhere by Warren Craghead, my favorite book of 2007

Justifications, of course, are in the magazine, which should be out in a week or so.  Read it!

My list of the Best Five Comics of 2007 should be at the printer for issue 288 of TCJ. I sent it off in October, but proceeded to play catch up in the interim. Looking at other lists online– especially Time’s, which seems to have been compiled by algorithm– I rather like mine (cough cough). But I am reminded that I read some fantastic books only after the deadline passed.Had I written at year’s end, I would change not a thing about the five I selected. Except perhaps lobbying for a Best Ten, which might also contain:

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In his Best of 2007 column for The Chicago Reader, film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum has announced that he will retire when he turns 65 in February.

At first I was horrified, considering Harold Henderson was just excused from the paper. But it turns out to be just a well-earned retirement. He will no doubt welcome the freedom from reviewing mountains of dreck, and hopefully we’ll see more books from him, as well an an occasional article in the Reader.

I have long admired Mr. Rosenbaum as one of the two best writers on film in English currently working (David Bordwell’s the other one). I have especially enjoyed his book Essential Cinema: On the Necessity of Film Canons, and found its list of 1000 Essential Films a great resource. Most of the other lists repeat the same films ad nauseum. This one actually tips its pen to the breadth & depth of the medium, and it’s quite personal to boot. (I’m ashamed to say so far I’ve only hit about 400, classic Hollywood tripping me up and all.)

So thanks, Mr. Rosenbaum, for the fine essays and your exquisite taste. Thanks especially for Khroustaliov, Ma Voiture! That thing’s insane.

I am a columnist for The Comics Journal, the oft-cranky, oft-praised magazine of record for comics criticism. My Best of 2007 will appear in an early 2008 issue, thanks to the vagaries of print publishing.

So I figured I’d share my best from the last year, originally published in the March 2007 TCJ.

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